My Recent Churnings

It all began in September 2010.  I found a link to sign up for an American Airlines Citi card that would offer me 75,000 AAdvantage miles for a minimal spending amount of $1,500.  I applied for the card, was accepted, and easily met the $1500 spending requirement. The 75,000 miles hit my account, and it felt good.  I was excited to be amassing so many points with one swing.

I was so excited that I decided to apply for the exact same card for my wife.  She was also approved, with a lower credit limit, but approved nonetheless.  The same spending requirement was easily met and her account with American Airlines took a big jump as well.  Even though I hadn’t spent any of the miles from the previous card, I wanted to get more points.

Greedily I applied for the American Airlines Citi Business card with the 75,000 sign up bonus.  I hoped that I wouldn’t get denied because I knew other people who had tried to apply for two Citi cards and had been unsuccessful.  Luckily I was approved and I still haven’t actually met this requirement, but I should at some point this month.  That is going to be exciting because between my wife and I we should have over 260,000 miles with American.

Of course I still wasn’t happy, so when Capital One came out with the Venture card that offered a one time match of Frequent Flier miles I was interested.  I knew I would have to act fast as it wouldn’t last long.  I decided to apply for my wife first.  They gave me the “We will notify you in a week if you are approved.”

This made me nervous as I wasn’t sure if she was going to get approved.  I knew that I had already applied for two cards within the last six months, but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass to acquire $1100 in travel expenses for a minimal $1000 in spending.  I then made the leap of faith and applied.  Great Success!  Instant approval.

For those of you who don’t know how Capital One’s point system works, here is a small rundown.  Their points are used to pay for any type of travel expenses: hotel, car rental, airfare, cruise, etc.  Each dollar you spend on the card gives you 2 points.  Capital One ran a promotion that they wanted to prove that their points were better than anyone’s frequent flier miles.  Therefore, they were willing to bonus anyone up to 100,000 points as long as you had at least that many airline miles with an airline.  This was easy with my recent churnings of the Citi AAdvantage cards.  This equates to $1000 in spending.  Essentially the points are worth $0.01.  I’m not getting the card for the long term use, but it is worth an application, a few dollars spending, and then the sign up bonus.

My wife was also approved for the Capital One Venture card and we have almost met the spending requirements for both card.  This is exciting as we now have over 260,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles and $2200 in spending.

The purpose of this blog is to help you to acquire points and miles just as I have acquired.  We will give ideas that will help you to experience the world.  There are a lot of things out there to see.  Let’s make sure we all get to see them!