What is your take on Churning Credit Cards?

[JonStur]

That's a lot of work....

[longtimelurker]

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@FinStar wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

Right.  For small amounts of churn, you may be able to meet the spending requirements with normal spending, but often manufacturing spend is the easier route.

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Longtimelurker is the Yoda master of manufactured spending...lol   He has a strategy that works well and knows what he's doing.  Of course, as with anything, this may not fit everyone's niche in churning CCs.

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Nah, not really!  Just want to make sure people are aware that it is a viable option...

[vagrants]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@DaveSignal wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

And if you cash out each month, even getting your account closed isn't that big of a deal if you are making a big profit prior to shutdown.  Yes, you will probably get blacklisted by the issuer for a long time, so focus more on issuers you don't care about.

But obviously people should only do what they are comfortable with, which for some means no credit cards at all.

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I agree it is doable and someday I might try it.  But it does require a decent amount of extra planning, switching cards around so as not to appear suspicous, and planning the right cards to get the maximum points for the minimum amount of effort.

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Not sure that's the case!  For my $10K a month, it's nothing more than buying 20VR over the month at CVS (where I go anyway) all on one credit card.  For those doing much bigger amounts, avoiding suspicion is unimportant (because you cannot!), you just maximize your gain and cash out until (and if) you are stopped.

Again, not advocating this for everyone.  But it is profitable, and no-one forced the banks to offer high bonuses!

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20 VRs on one CC...

[JMills]

Please explain to me what is manfacture spending? Why do you by Vanilla cards and Bluebirds, explain to me the process and what it all means

Thanks

[longtimelurker]

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@vagrants wrote:

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20 VRs on one CC...

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Yes, over a month.  CVS allows you to purchase $5K at a time, so you could do this in two visits.  I never purchase more than $1K at a time.   All on the Citi TYP 5x as that is the only card I have that gives the needed rewards.

There are people spending 5-10x this on the same card.  For whatever reason, Citi has stopped shutting people down (and in some cases returning some of the points they took when they shut people down earlier).  Instead they stopped offering the card, which is probably the least troublesome way for them to proceed.

[vagrants]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@vagrants wrote:

20 VRs on one CC...

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Yes, over a month.  CVS allows you to purchase $5K at a time, so you could do this in two visits.  I never purchase more than $1K at a time.   All on the Citi TYP 5x as that is the only card I have that gives the needed rewards.

There are people spending 5-10x this on the same card.  For whatever reason, Citi has stopped shutting people down (and in some cases returning some of the points they took when they shut people down earlier).  Instead they stopped offering the card, which is probably the least troublesome way for them to proceed.

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Your excuse doesn't matter to me. Still 20 VRs on a single card per month. Since you are so greedy, an idea of 'spreading' didn't occur to you.

[FinStar]

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@vagrants wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@vagrants wrote:

20 VRs on one CC...

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Yes, over a month.  CVS allows you to purchase $5K at a time, so you could do this in two visits.  I never purchase more than $1K at a time.   All on the Citi TYP 5x as that is the only card I have that gives the needed rewards.

There are people spending 5-10x this on the same card.  For whatever reason, Citi has stopped shutting people down (and in some cases returning some of the points they took when they shut people down earlier).  Instead they stopped offering the card, which is probably the least troublesome way for them to proceed.

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Your excuse doesn't matter to me. Still 20 VRs on a single card per month. Since you are so greedy, an idea of 'spreading' didn't occur to you.

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IMO, I don't view it as "greedy" but everyone has their opinion.  Risky, perhaps.  At the end of the day, he's just maximizing the viable benefits/rewards on his card(s).  I'm sure that his strategy is pretty solid, and as he has conveyed in his earlier posts, churning cards is not something for everyone.

[longtimelurker]

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@vagrants wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@vagrants wrote:

20 VRs on one CC...

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Yes, over a month.  CVS allows you to purchase $5K at a time, so you could do this in two visits.  I never purchase more than $1K at a time.   All on the Citi TYP 5x as that is the only card I have that gives the needed rewards.

There are people spending 5-10x this on the same card.  For whatever reason, Citi has stopped shutting people down (and in some cases returning some of the points they took when they shut people down earlier).  Instead they stopped offering the card, which is probably the least troublesome way for them to proceed.

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Your excuse doesn't matter to me. Still 20 VRs on a single card per month. Since you are so greedy, an idea of 'spreading' didn't occur to you.

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a)  I was explaining what I did, not excusing, and I believe your post is unnecessarily rude.  I am not looking for your approval.

b) Spreading across cards makes no sense if you don't need to.  Yes, it MIGHT minimize risk, although it appears that Citi had a zero tolerance mode so one was too many, but if I don't mind the card being shut down, I wish to maximize rewards.  Perhaps people should use cash rather than rewards credit cards for some portion of their purchases to stop being greedy.

[myjourney]

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@vagrants wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@vagrants wrote:

20 VRs on one CC...

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Yes, over a month.  CVS allows you to purchase $5K at a time, so you could do this in two visits.  I never purchase more than $1K at a time.   All on the Citi TYP 5x as that is the only card I have that gives the needed rewards.

There are people spending 5-10x this on the same card.  For whatever reason, Citi has stopped shutting people down (and in some cases returning some of the points they took when they shut people down earlier).  Instead they stopped offering the card, which is probably the least troublesome way for them to proceed.

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Your excuse doesn't matter to me. Still 20 VRs on a single card per month. Since you are so greedy, an idea of 'spreading' didn't occur to you.

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Play nice 

[longtimelurker]

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@JMills wrote:

Please explain to me what is manfacture spending? Why do you by Vanilla cards and Bluebirds, explain to me the process and what it all means"

Thanks

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Manufactured spending is basically buying "stuff" on a rewards-generating credit card and then getting most of money back, so you can repeat the process, i.e. you are not buying things for real use.   You can do this to quickly reach minimum spend for a bonus on a card, or to generate a profit.

So the key is that once you buy the thing, there is some easy way of converting it into cash without too many fees.  For a simple explanation of one approach, see, for example http://travelwithgrant.com/bluebird/vanilla-reload-card-load-bluebird/   Lots of explanations, some wrong, all over the internet, but this one has pretty pictures to avoid one common pitfall, buying the wrong type of Vanilla card!