My latest churn

To recap, I’d already collected the following credit cards (and bonuses) this year:

  • American Airlines personal (75,000 miles)
  • American Airlines business (75,000 miles)
  • British Airways (100,000 miles)
  • Continental (50,000 miles)
  • United (50,000 miles)
  • US Airways (35,000 miles)
  • Hilton (52,500 points)
  • Virgin (47,500 miles)
  • Amex Premier Rewards (112,500 British Air miles)
  • Capital One ($1500 in Ritz Carlton stays)
As I discussed here, applying for a new batch of cards every 91 days is the method I’ve been using. It was time for another round of applications (a “churn”), so here’s what I applied for:

  1. The American Express SPG card from yesterday’s post. It’s the “star” of this churn and my big target.
  2. The Hawaiian Airlines card through Bank of Hawaii (35,000 miles)
  3. The Hawaiian Airlines card through Bank of America (35,000 miles)
  4. The Southwest Airlines card through Chase (50,000 miles)
  5. The Hilton Honors card through Citibank (50,000 points)
  6. The Choice Rewards Hotel card through Barclays (24,000 points)
    All of these offers can be found on the credit card page here. Notice that every card I applied for was from a different bank. I find that’s the best way to do it (I don’t think anyone would advise you to apply for 3 Bank of America cards on the same day). So why did I apply for these specific cards? I’ve collected tons of airline miles this year, and I wanted to focus on getting more hotel points this time. The Hawaiian miles can be transferred to Hilton Honors at a 2 to 1 ratio, so the Southwest card was my only airline mile attempt. And the results of my churn were…
    1. Amex SPG card (Instant Approval)
    2. Hawaiian card through Bank of Hawaii (Approved)
    3. Hawaiian card through Bank of America (Approved)
    4. Southwest card through Chase (Not Approved)
    5. Hilton card through Citibank (Approved)
    6. Choice card through Barclays (Approved)
      Almost perfect this time. The Southwest card was my only rejection. Why? Too many Chase applications they say. I’ve already gotten 3 Chase cards this year and I’ve been pretty aggressive, so I’m going to take a little break from those guys (3 to 6 months). But no worries from me…I’ll take 5 out of 6 applications every time. This will also push me over the 1 million mile/point mark for 2011. Not bad!