Stay More Organized

I live in a city (Los Angeles) where lots of people are independently wealthy. Unfortunately, I’m not one of these people. I do things like hustling miles to help my budget work. Most of you, as readers of this blog, are not insanely rich either. So it blows my mind how much some of you spend on annual fees. When you keep paying annual fees on a card, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing all this. And the most common reason is, “It’s so hard to keep track of all these credit cards.”

Is it really? Not for me. I spend 5 minutes a day with my spreadsheet and know exactly when an annual fee is coming. I also know when it’s time to apply for a new batch of cards. I plug in the basic information (the date I apply for a card, name of card, amount I need to spend, how fast I need to spend it, and amount of bonus miles). Then I color-code it:

  • Yellow means I’ve earned the bonus miles, but the card is still open.
  • Green means I’ve closed the account.
  • Blue means there’s no annual fee, so I don’t have to worry about closing it.
  • No color means I haven’t earned the bonus miles yet.

When To Churn

Churning (verb): When you apply for a credit card you’ve already had and earn the bonus again.

I was asked about my “churn schedule.” Again, this means re-applying for an identical card. Your credit history and relationships with banks can make this vary, but based on emails and my history:

  • Citibank cards seem to be churnable 18 months after the original application.
  • Chase cards have to be closed 2 years before getting another bonus on the same card.
  • American Express cards need to be closed a year to get a bonus on the identical card.
  • Bank of America can be much more churnable if you have a good history there. I’ve gotten a card, closed it after 6 months, and collected another bonus a month later. With my Hawaiian Airlines card, I actually forgot to close the original and still got another one within 9 months. 

(I did the same thing with the Bank of Hawaii version of the Hawaiian Airlines card)

  • Barclays can be easy. I had my US Airways card closed 3 months before applying again. I’ve seen people get the card, not even close it, and get a second one within 6 months.

Reminder: It’s a good rule-of-thumb to keep cards open at least 6 months. I close most of mine between the 6-month mark and the 1-year mark.

Hump Day Hustle

  • Get up to 3,000 British Airways miles for a Hilton stay here.
  • 100 free United miles here. PointsHound is a new way to earn miles from hotel bookings. 
  • Meet minimum spends even if you can’t find Vanilla Reload cards. How?
    1. Make sure you have a BigCrumbs account
    2. Find a Target that sells American Express For Target prepaid cards.
    3. Buy one for around $3 and load it with a few bucks.
    4. Your permanent card arrives in a few days.
    5. Go back to BigCrumbs and search for “American Express”
    6. Using any non-Citibank credit card, buy a $3,000 American Express gift card.
    7. Go to Target and load the Target prepaid card with $1,000 (the max).
    8. Unload the Target card at an ATM machine ($400 per day max).
    9. You also get 1.4% back from BigCrumbs ($42) which earns you a little profit.

Hotel Points And Netflix

  • Get 500 Priority Club hotel points by changing your account settings here. Under “Edit Email Subscriptions,” select eStatements and save changes. Done.
  • 1,500 Club Carlson hotel points for $7 here. With the 50% bonus, get 60,000 points for $280.
  • A couple weeks left to get 2,500 American Airlines miles from Netflix here
  • Some people are collecting United Airlines miles from Netflix over and over here.

Attention: Wusses

I get a lot of emails that start the same way:

“Hey MileNerd, I love your blog. I really want to start doing this, but I’m worried about messing up my credit…blah blah blah”

Lets be honest, your credit score doesn’t matter to me. I get nothing from you applying for credit cards. I made tons of miles doing it, I shared tips with loved ones, and other cool people started reading. But I am annoyed by your worries. Instead of assuming terrible things will happen to your credit, wouldn’t it make sense to ask someone with experience? Most of us have a very limited credit education. It’s mostly based on fear from incorrect facts. Personally, I’d feel silly if my worrying was based on nothing.

So, I’ll be the first one to answer this question for you. I was a wuss too. But, to give you an idea, here’s a list of credit cards I’ve had since January 2011:

  • American Airlines (closed)
  • United Airlines (closed)
  • US Air (closed)
  • US Air debit card (closed)
  • Hilton Amex (no annual fee, so no need to close)
  • Continental Airlines (closed)
  • Virgin Atlantic (downgraded to a no-fee card)
  • Capital One (closed)
  • American Express Premier (closed)
  • British Air (closed)
  • American Airlines business card (closed)
  • Starwood (closed)
  • Alaska Air (closed)
  • Citibank Hilton (no annual fee, so no need to close)
  • Bank of America Hawaiian Air (closed)
  • Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Air (closed)
  • Choice hotel (no annual fee, so no need to close)
  • Citi Thank You (downgraded to a no-fee card)
  • American Express Business Gold Rewards (closed)
  • Marriott
  • Southwest
  • B of A Hawaiian Air for the 2nd time
  • B of H Hawaiian Air for the 2nd time
  • US Air for the 2nd time
  • Ritz Carlton
  • Delta
  • American Airlines again
  • Alaska Air for the 2nd time
  • Starwood business card
  • Hyatt
  • Virgin America
I must be in credit hell, right? I’ve had 30 credit cards since last year…I apply for a new batch every 3 months…I close accounts before the 1-year mark…I was denied 4 or 5 times along the way…AHHH, MAKE IT STOP!!
Actually, my credit is fine. I started out at around 770, and it moves between 735 and 785. If your score sucks, then fix your credit. If you can’t pay cards off every month, then fix your financial maturity. If you’re getting a mortgage, wait until the loan funds. But if you don’t want to do it because it hurts your credit score, talk to a few people and ask instead of assuming.
Oh, and my biggest pet peeve of all. If it “seems like too much work” to have a spreadsheet, to close credit cards, to open new ones…then pull out a calculator immediately. When your miles save you $20,000 on a trip, calculate how many hours you’d have to spend at work to save up an extra 20k.End of rant.