Ever thought about credit card churning?

[Nutria]

The chase checking was for $50k...get $500 bonus.

Who has 50 thousand dollars just lying around?

[rennigade]

Who has 50 thousand dollars just lying around?

Well we did before he put the down payment down on the house (not anymore.) We werent looking for anything risky so that was an easy $500 for only a couple months of money being tied up.

[Outdoorsygal]

The more you give out your SS# the higher the risk for Identity Theft

Just something to weigh out

[MooseBucks]

We have churned a few cards before for flights to Europe. SIL has been to Europe x2 Japan and Australia x2 all from getting sign up bonuses.

[StormRichards]

I must admit I am tempted to do the checking account bonuses every time I get a new offer in the mail. Just not sure I want to start tracking how many times I have to do transfers, ATM transactions, switch direct deposits, etc.

[rennigade]

I must admit I am tempted to do the checking account bonuses every time I get a new offer in the mail. Just not sure I want to start tracking how many times I have to do transfers, ATM transactions, switch direct deposits, etc.

Yeah I never had interest with the offers that require a direct deposit, x amount of atm transactions, etc etc, im too lazy to deal with those...I only ever did the ones that you stick money in and wait for x amount of time.

[StormRichards]

Yeah I never had interest with the offers that require a direct deposit, x amount of atm transactions, etc etc, im too lazy to deal with those...I only ever did the ones that you stick money in and wait for x amount of time.

The ones requiring direct deposit are the only ones I seem to get

[bennkar]

I did this a lot until the last year or so as they are getting harder to come by. From '06 - '09 I used the 0% no fee cash checks they sent out regularly to pump up my CD interest earnings. For those years I made a few thousand each year. After that it was sign up bonuses, but they have mostly dried up too. Never hurt my credit score as far as I could tell. I bought a used car in 2011 and they insisted on running a credit check even though I was paying cash. The finance guy said I had the highest score he had seen in over a year. He asked if I was interested in 2% financing and I said nope. He said thanks for buying and didn't push it after seeing my score.

[Nutria]

I bought a used car in 2011 and they insisted on running a credit check even though I was paying cash. ... He asked if I was interested in 2% financing

I wonder what would have happened if you'd have said, "no" and threatened to walk away.

[disneysteve]

I bought a used car in 2011 and they insisted on running a credit check even though I was paying cash.

That happened to my BIL one time. He walked out and they lost a sale because of that. What an incredibly stupid policy. If I've got a stack of cash in my hand, what difference does it make what my FICO score is?

[Nutria]

That happened to my BIL one time. He walked out and they lost a sale because of that. What an incredibly stupid policy. If I've got a stack of cash in my hand, what difference does it make what my FICO score is?

My immediate thought was that it was so they'd try and sell him a loan like they did @bennyhoff.

It might be a government anti-money laundering regulation, though.

[sv2007]

I opened a credit card account purely for its promotion once (with full intention of closing the account later); it was the British Airways Barclaycard card where you get 100k miles. It was an awesome deal. I heard it from a co-worker;I think at nearly everybody from my group applied for the deal. Not only were flightscheaper on BA, plus AA gave us priority.

If this deal ever comes around again, I'd do the same.

I get a lot of 75k mile offers, which is very tempting; but not enough to persuade me yet.

I am a sucker for bank account promotions; partly for the free money and partly to spread my risks. For example, recently opened 2 accounts at Bank of the West and got $1.8k plus monthly free trades. (BTW, I did share that awesome promotion here.)

[rennigade]

it was the British Airways Barclaycard card where you get 100k miles.

We used this exact card for one of our hawaii vacations. My one friend also signed up for it and him and his wife joined us on that trip.

[sv2007]

We used this exact card for one of our hawaii vacations. My one friend also signed up for it and him and his wife joined us on that trip.

Haha, we also used it for HI flights.

Between wife's and my cards, it lasted us nearly 3 RT trips for the family. BA uses distance to figure out the reward miles needed, so for us, from CA to HI, we were paying less than the set miles based on mainland to HI (like all us airlines charges). Plus BA allowed for especially cheap (cheaper than regular seat cost) to buy a seat for lap babies too, which was another savings. The only bad thing was that we had to fly AA (BA's partner) and AA didn't have direct flights from SCJ to OGG (had to stop at LAX).

[Thrif-t]

Once upon a time I did this with the Chase Disney Visa Card. In '08 when the bottom fell out I got a great deal on a Disney Cruise for my family of 5. Like $3200 for 2 inside connecting staterooms. At the time, Chase was giving out $200 signing bonuses for each card opened and they let you have 3 in your name. So I got 3 in my name $600 reward, and 3 in my DH's name, another $600 reward. Applied it to my cruise and it brought the total down to $2k for my family on the best 7 day cruise of our life! I closed the cards after the bonuses were used to pay the cruise balance.

Chase put a stop to that soon after, no multiple cards to the same person. That was the best vacation we ever took and the best price.

Now I don't mess with opening cards. I put a freeze on my credit because of all the frequent hacks, just don't want to mess with it anymore.