I’ve been cutting up cards right and left as I reevaluate all the money that was heading out for annual fees. I’ve even stopped putting my normal spend on credit cards and have gone to cash / debit card instead. I know it sounds counter intuitive to pass up on all these miles, but frankly it just wasn’t working for me. Call it a lack of discipline or whatever, but dealing with cash and a debit card is helping me attack some personal debt pretty quickly and I like the results 3 months in.
I’m down to an American Express Platinum Delta card, no annual fee American Express hilton card, and some other various no fee cards. I don’t have any surprise credit card statements with huge balances anymore to pay off each month and I’m sticking to a written budget instead and it’s working great. To summarize – It’s the end of earning miles for me as we know it – and I feel fine.
With that being said, I was itching to grab a couple of cards to take part of some lucrative sign up bonuses – but the criteria is I didn’t want to have to shift any household spending to them to hit minimums. Based on that – here are three I recently applied for and received.
1) American Express Premier Rewards Gold card. 50,000 Membership rewards points for a $1,000 minimum spend within 3 months. Any easy minimum to meet via some online payment options with plenty of time. I’ve never owned this card and therefore it was a cinch to add this one.
2) US Airways Mastercard . 40,000 US Airways points after first purchase. It’s also issued from Barclays Bank and I’ve never owned a credit card from them and it was another easy approval with low minimum. Also with the impending merger of US Airway and American Airlines – I wanted to grab one quickly to bulk up the miles. I did the same prior to the Northwest / Delta merger.
3) American Airlines Visa. 50,000 points after a $2,500 spend in 4 months. It’s been years since I had an American Airlines credit card and this minimum spend is spread out enough over 4 months where I can meet the minimum via some online payment options as well.
Three cards with three low spends to bolster some of my mileage balances. A quick churn while still keeping fiscal sanity.
It pays to be careful on the spending. You really need to track each card online and pay the purchases as you buy stuff. For example if I go get gas and to the grocery store I will later that day or the next log into my bank and make a payment to the card with the an amount of those purchases. So I make multiple payments during the month until I reach the minimum spend then I put that card away. I generally keep my daily spending on one card to manage it. Don’t buy anything you wouldn’t be able to pay for the same day from your bank account.
I’ll be doing a similar churn soon. very easy to make spend when it’s this small =]. no pressure