Credit card churning update: March 2019
March 25, 2019
New cards since March 2018
Our March 2018 update.
Quick notes:
- I had my sights set on some kind of an international trip next year, possibly Japan, but that will only happen if a very close friend can dogsit because Seamus is showing his age this year and it’s tugging our heartstrings. Otherwise we’d like to stay close to home with him.
- For the purposes of figuring out whether we’ve wasted money on a card or not, I’m estimating the total value of our miles or points for each card to make sure that we are earning at least our minimum profit per churned card but we won’t know the true value until we actually redeem them.
- We haven’t been respecting the “no annual fee” rule for the past several cards as long as the miles or points bonuses were at least worth twice as much as the annual fee, preferably 3-4x as much.
- We ALWAYS pay the card balances in full. No exceptions.
- We time our churning activity with necessary spending. We never manufacture unnecessary spending for a card bonus. I keep a spreadsheet to track expected large expenses for this and generally plot out a bevy of expenses with pen and paper before I commit to a new card.
Current totals
AlaskaAir (miles valued at 1.3 cents): 204,001.
Chase Ultimate rewards: 308,930
Starpoints: 161,620
Citi Premier Thank You, his
Cost: $0
Bonus: 50,000 points (value $500)
Profit: $500
Status: Active, cancel before June 1 2019
Worth it? Yes, this was pure profit.
Chase Sapphire Reserve, hers
I took care of the travel credit in December, ahead of schedule I thought, BUT they didn’t credit it properly so it was just a “$300 purchase.” I followed up on that once early in January and was told that I had to call back after my statement closed. Then I called at the end of January, and the request had to be escalated to marketing, which should have been done the first time I called. What a pain. My annual fee was due to hit on February 1st but this solidified my intent to cancel once I get that fixed. What kind of lazy customer service makes you call twice when they could have submitted the request in the first call?
Alaska Air, his second of 2018
Cost: $75
Bonus: 30,000 miles (value $390) + 1406 miles (value $18)
Free Companion + taxes fare offer good 2019: $479
Profit: $812
Status: Active, cancel before January 1, 2019
Worth it? Yes.
Alaska Air, his first of 2019
Cost: $75
Bonus: 30,000 miles (value $390) + $100 statement credit after first $1000 spend in 90 days
Free Companion + taxes fare offer good until 2020
Free checked bags: $?
Profit: TBD, $415 so far
Status: Active, cancel before January 1, 2019
Worth it? The extra statement credit made this a no cost to us churn, we’ll have to see what the total profit is.
***
Keepers
We’re keeping our Chase Sapphire Reserve for one more year because I blew the timing of the cancellation.
We still have our Starwood AMEX (RIP) because I absolutely love the American Express customer service but I have no love for what the Bonvoy program brings. I need to make a decision on this.
We still have our Costco Citi card which pays for itself in the Executive Rewards but sometimes only just.
Cards to be cancelled
We will bid farewell to at least one of the Alaska Air cards before the year is up and gets charged another annual fee.
The Citi Premier we’ll keep for a few more months in case it comes in useful but it’s not at the top of my use-list.
I’m having a hard time with churning this year. I’m not very organized and all these cards are proving to be too much. We should cancel our Alaska card too. The companion pass is nice, but we could get better a better deal by signing up for a new card.
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Right now I’m not trying any new cards because the only travel I’m planning is for FinCon and that’s a business expense. So instead I’m focusing on the Citi Double Cash card. No sign-up bonus, but it’s worthwhile as a general use card.
Still, I’m not ruling out trying future cards if I decide to travel more or just want some sign-up bonuses. I just don’t have the mental bandwidth for it at the moment.
Makes sense not to! It does take up a good amount of brain so I am probably going to back off in a while.
I’m going to sign up for the Citi Double Cash card that Abigail mentioned, and start using it more than any other card because, well, double cash.
Will still use my Chase Freedom, but not as much. And my oldest plastic, a Mastercard I’ve had since 1992, has a recurring charge (phone/Internet) that keeps it open.
I have been very tempted by that Citi double cash card!
I can’t yet bring myself to give up the customer service from AmEx in exchange for the mediocre service I’ve experienced with Citi but I might have to for the money.
All of my cards are cash back rewards including the Citi Costco card. And I just signed up the Chase Freedom Card which I’m late on the bandwagon since it’s one of the most popular cash back reward out there with their 5% cash back on certain categories every quarter.
Once we travel more, I will look at other cards that provides points based rewards.
As popular as it is, I tend not to have the brainpower to bother with the Chase Freedom card anymore. It used to be a favorite!
That Citi Thank You card seems tempting, as we want to get this upcoming trip to France, Switzerland & Germany as close to $0 as we can.
The silver lining from doing a flip on the last rental property before we sold it was that we got to put everything on various cards. So we each got the Marriott Business in 2018, each did a United, two Inks, one Sapphire, and one Radisson. We most recently are focusing on Savor cards for the $500 bonus, to balance out the AirBNB costs.
Overall, I like the credit rewards game but I suspect it increases our spending over what it would have been without the cards. Still, I also think we’re coming out way ahead.
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You did a lot last year!
You’ve mentioned thinking that the CC increases your spending – have you tracked that or put any safeguards in place to prevent that?
My way is to keep a spreadsheet of expenses that can’t be dodged and CAN be put on a credit card. I only churn cards when I have a good clump of those expenses to satisfy the minimum spend without any effort to manufacture spending.
I love reading other people’s churning updates! I struggle with the balance of wanting ALL THE MILES vs trying to focus on what we’ll use. We’re like 2 weeks in to a 4 month roadtrip right now and hubby says I’m not allowed to plan anything til we get back… but I’ve already got my sights on another Europe trip in fall of 2020… so I’m loosely strategizing what we’ll need for that. I’m still planning to keep the Bonvoy for now, as I think the free night will balance out the AF. Time will tell. I love my CSR, but got hubs to dump his CSP for a CFU. It works out well; he earns more on everyday purchases and then we transfer everything to my CSR for the better redemption. I need some AA miles for positioning flights for our next trip, and United has the best redemptions from our little podunk airport, so I’m saving those miles for whatever domestic trips we do.
I am wondering if we will be able to use that Bonvoy free night every year easily. We don’t travel for fun so much and when when we do, we need more semi-local hotels that take dogs without huge fees.
Love all the miles that I see. We are collecting Aeroplan (Air Canada) and have two tickets to Asia but trying to get Marriott Bonvoy points so that we can stay in a Sheraton on the Maldives.
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Confession: I’m SUCH a hoarder. It may not even make sense for me to do this much miles and points hoarding considering we don’t have that much travel on the books.