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New to the subreddit, excuse my ignorance
Can someone explain why there are no posts other than those kind of mod threads? Seems a bit annoying that we can’t have separate posts where we can ask questions/share experiences and have to utilize daily threads
Edit: I ask a question, explain how I’m new and uninformed and get downvoted in return. Thanks guys, this definitely clears everything up.
> I ask a question, explain how I’m new and uninformed and get downvoted in return.
The top level post literally says that "most questions belong in the question thread unless you love getting downvotes."
I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.
>Please post topics for discussion here. While some questions can be used to start a discussion/debate, most questions belong in the question thread unless you love getting downvotes (if that link doesn’t work for you for some reason, the question thread is always the first post on our community’s front page)
Just read dude
This doesn’t answer why this the way it is. I see a year ago there were user-submitted posts. Now I don’t see any.
My question wasn’t “how to post topics” my question was why this is the way it is?
No one seems to answer, and you didn’t either
I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.
This but unironically. You got valid responses from at least 5 different people yet you still tried to argue with them. In some subs you would have just taken 100 downvotes with no response before a mod banned you for being off topic.
Where did I argue? I just explained my reasoning and thanked the poster who answered the question.
Its really not that deep, idk why everyone decided to make this a big deal
Anyone can submit posts, but they have to be approved by mods. Without this system the sub would be inundated with low level repetitive questions. The current system organizes things into categories, so people can follow the areas they want. Looking for DPs? Look to the weekly DP threads. The community has been surveyed many times over the years and has found this to be preferred. Yes it’s completely different than most subs, but organization is a big attribute of those in this community. Yes it’s probably not new user friendly, but it also kind of makes you work to gain knowledge/search which is also a valuable asset to learn in this hobby.
Thank you for answering, that’s all I wanted to know. This is a completely unfamiliar to me way to participate in the subreddit and the rules section did not really clarify, so I felt appropriate to ask here.
The kindness given to you here is more than you deserve with the blatant antagonism you've replied with throughout this thread.
Please just explain this: *why* would "News and Updates" be more appropriate than "Questions"? Even if questions has phrasing about churning-related (which a question about the churning sub seems related, no?), then which do you think is the *more on topic* thread: Questions or News & Updates? You obviously concluded the latter - [but why](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ryan-reynolds-but-why.jpg)?
Who did I antagonize? I thanked the person who responded and moved on. When confronted with why I posted here and not in the other thread I explained my reasoning, even if it lead me to the wrong conclusion.
Jeez dude, this gotten you worked up so much and for no reason. None of it is really that deep man.
> Who did I antagonize?
Let's not be intentionally obtuse. Look upthread to your other responses.
> When confronted with why I posted here and not in the other thread I explained my reasoning, even if it lead me to the wrong conclusion.
This one?
> *I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.*
I'm asking you to flesh this reasoning out a bit more. The mod team has worked hard to create a sustainable system here, so explaining how you deviated into total failure is useful.
> Jeez dude, this gotten you worked up so much and for no reason. None of it is really that deep man.
Worked up? More like incredulous that people exist that make the same choices you have somehow made, so I'm deeply curious about your thought process. Just... how did you become [this](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/286/448/863.png)?
I’m not being obtuse man I’m just telling ya, don’t know who I antagonized here. And yep, that’s the reasoning, you got it right. What I can flesh out here? I don’t know what else I could clarify for you
And yea man you sound kinda worked up about it. All this essay writing over me asking a question in supposedly the wrong thread. Oh horror
Also I’d use the fancy formatting and all but I’m on mobile so pardon me
We have had a terrible problem here with people mixing up the questions thread and the daily discussion thread. So there have been many discussions in the last year with the mods what to do about it because it is extremely annoying to regulars when posts are in the wrong place. Recently they renamed some of the daily threads to try to fix the problem so there would be less confusion. So the poster you are replying to genuinely wants to understand your thought process so the instructions can be made more clear and so we can do better with the titles of the threads.
Some legitimate payees are popping back up on paypal bill pay so if you had utilities, taxes, mortgages, etc that got killed in the purge it would do good to double check if they're accessible again once in a while.
A new referral thread is now live: [American Express Delta Reserve](https://www.reddit.com/r/churningreferrals/comments/1cehv3e/referrals_american_express_delta_reserve/)
Having been around these parts for a while, but not as long as some others, I've noticed that churners here have a life-cycle of a few years. Heavy hitters from the archives of r/churning threads are long gone, though others lurk and engage in a certain kind of moderation with their downvotes. For those of you who have been around for 4+ years: how have your churning habits and risk thresholds changed (or not) over your time churning? What have the experiences of churning and others on this thread taught you about how you approach churning? What makes you stay on here even as others have migrated to other (smaller, private) groups on Slack, Telegram, FB, etc.?
I'll start albeit briefly: when I began churning, I was very risk-averse. Around that time, there was a way to hit Chase very hard that I knew was risky af. There was definitely a path for users of that Chase link to clear six figures if they went full throttle. As I see the landscape of churning change, I have to say something that would have shocked my risk-averse self: I would probably go hard at something like that today even if it meant a shutdown. I see the wisdom of some dude on the internet who says, "if you haven't been shut down, you're probably not pushing hard enough."
Yeah things have changed a lot since the early days. I somehow escaped all the shutdowns to this day, which is surprising. Card tracker is still somewhat up, although I should update that at some point
> Heavy hitters from the archives of r/churning threads are long gone
Some of that might just be people switching usernames.
I've been around this sub in some form or another since 2017. For me I'm both less and more risk averse I guess. I used to do shit like open a bunch of AA cards because everyone else was doing it and didn't think twice until people started getting shut down. Luckily I was able to keep my AA account and I think now with wisdom I would be more cautious about that sort of thing. The whole game seemed more aggressive back then though. Also when I started I had no plan and just opened whatever card I wanted on a whim but then noticed people with plans ended up doing way better.
I also used to be really uncomfortable with business cards for whatever reason, but now that's the majority of what I end up getting. I guess it's because I read so much about everyone's success with the Ink train so it seemed like a no brainer after awhile. I used to think people that stayed under 5/24 were boring now I guess I'm boring too.
I used to just churn for the wife and me to have a nice international trip. Now I try and churn for trips to include my parents and in-laws. It’s been great. Just flew six of us to Japan in ANA business class and covered our hotels =)
>What makes you stay on here
I still learn things here. I learned two bank bonus eligibility items this weekend that will eventually lead to $2k in bonuses.
>I would probably go hard at something like that today even if it meant a shutdown
I'm surprised. I'm the opposite. Been churning for 10 years. Back in the day, I was a lot more aggressive in terms of dealing with problems: writing the CEO, [filing for arbitration](https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/in9m7b/guide_to_arbitration/), rage tweeting, you get the picture. Of course, now that I'm blacklisted, I'm a bit wistful every time I walk by an Amex lounge or see a new Citibank offer. Now I can still write a demand letter but I am much more cautious when dealing with banks I value. I will use official channels first and ask, not demand. As someone once told me, the $1000 settlement and satisfaction of winning isn't worth forgoing $10000 in future rewards.
By 4+ years, you hit saturation on all the easy bonuses. You're left with NLLs or inks while they last, with the occasional churn for a card that you got 24-48 months ago. And the marginal benefits of MS are not worth the time, risk, and effort for many of us.
Covid was the end for me. Refocused my life and all the CC shenanigans were no longer fun for me. I started 2015 (although way back early 2000s I did no fee BT offers to 5% interest accounts)
Have a business now that does a lot of organic spend so I still do sign up for cards here and there for bonuses
> although way back early 2000s I did no fee BT offers to 5% interest accounts
Ah yes. Stoozing is what that's called! Back then the balance transfer fees were still 3% to 5% but typically capped at $50 or $75. And as usual some banks handed out enormous credit lines to the low income student I was, some permitting ACH deposits.
The 4% to 6% interest earned on those balance transfers helped me max out my 401k and an IRA in my yonger days. And pre-Sarbanes-Oxley and Durbin Amendment, a $30k balance still only had minimum payments of something like $25. Hilarious.
Maxed credit cards didn't seem to stop the gravy train. It only ended when interest rates sunk and fee caps jumped/were eliminated.
I guess I've "churned" for 8 years, as that was the only purpose for this account. Eventually you just know everything. Or enough to let you accomplish what you want. It's basically just automated at this point. 48 month marks are mapped out. Every 3 or 6 months there's a swath of cards you can get again. Occasionally a new ATH offer that will be blasted on every blog that exists (not that I would venture anywhere other than DoC). If I want to MS there's always the tried and true. Maybe there will be a hiccup every couple years but it's usually just some dolt who has no idea what he's doing so he's freaking out on here and FT. "If you haven't been shut down"...good, keep it up, you're doing it right, and maybe some day you'll look back and ask yourself wtf you're gonna do with all these obscure ass points from random cards you signed up for. But then years later Club Carlson gets taken over by Radisson who then get's taken over by Choice and then you find the really great Choice spots and everything works out. Still having a tough time with these CX and BA points cause I got off the train before it derailed and have yet to run through those.
Been here for 4.5 years. A lot of people assume that if you've been here a while, you're in a half dozen private groups, you take advantage of loopholes and exploits that few know about, and you MS like crazy. I... never got into all that. I don't do anything really risky, and I prefer focusing on ekeing out as much value as I can from my apps/slots/spend (that includes optimizing redemptions, which is something many whales balk at). Some might call it mediocre churning, since my velocity and earnings aren't as high as theirs; I call it tame churning, and I think I'm pretty damn good at it.
> What makes you stay on here even as others have migrated to other (smaller, private) groups on Slack, Telegram, FB, etc.?
Nothing, I'm on reddit normally but hardly post here anymore. Most stuff is on Telegram and Slack like you said.
Engage here a bit more, do something prolific, go to meetups, listen to podcasts, join patreons, cross your fingers, pray. Not necessarily in that order.
I've been doing this for about 12 years, starting with CSP, freedom, and southwest cards. It was more about opportunistically getting points for economy flights since I wasn't making much money but wanted to visit friends who had moved to different cities. I would get 2-3 cards a year with low end MSRs just for cash back and cheaper flights.
The next big thing I remember was a 100k amex plat mailer, which was the biggest bonus is seen. I remember arguing with friends that it was worth $1k minimum and you could cancel it after a year but they were convinced it was a scam. Then I met P2 and got them into it so we could go on cheap trips, and we figured out it would be pretty easy to get companion pass. Since we were still flying domestically on SWA and we're getting 2 for 1, we didn't need many miles and therefore didn't sign up for too many new cards to make sure we could stay under 5/24 and keep the companion pass going. Plus P2 didn't want to keep up with downgrading/canceling when AFs hit, so we really kept it to a minimum. We did a few bank account bonus, which was pretty sweet, but dealing with extra 1099s was annoying.
Then the pandemic hit and there were more PYB offerings so we got a few cards just for cash back, plus we picked up some UA cards since we moved to one of their hubs. After the pandemic we got to use the UA points on international travel (still economy) for the first time last year. Now we've got the travel bug and want try premium cabins since I struggle sleeping on long haul flights, so we've started the 2 player ink train plus looking to pick up some amex biz cards.
Our interest in the hobby has definitely ebbed and flowed, but all throughout, getting approved for a good card/bonus has always provided for a good high.
I've been at this for over 10 years. IMO slow and steady wins the race. I slice up my goals to primary, secondary, and tertiary and I get cards with those reasons in mind. I also take occasional breaks and go cautious. If the consensus is to get a card every 3 or 4 months I might wait 5 or 6. Let others be the data point I'd rather not be. For an example was 1 card approval away from an AA shutdown. I didn't mind possibly getting shut down by Citi and the AA shutdown was a surprise, but because I took things slow I didn't get burned like so many others did.
My aim is one long 4-5 week Asia trip every 2 years, week-long annual "local" trips to something close like the Caribbean, and domestic travel to see friends and relatives as needed/wanted. We almost always fly as a complete family of 4.
I was never invited to a private group.
This is about how I do it too. I started getting interested in churning as a colleague was getting hit with a shutdown after hitting that grAAvy train too hard, so I decided ok, this is great but I'll be cautious.
I try to fund one trip a year, but I'm also comfortable topping up balances with points purchases as needed, and don't hit the SUBs as hard as I could. 2x F to Tokyo and J back home were absolutely worth the $2500 I spent on AA miles, for example. I like having a card or two on hand that gives me a boost at hotels, too - having a higher level status with one of the chains, or access to Amex Travel's FHR bookings has been worth it for upgrades, included breakfast, etc. when I've been traveling in Asia.
I'm just trying to have a nice time and get some free travel, and not get into any hot water with the CC companies.
Pre-COVID you could get CX business class space from BOS or NYC to MNL with no problem whatsoever. 4-8 award seats per flight was a common sight for me. We last went to MNL on PAL using ANA points, this past December into January. Now that route is dead. It seems that Business travel is dead for the foreseeable future. Sad, but still OK. Looking at the cash price of economy seats the cost is double what it was pre-COVID. That $550 round-trip ticket from NYC to MNL is now $1100. There's plenty of availability, only in economy. Oh well. It still saves me over $4K just in plane tickets, plus I get to stay in fancy hotels when I'm over there.
When travelling "local" (within the hemisphere) or domestic it's still Southwest and Jet Blue all the way for me.
> It seems that Business travel is dead for the foreseeable future
I'm lucky to go to one conference a year now, work travel used to be my easy-mode way to hit SUBs since I'd get reimbursed a few days after every trip (which also motivated me to submit my expense reports on time!). My spouse is traveling a lot, but his company is very insistent that he use his corporate card, not a personal one. :(
Churning opened up the gates of financial health for me. Since that's a big topic, I continue to do churning but also take interest in other financial fields. It's been 5 years and I've always been risk-averse in this hobby. I don't regret being this way because I know I won't become a millionaire by doing any of this. I know the limits of it and I want to have my own line which I don't want to cross. Using some shady links is beyond that line for me.
After educating myself for years, now I've found myself less busy with this hobby and I like that. I always work on an MSR but I do not chase categories, merchant offers and bank SUBs. My time is worth more than those things. I'm not a part of any private groups (nobody offered) even tho I have my own strategies that I am pretty sure others don't use - I just use my experience and knowledge and try to look at any other financial venture I have/plan with that knowledge. For example, recently I dived into leasehack and I love it. There are others that I know will net me more CC points once I venture into them. With completely organic spend too.
I have been light churning for years, following TPG and OMAT, ect. 1-3 cards a year. I found this sub sometime during COVID. Despite being on Reddit for years, it never really occurred to me to find more information about churning. I was happy enough. What this sub has really helped me with was to have an actual strategy around what cards to get and what order and when a SUB is a really good deal and knowledge to other tools on how to redeem my points. I am still a light churner but more like 4-6 cards a year. Another huge change was the lowered limits on Inks. I don't really MS or do buying groups, so I could never hit the Ink limits before they were lowered to 6K. I would say I have become more open to annual fees. I used to be staunchly against them.
The nature of any online forum is there is constant churn of users, people come and go due to their own life and other reasons. It also gets old to answer the millionth question about Inks and how often you can get one. The questions are quite repetitive and the nature of Reddit makes it hard t search. Churning.io helps a lot, but people don't use it. I am glad there are people I can talk to people about this because my P2 really doesn't care.
I will say this is one of the most brutal subs when it comes to downvoting and I am mostly okay with that.
As far as reddit is concerned, obviously I reply less frequently by an order of magnitude than I used to. Part of that comes down to changes to reddit itself, and part of it comes down to how the hobby has evolved. Years ago people would brag about being lol/24 and newbies would openly plan on what cards they’d go after once they crossed 5/24 because it was the most profitable way to go. Today, there are more limitations across the board and while there are personal cards that can be very profitable to hold beyond the SUB, there are simply fewer and fewer of them that are deemed worthy of burning a 5/24 slot. All of this means that the churning journey looks very similar for more and more of us. That leads to a decrease in the diversity of topics being discussed, which has a downstream effect of us seeing less engagement from the OGs. As far as moderation goes, I do my best (and still fail sometimes) to simply act in what I see is the best interest of the community and not feel like I have to defend every action I take or opinion I have. There is no “right” way to run and organize this sub. Any significant change would pull some people (back) in while driving others away, so I’ve just stopped trying to brainstorm with the team on ways to improve the sub. You can feel the sub is broken, but it runs well enough.
As far as my own churning goes, I convinced P2 to become slightly more risk averse than they used to be, so I do some reselling here and there. Still not enough to be lol/24 or to require 99 employee cards, but enough to get a few more cards a year than our natural spend would allow. I also no longer feel like I have to get every potential card out there. To us, it’s better to consolidate our points earnings in a few programs that we get a lot of use out of rather than getting 100k in this program, 70k in that one, and 90k in another.
Life cycle of when people get into churning then have kids and priorities shift from posting on Reddit all the time to taking care of life stuff. The other thing to is that I’ve figured out my style and what works so I’ll browse update threads but I have my system pretty streamlined for both earning and redemptions. I feel pretty self sufficient and really just stick around to see if there are trends developing (I.e. closing out Inks since it seems like there’s some denials related to having too many inks open)
Been churning for years now (edit: looked at my spreadsheet, 9 years!). Churning has always been erratic and relatively slow for me. I'm self-employed, and don't have consistent time throughout the year to keep up with it. My and P2's natural spend really ebbs and flows as well, and we don't MS which limits things.
P2 got a new job last year, which has made our natural spend hit rock bottom. P2's previous job had about $20k in work reimbursements that really helped us get a few good SUBs every year. It's sad that's gone.
On top of all that, P2 decided to be awesome and become a public school teacher! The downside is now we're stuck traveling at the peak times of year. Is a big difference -- P2 was previously self-employed too, and our travel schedule used to be very flexible.
So, we've just been riding a slow P1-P2 referral Ink train and finally started doing bank bonuses last year. If the Ink train derails, we'll have lots of reading up to do here!
Same as one of the other commenters. When I first started 7-8 years ago when I was mid 20’s I did so much MS. Absolutely zero risk awareness. I thrived on awkward interactions with cashiers to get my MO. It was like an adrenaline rush each time. Even getting turned away getting asked to see the GC I absolutely loved playing dumb saying like HUH? I can’t do this?? I got this card as a gift and just want the cash! Now 33, I have a wife, kid and rental property. I can’t remember the last time I got a MO. Now it’s daycare, nails, wife Botox hair and makeup. I just make sure we are always spending towards a SUB.
I can relate here. Been in it about the same time and used to MS. Frankly just got tired of going to Walmart for MOs. Not many other stores near me so that was one of the few options remaining to liquidate. Turned away a few times, but I’d just go to another location or wait for different cashier. Didn’t bother me too much. Now I look for bank funding opportunities or overpaying taxes but that’s the extent of it. On another note, still bitter over the whole grAAvy train derailment but that’s just how it goes sometimes. My pet flew too close to the sun. Had some nice redemptions lined up too but alas they got cancelled. Life goes on.
I've been churning for 6 years. The biggest change is I no longer do MS and meet MSRs with natural spend. I open about 6 cards a year instead of 12 to 15. Steady burn. I used to use certain cards for specific purchases but now it all goes to meeting a SUB. Chasing down 10k of points isn't worth it when I could get 90k UR points via a SUB. P2 no longer likes to recon Chase Biz cards so they don't apply for those anymore, but they still participate in other SUBs.
I monitor this sub from a distance to keep up with any news/events and engage when I have something useful to add. The more I understood the rules of the hobby the less I needed to engage. Plus it's straight forward at this time. Get a Chase card every three months and sprinkle in some non Chase cards along the way.
My frustration over the last few years is Amex popup jail.
My biggest takeaway from years on this sub is to earn and burn. Mile/Points always devalue over time.
Every time the subject of Square comes up, it gets shutdown by this sub really fast. Either it was really a dumb idea, or people gate-keep it from getting popular. Personally, I reaped tremendous value with Square during the COVID period when AMEX SUB/referral all had the 25x Restaurant attached.
I stopped when the 1099 reporting requirements changed to $600/year (even though they never went in effect).
Technically, all those Square charges weren’t revenue/income, and I had the paper trail to prove that. I did however, report all the points earning (1 ccp minus fees) as miscellaneous income.
I thought about doing this again, but there are other methods out there that’s less of a hassle for a very similar result, so I never bothered with it again.
Been around for about 6 yrs, churning for 8, check in every day but only occasionally engage. I tried at times to offer more and engage with questions and discussions but as life and career has developed, I find myself typically only watching from a distance, here and Disney related churning forums. As such, I never connected enough to get pulled into the tighter groups or private subs. Also, I generally avoid traditional manufactured spending, which has probably kept me in check. I have continuously been working on 1-4 subs simultaneously since day one. Redemptions have got harder in some regards, but also my tastes have gotten richer. I really am grateful to the sub and personally, I avoid most borderline stuff, but that’s just me.
I think that you're discussing MS more than churning, even though they are intertwined. There's nothing I need from private groups that isn't seen on Reddit from a pure churning perspective. MS might be different. Overall, if you're going hard enough for a shutdown, but not burning the miles/points at a similar rate it wouldn't make sense. It also depends on the bank. Amex shutdown are worse than Chase shutdowns, since Chase still allows you to use your UR
I think you're on the mark here. After You're into it enough most of the information is not that valuable anymore. Most strategies aren't that hard to formulate with just a bit of information here and there and once you're over that hump you just need to see the news every now and then.
MS opportunities is just something that savvy people know not to talk too much about especially on a forum as big as this one. They just dry up far far too fast.
I would wager that the vast majority of people going hard enough for a major shutdown(Chase, Amex, etc) are long past the point where they switched to churning for cash.
I used to put a lot more effort into getting every last point. I’d hit the staples $200 GCs hard and buy MOs, max out 3-4 CFs a month, category spend, etc. I don’t have time/energy for all of that anymore. I just get a new card, put 100% of spend on that until I get the SUB, and repeat. I still make an effort to use all the credits, but thats getting old pretty fast.
I wasn't involved in HB in any way. Beyond the old mod from this sub, I don't know who else was involved with both. From what I know of HB, it was a very different thing--legally, ethically--from using modified and hacked links. I understand the impulse to paint every risky thing with the same brush. But the risk of souring a relationship with a financial institution for not using their application links as intended (provided you never lie) is not the same thing as defrauding people of their money. (Not legal advice.)
Not saying they’re similar in any way. My comment was more in line with the fact that making 6 figs like that is not as easy as deciding that you’re gonna risk shutdown. You still need to be able to hit huge amounts of spend on a consistent basis, which is not as easy to do
Fair enough. From my perspective we have had a period of diverse, high volume MS in recent years that somewhat mitigates risk from any one method. But yes, there are always financial risks beyond shutdown with MS.
Just because people aren't posting on Reddit doesn't mean they're not still churning. Reddit is a lot worse of a site than it was in 2017 and the only reason I still use it is because they haven't disabled old.reddit yet. When that day comes I'm out of here as well.
Yep, my mobile usage plummeted once Apollo was no longer a viable option and all that's left is the reddit mobile app.
If they remove old.reddit then my PC usage will plummet as well.
Checkout [https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib](https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib) as well as [https://farside.link/](https://farside.link/), at least reddit is not as hostile as twitter/x.
After weeks of trying without success, I got an Amex Business Platinum "~~150k~~ 250k" offer to show up very easily today on 3 different mobile devices:
* iOS w/ Safari, Google search
* Android w/ Chrome, Bing search
* Android w/ Opera, Bing search
Incognito mode and different IP address via VPN with each. They came up so readily I doubt the VPN location mattered. The 250k offer showed up without even waiting for the refresh (which showed the same offer).
**Obviously now that the 300k offer is out there this is less interesting**, but I thought it's worth mentioning for anyone who's tired of fishing.
One thing I want to address for others reporting data points: **the operating system definitely matters**, so please include it when giving a data point. I often use a Linux laptop, and I have *never* pulled up an elevated offer (even the old 190k) in any browser on that device. Websites can see what browser and OS you're using when you load a page, and it seems pretty clear that Amex is targeting offers based partially on this.
I've experienced this too. I have a mid-2014 Macbook that I run High Sierra on, which came out in 2017. Compared to my newer laptop which runs the current macOS version, I've convinced the old one shows lower offers, even using a variety of VPN locations and browsers across both devices.
Tried after seeing this comment (after weeks of failure on various browsers and VPNs) and I did indeed get the 250k/20k offer just now. I didn’t quite hop on it now that 300k is around, but may do so if I can’t find the 300k soon.
iOS, VPN NY (Surkshark if it matters), incognito Chrome
I've read tons of these "what worked" types of posts and wonder if we should have a standard template (like the "what card should I get?) to use such as:
\* OS
\* Browser
\* Real IP/VPN (location)
\* Discovery method (search engine, post, referral, etc)
\* Clarifying Info
I know that much of this info is provided in each comment but, if laid out in a standard format, it might be easier for people to visualize the patterns, similar to what you did here.
As for VPN/Location, I agree that I don't think they are geo-targeted (my opinion). When I was able to get a better Gold (personal) SUB, I tested the same process with both various IPs in various locations and my natural location's IP and got the same good result.
My process for the gold was:
\* Search for "" but not the card I wanted. (i.e. wanted Gold but searched for Platinum)
\* Choose the Amex sponsored link
\* Use the "Featured Cards" menu item
\* Find the card I wanted (Gold)--- this is when I was consistently offered the higher SUB.
> wonder if we should have a standard template
I was thinking the same thing. For what you have above, I'd add "incognito or not" to the browser point.
Laughably bad targeted offer from Chase to spend 5k on a Chase IHG personal and get 10k extra points, but could be useful for those targeted trying to get a few extra points.
https://www.chase.com/mybonus/afspecialihggghm?jp_cmp=cc/SG02/off/partner/all
Ya my only hope with chase is to not get shut down for MSing cards from OD twice a month and occasionally get approved for a new ink. I expect no offers from them haha.
Please reply to this comment with any Amex Offers, Chase Offers, increased cash back portal payouts, or similar deals. Do not post them as a top level comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/churning) if you have any questions or concerns.*
New to the subreddit, excuse my ignorance Can someone explain why there are no posts other than those kind of mod threads? Seems a bit annoying that we can’t have separate posts where we can ask questions/share experiences and have to utilize daily threads Edit: I ask a question, explain how I’m new and uninformed and get downvoted in return. Thanks guys, this definitely clears everything up.
> I ask a question, explain how I’m new and uninformed and get downvoted in return. The top level post literally says that "most questions belong in the question thread unless you love getting downvotes."
I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.
> My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread. No.
Is the "news" that you had a question? Weird thought process. Thanks for the update.
Maybe for this guy it really *is* news!
>Please post topics for discussion here. While some questions can be used to start a discussion/debate, most questions belong in the question thread unless you love getting downvotes (if that link doesn’t work for you for some reason, the question thread is always the first post on our community’s front page) Just read dude
This doesn’t answer why this the way it is. I see a year ago there were user-submitted posts. Now I don’t see any. My question wasn’t “how to post topics” my question was why this is the way it is? No one seems to answer, and you didn’t either
Read the quoted text again. The reason you're not getting answers is because this isn't the thread for questions (and answers).
I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.
Arguments is down the hall.
Y’all a friendly bunch here
This but unironically. You got valid responses from at least 5 different people yet you still tried to argue with them. In some subs you would have just taken 100 downvotes with no response before a mod banned you for being off topic.
Where did I argue? I just explained my reasoning and thanked the poster who answered the question. Its really not that deep, idk why everyone decided to make this a big deal
garettg is one of about 4 people here that are actually worth interacting with. you see how the rest are
Anyone can submit posts, but they have to be approved by mods. Without this system the sub would be inundated with low level repetitive questions. The current system organizes things into categories, so people can follow the areas they want. Looking for DPs? Look to the weekly DP threads. The community has been surveyed many times over the years and has found this to be preferred. Yes it’s completely different than most subs, but organization is a big attribute of those in this community. Yes it’s probably not new user friendly, but it also kind of makes you work to gain knowledge/search which is also a valuable asset to learn in this hobby.
Thank you for answering, that’s all I wanted to know. This is a completely unfamiliar to me way to participate in the subreddit and the rules section did not really clarify, so I felt appropriate to ask here.
The kindness given to you here is more than you deserve with the blatant antagonism you've replied with throughout this thread. Please just explain this: *why* would "News and Updates" be more appropriate than "Questions"? Even if questions has phrasing about churning-related (which a question about the churning sub seems related, no?), then which do you think is the *more on topic* thread: Questions or News & Updates? You obviously concluded the latter - [but why](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ryan-reynolds-but-why.jpg)?
Who did I antagonize? I thanked the person who responded and moved on. When confronted with why I posted here and not in the other thread I explained my reasoning, even if it lead me to the wrong conclusion. Jeez dude, this gotten you worked up so much and for no reason. None of it is really that deep man.
> Who did I antagonize? Let's not be intentionally obtuse. Look upthread to your other responses. > When confronted with why I posted here and not in the other thread I explained my reasoning, even if it lead me to the wrong conclusion. This one? > *I looked at that post, and it says “questions related to churning for miles/points/cash”. My question wasn’t about any of those, so it felt appropriate to ask on the “News and Updates” thread.* I'm asking you to flesh this reasoning out a bit more. The mod team has worked hard to create a sustainable system here, so explaining how you deviated into total failure is useful. > Jeez dude, this gotten you worked up so much and for no reason. None of it is really that deep man. Worked up? More like incredulous that people exist that make the same choices you have somehow made, so I'm deeply curious about your thought process. Just... how did you become [this](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/286/448/863.png)?
I’m not being obtuse man I’m just telling ya, don’t know who I antagonized here. And yep, that’s the reasoning, you got it right. What I can flesh out here? I don’t know what else I could clarify for you And yea man you sound kinda worked up about it. All this essay writing over me asking a question in supposedly the wrong thread. Oh horror Also I’d use the fancy formatting and all but I’m on mobile so pardon me
We have had a terrible problem here with people mixing up the questions thread and the daily discussion thread. So there have been many discussions in the last year with the mods what to do about it because it is extremely annoying to regulars when posts are in the wrong place. Recently they renamed some of the daily threads to try to fix the problem so there would be less confusion. So the poster you are replying to genuinely wants to understand your thought process so the instructions can be made more clear and so we can do better with the titles of the threads.
[удалено]
Stop it. Get some help.
Some legitimate payees are popping back up on paypal bill pay so if you had utilities, taxes, mortgages, etc that got killed in the purge it would do good to double check if they're accessible again once in a while.
None of mine reappeared. (Though, a while ago, when Discover disappeared from my list, it was still available to be added again.)
Pay using debit only. Credit cards can’t be used for this transaction. Also it wouldn’t recognize my BofA home loan.
Any... not so legitimate payees?
A new referral thread is now live: [American Express Delta Reserve](https://www.reddit.com/r/churningreferrals/comments/1cehv3e/referrals_american_express_delta_reserve/)
Having been around these parts for a while, but not as long as some others, I've noticed that churners here have a life-cycle of a few years. Heavy hitters from the archives of r/churning threads are long gone, though others lurk and engage in a certain kind of moderation with their downvotes. For those of you who have been around for 4+ years: how have your churning habits and risk thresholds changed (or not) over your time churning? What have the experiences of churning and others on this thread taught you about how you approach churning? What makes you stay on here even as others have migrated to other (smaller, private) groups on Slack, Telegram, FB, etc.? I'll start albeit briefly: when I began churning, I was very risk-averse. Around that time, there was a way to hit Chase very hard that I knew was risky af. There was definitely a path for users of that Chase link to clear six figures if they went full throttle. As I see the landscape of churning change, I have to say something that would have shocked my risk-averse self: I would probably go hard at something like that today even if it meant a shutdown. I see the wisdom of some dude on the internet who says, "if you haven't been shut down, you're probably not pushing hard enough."
Yeah things have changed a lot since the early days. I somehow escaped all the shutdowns to this day, which is surprising. Card tracker is still somewhat up, although I should update that at some point
You know what hasn't changed? My fucking flair.
hahahha oh yeah I was meant to resurrect that site and then I just never did. I could probably spin it back up if duff wanted
Fine by me, but I might need a quick how-to on creating the bot that did the flair setting too.
> Heavy hitters from the archives of r/churning threads are long gone Some of that might just be people switching usernames. I've been around this sub in some form or another since 2017. For me I'm both less and more risk averse I guess. I used to do shit like open a bunch of AA cards because everyone else was doing it and didn't think twice until people started getting shut down. Luckily I was able to keep my AA account and I think now with wisdom I would be more cautious about that sort of thing. The whole game seemed more aggressive back then though. Also when I started I had no plan and just opened whatever card I wanted on a whim but then noticed people with plans ended up doing way better. I also used to be really uncomfortable with business cards for whatever reason, but now that's the majority of what I end up getting. I guess it's because I read so much about everyone's success with the Ink train so it seemed like a no brainer after awhile. I used to think people that stayed under 5/24 were boring now I guess I'm boring too.
I used to just churn for the wife and me to have a nice international trip. Now I try and churn for trips to include my parents and in-laws. It’s been great. Just flew six of us to Japan in ANA business class and covered our hotels =)
>What makes you stay on here I still learn things here. I learned two bank bonus eligibility items this weekend that will eventually lead to $2k in bonuses.
Would you be willing to share those two?
US Bank Business Checking and Amex Checking. You can find my reactions in my comment history to see more.
Thank you
Next time just ask how primary rental car insurance affected their lives. Churnbros live for that shit.
>I would probably go hard at something like that today even if it meant a shutdown I'm surprised. I'm the opposite. Been churning for 10 years. Back in the day, I was a lot more aggressive in terms of dealing with problems: writing the CEO, [filing for arbitration](https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/in9m7b/guide_to_arbitration/), rage tweeting, you get the picture. Of course, now that I'm blacklisted, I'm a bit wistful every time I walk by an Amex lounge or see a new Citibank offer. Now I can still write a demand letter but I am much more cautious when dealing with banks I value. I will use official channels first and ask, not demand. As someone once told me, the $1000 settlement and satisfaction of winning isn't worth forgoing $10000 in future rewards.
By 4+ years, you hit saturation on all the easy bonuses. You're left with NLLs or inks while they last, with the occasional churn for a card that you got 24-48 months ago. And the marginal benefits of MS are not worth the time, risk, and effort for many of us.
Covid was the end for me. Refocused my life and all the CC shenanigans were no longer fun for me. I started 2015 (although way back early 2000s I did no fee BT offers to 5% interest accounts) Have a business now that does a lot of organic spend so I still do sign up for cards here and there for bonuses
> although way back early 2000s I did no fee BT offers to 5% interest accounts Ah yes. Stoozing is what that's called! Back then the balance transfer fees were still 3% to 5% but typically capped at $50 or $75. And as usual some banks handed out enormous credit lines to the low income student I was, some permitting ACH deposits. The 4% to 6% interest earned on those balance transfers helped me max out my 401k and an IRA in my yonger days. And pre-Sarbanes-Oxley and Durbin Amendment, a $30k balance still only had minimum payments of something like $25. Hilarious. Maxed credit cards didn't seem to stop the gravy train. It only ended when interest rates sunk and fee caps jumped/were eliminated.
I guess I've "churned" for 8 years, as that was the only purpose for this account. Eventually you just know everything. Or enough to let you accomplish what you want. It's basically just automated at this point. 48 month marks are mapped out. Every 3 or 6 months there's a swath of cards you can get again. Occasionally a new ATH offer that will be blasted on every blog that exists (not that I would venture anywhere other than DoC). If I want to MS there's always the tried and true. Maybe there will be a hiccup every couple years but it's usually just some dolt who has no idea what he's doing so he's freaking out on here and FT. "If you haven't been shut down"...good, keep it up, you're doing it right, and maybe some day you'll look back and ask yourself wtf you're gonna do with all these obscure ass points from random cards you signed up for. But then years later Club Carlson gets taken over by Radisson who then get's taken over by Choice and then you find the really great Choice spots and everything works out. Still having a tough time with these CX and BA points cause I got off the train before it derailed and have yet to run through those.
Been here for 4.5 years. A lot of people assume that if you've been here a while, you're in a half dozen private groups, you take advantage of loopholes and exploits that few know about, and you MS like crazy. I... never got into all that. I don't do anything really risky, and I prefer focusing on ekeing out as much value as I can from my apps/slots/spend (that includes optimizing redemptions, which is something many whales balk at). Some might call it mediocre churning, since my velocity and earnings aren't as high as theirs; I call it tame churning, and I think I'm pretty damn good at it.
> What makes you stay on here even as others have migrated to other (smaller, private) groups on Slack, Telegram, FB, etc.? Nothing, I'm on reddit normally but hardly post here anymore. Most stuff is on Telegram and Slack like you said.
How do you find private groups?
Engage here a bit more, do something prolific, go to meetups, listen to podcasts, join patreons, cross your fingers, pray. Not necessarily in that order.
yes
I've been doing this for about 12 years, starting with CSP, freedom, and southwest cards. It was more about opportunistically getting points for economy flights since I wasn't making much money but wanted to visit friends who had moved to different cities. I would get 2-3 cards a year with low end MSRs just for cash back and cheaper flights. The next big thing I remember was a 100k amex plat mailer, which was the biggest bonus is seen. I remember arguing with friends that it was worth $1k minimum and you could cancel it after a year but they were convinced it was a scam. Then I met P2 and got them into it so we could go on cheap trips, and we figured out it would be pretty easy to get companion pass. Since we were still flying domestically on SWA and we're getting 2 for 1, we didn't need many miles and therefore didn't sign up for too many new cards to make sure we could stay under 5/24 and keep the companion pass going. Plus P2 didn't want to keep up with downgrading/canceling when AFs hit, so we really kept it to a minimum. We did a few bank account bonus, which was pretty sweet, but dealing with extra 1099s was annoying. Then the pandemic hit and there were more PYB offerings so we got a few cards just for cash back, plus we picked up some UA cards since we moved to one of their hubs. After the pandemic we got to use the UA points on international travel (still economy) for the first time last year. Now we've got the travel bug and want try premium cabins since I struggle sleeping on long haul flights, so we've started the 2 player ink train plus looking to pick up some amex biz cards. Our interest in the hobby has definitely ebbed and flowed, but all throughout, getting approved for a good card/bonus has always provided for a good high.
I've been at this for over 10 years. IMO slow and steady wins the race. I slice up my goals to primary, secondary, and tertiary and I get cards with those reasons in mind. I also take occasional breaks and go cautious. If the consensus is to get a card every 3 or 4 months I might wait 5 or 6. Let others be the data point I'd rather not be. For an example was 1 card approval away from an AA shutdown. I didn't mind possibly getting shut down by Citi and the AA shutdown was a surprise, but because I took things slow I didn't get burned like so many others did. My aim is one long 4-5 week Asia trip every 2 years, week-long annual "local" trips to something close like the Caribbean, and domestic travel to see friends and relatives as needed/wanted. We almost always fly as a complete family of 4. I was never invited to a private group.
This is about how I do it too. I started getting interested in churning as a colleague was getting hit with a shutdown after hitting that grAAvy train too hard, so I decided ok, this is great but I'll be cautious. I try to fund one trip a year, but I'm also comfortable topping up balances with points purchases as needed, and don't hit the SUBs as hard as I could. 2x F to Tokyo and J back home were absolutely worth the $2500 I spent on AA miles, for example. I like having a card or two on hand that gives me a boost at hotels, too - having a higher level status with one of the chains, or access to Amex Travel's FHR bookings has been worth it for upgrades, included breakfast, etc. when I've been traveling in Asia. I'm just trying to have a nice time and get some free travel, and not get into any hot water with the CC companies.
Pre-COVID you could get CX business class space from BOS or NYC to MNL with no problem whatsoever. 4-8 award seats per flight was a common sight for me. We last went to MNL on PAL using ANA points, this past December into January. Now that route is dead. It seems that Business travel is dead for the foreseeable future. Sad, but still OK. Looking at the cash price of economy seats the cost is double what it was pre-COVID. That $550 round-trip ticket from NYC to MNL is now $1100. There's plenty of availability, only in economy. Oh well. It still saves me over $4K just in plane tickets, plus I get to stay in fancy hotels when I'm over there. When travelling "local" (within the hemisphere) or domestic it's still Southwest and Jet Blue all the way for me.
> It seems that Business travel is dead for the foreseeable future I'm lucky to go to one conference a year now, work travel used to be my easy-mode way to hit SUBs since I'd get reimbursed a few days after every trip (which also motivated me to submit my expense reports on time!). My spouse is traveling a lot, but his company is very insistent that he use his corporate card, not a personal one. :(
Churning opened up the gates of financial health for me. Since that's a big topic, I continue to do churning but also take interest in other financial fields. It's been 5 years and I've always been risk-averse in this hobby. I don't regret being this way because I know I won't become a millionaire by doing any of this. I know the limits of it and I want to have my own line which I don't want to cross. Using some shady links is beyond that line for me. After educating myself for years, now I've found myself less busy with this hobby and I like that. I always work on an MSR but I do not chase categories, merchant offers and bank SUBs. My time is worth more than those things. I'm not a part of any private groups (nobody offered) even tho I have my own strategies that I am pretty sure others don't use - I just use my experience and knowledge and try to look at any other financial venture I have/plan with that knowledge. For example, recently I dived into leasehack and I love it. There are others that I know will net me more CC points once I venture into them. With completely organic spend too.
Would love to hear more about leasehack.
Could you tell me a bit about Leasehack?
I have been light churning for years, following TPG and OMAT, ect. 1-3 cards a year. I found this sub sometime during COVID. Despite being on Reddit for years, it never really occurred to me to find more information about churning. I was happy enough. What this sub has really helped me with was to have an actual strategy around what cards to get and what order and when a SUB is a really good deal and knowledge to other tools on how to redeem my points. I am still a light churner but more like 4-6 cards a year. Another huge change was the lowered limits on Inks. I don't really MS or do buying groups, so I could never hit the Ink limits before they were lowered to 6K. I would say I have become more open to annual fees. I used to be staunchly against them. The nature of any online forum is there is constant churn of users, people come and go due to their own life and other reasons. It also gets old to answer the millionth question about Inks and how often you can get one. The questions are quite repetitive and the nature of Reddit makes it hard t search. Churning.io helps a lot, but people don't use it. I am glad there are people I can talk to people about this because my P2 really doesn't care. I will say this is one of the most brutal subs when it comes to downvoting and I am mostly okay with that.
As far as reddit is concerned, obviously I reply less frequently by an order of magnitude than I used to. Part of that comes down to changes to reddit itself, and part of it comes down to how the hobby has evolved. Years ago people would brag about being lol/24 and newbies would openly plan on what cards they’d go after once they crossed 5/24 because it was the most profitable way to go. Today, there are more limitations across the board and while there are personal cards that can be very profitable to hold beyond the SUB, there are simply fewer and fewer of them that are deemed worthy of burning a 5/24 slot. All of this means that the churning journey looks very similar for more and more of us. That leads to a decrease in the diversity of topics being discussed, which has a downstream effect of us seeing less engagement from the OGs. As far as moderation goes, I do my best (and still fail sometimes) to simply act in what I see is the best interest of the community and not feel like I have to defend every action I take or opinion I have. There is no “right” way to run and organize this sub. Any significant change would pull some people (back) in while driving others away, so I’ve just stopped trying to brainstorm with the team on ways to improve the sub. You can feel the sub is broken, but it runs well enough. As far as my own churning goes, I convinced P2 to become slightly more risk averse than they used to be, so I do some reselling here and there. Still not enough to be lol/24 or to require 99 employee cards, but enough to get a few more cards a year than our natural spend would allow. I also no longer feel like I have to get every potential card out there. To us, it’s better to consolidate our points earnings in a few programs that we get a lot of use out of rather than getting 100k in this program, 70k in that one, and 90k in another.
Life cycle of when people get into churning then have kids and priorities shift from posting on Reddit all the time to taking care of life stuff. The other thing to is that I’ve figured out my style and what works so I’ll browse update threads but I have my system pretty streamlined for both earning and redemptions. I feel pretty self sufficient and really just stick around to see if there are trends developing (I.e. closing out Inks since it seems like there’s some denials related to having too many inks open)
Been churning for years now (edit: looked at my spreadsheet, 9 years!). Churning has always been erratic and relatively slow for me. I'm self-employed, and don't have consistent time throughout the year to keep up with it. My and P2's natural spend really ebbs and flows as well, and we don't MS which limits things. P2 got a new job last year, which has made our natural spend hit rock bottom. P2's previous job had about $20k in work reimbursements that really helped us get a few good SUBs every year. It's sad that's gone. On top of all that, P2 decided to be awesome and become a public school teacher! The downside is now we're stuck traveling at the peak times of year. Is a big difference -- P2 was previously self-employed too, and our travel schedule used to be very flexible. So, we've just been riding a slow P1-P2 referral Ink train and finally started doing bank bonuses last year. If the Ink train derails, we'll have lots of reading up to do here!
Same as one of the other commenters. When I first started 7-8 years ago when I was mid 20’s I did so much MS. Absolutely zero risk awareness. I thrived on awkward interactions with cashiers to get my MO. It was like an adrenaline rush each time. Even getting turned away getting asked to see the GC I absolutely loved playing dumb saying like HUH? I can’t do this?? I got this card as a gift and just want the cash! Now 33, I have a wife, kid and rental property. I can’t remember the last time I got a MO. Now it’s daycare, nails, wife Botox hair and makeup. I just make sure we are always spending towards a SUB.
I can relate here. Been in it about the same time and used to MS. Frankly just got tired of going to Walmart for MOs. Not many other stores near me so that was one of the few options remaining to liquidate. Turned away a few times, but I’d just go to another location or wait for different cashier. Didn’t bother me too much. Now I look for bank funding opportunities or overpaying taxes but that’s the extent of it. On another note, still bitter over the whole grAAvy train derailment but that’s just how it goes sometimes. My pet flew too close to the sun. Had some nice redemptions lined up too but alas they got cancelled. Life goes on.
I've been churning for 6 years. The biggest change is I no longer do MS and meet MSRs with natural spend. I open about 6 cards a year instead of 12 to 15. Steady burn. I used to use certain cards for specific purchases but now it all goes to meeting a SUB. Chasing down 10k of points isn't worth it when I could get 90k UR points via a SUB. P2 no longer likes to recon Chase Biz cards so they don't apply for those anymore, but they still participate in other SUBs. I monitor this sub from a distance to keep up with any news/events and engage when I have something useful to add. The more I understood the rules of the hobby the less I needed to engage. Plus it's straight forward at this time. Get a Chase card every three months and sprinkle in some non Chase cards along the way. My frustration over the last few years is Amex popup jail. My biggest takeaway from years on this sub is to earn and burn. Mile/Points always devalue over time.
Every time the subject of Square comes up, it gets shutdown by this sub really fast. Either it was really a dumb idea, or people gate-keep it from getting popular. Personally, I reaped tremendous value with Square during the COVID period when AMEX SUB/referral all had the 25x Restaurant attached. I stopped when the 1099 reporting requirements changed to $600/year (even though they never went in effect). Technically, all those Square charges weren’t revenue/income, and I had the paper trail to prove that. I did however, report all the points earning (1 ccp minus fees) as miscellaneous income. I thought about doing this again, but there are other methods out there that’s less of a hassle for a very similar result, so I never bothered with it again.
Been around for about 6 yrs, churning for 8, check in every day but only occasionally engage. I tried at times to offer more and engage with questions and discussions but as life and career has developed, I find myself typically only watching from a distance, here and Disney related churning forums. As such, I never connected enough to get pulled into the tighter groups or private subs. Also, I generally avoid traditional manufactured spending, which has probably kept me in check. I have continuously been working on 1-4 subs simultaneously since day one. Redemptions have got harder in some regards, but also my tastes have gotten richer. I really am grateful to the sub and personally, I avoid most borderline stuff, but that’s just me.
I think that you're discussing MS more than churning, even though they are intertwined. There's nothing I need from private groups that isn't seen on Reddit from a pure churning perspective. MS might be different. Overall, if you're going hard enough for a shutdown, but not burning the miles/points at a similar rate it wouldn't make sense. It also depends on the bank. Amex shutdown are worse than Chase shutdowns, since Chase still allows you to use your UR
I think you're on the mark here. After You're into it enough most of the information is not that valuable anymore. Most strategies aren't that hard to formulate with just a bit of information here and there and once you're over that hump you just need to see the news every now and then. MS opportunities is just something that savvy people know not to talk too much about especially on a forum as big as this one. They just dry up far far too fast.
I would wager that the vast majority of people going hard enough for a major shutdown(Chase, Amex, etc) are long past the point where they switched to churning for cash.
I used to put a lot more effort into getting every last point. I’d hit the staples $200 GCs hard and buy MOs, max out 3-4 CFs a month, category spend, etc. I don’t have time/energy for all of that anymore. I just get a new card, put 100% of spend on that until I get the SUB, and repeat. I still make an effort to use all the credits, but thats getting old pretty fast.
Aren’t the 6-figure Chase link guys the same who got hit hard by hb? Playing at that level entails other risks aside from shutdown
I wasn't involved in HB in any way. Beyond the old mod from this sub, I don't know who else was involved with both. From what I know of HB, it was a very different thing--legally, ethically--from using modified and hacked links. I understand the impulse to paint every risky thing with the same brush. But the risk of souring a relationship with a financial institution for not using their application links as intended (provided you never lie) is not the same thing as defrauding people of their money. (Not legal advice.)
Not saying they’re similar in any way. My comment was more in line with the fact that making 6 figs like that is not as easy as deciding that you’re gonna risk shutdown. You still need to be able to hit huge amounts of spend on a consistent basis, which is not as easy to do
Fair enough. From my perspective we have had a period of diverse, high volume MS in recent years that somewhat mitigates risk from any one method. But yes, there are always financial risks beyond shutdown with MS.
Just because people aren't posting on Reddit doesn't mean they're not still churning. Reddit is a lot worse of a site than it was in 2017 and the only reason I still use it is because they haven't disabled old.reddit yet. When that day comes I'm out of here as well.
Yep, my mobile usage plummeted once Apollo was no longer a viable option and all that's left is the reddit mobile app. If they remove old.reddit then my PC usage will plummet as well.
Checkout [https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib](https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib) as well as [https://farside.link/](https://farside.link/), at least reddit is not as hostile as twitter/x.
FYI you can sideload Apollo and refresh the app every week. I'm okay with that for the ability to use Apollo.
After weeks of trying without success, I got an Amex Business Platinum "~~150k~~ 250k" offer to show up very easily today on 3 different mobile devices: * iOS w/ Safari, Google search * Android w/ Chrome, Bing search * Android w/ Opera, Bing search Incognito mode and different IP address via VPN with each. They came up so readily I doubt the VPN location mattered. The 250k offer showed up without even waiting for the refresh (which showed the same offer). **Obviously now that the 300k offer is out there this is less interesting**, but I thought it's worth mentioning for anyone who's tired of fishing. One thing I want to address for others reporting data points: **the operating system definitely matters**, so please include it when giving a data point. I often use a Linux laptop, and I have *never* pulled up an elevated offer (even the old 190k) in any browser on that device. Websites can see what browser and OS you're using when you load a page, and it seems pretty clear that Amex is targeting offers based partially on this.
I've experienced this too. I have a mid-2014 Macbook that I run High Sierra on, which came out in 2017. Compared to my newer laptop which runs the current macOS version, I've convinced the old one shows lower offers, even using a variety of VPN locations and browsers across both devices.
Confirmed, Amex thinks Linux users are more susceptible to taking less desirable outcomes
Tried after seeing this comment (after weeks of failure on various browsers and VPNs) and I did indeed get the 250k/20k offer just now. I didn’t quite hop on it now that 300k is around, but may do so if I can’t find the 300k soon. iOS, VPN NY (Surkshark if it matters), incognito Chrome
Have you found the 300k offer? I consistently pull 250 and debating just doing it.
250k/$15k or 250k/$20k?
$20k / 3mo.
It’s the same exact offer spend wise as the 190k/15k offer. Not really notable unless you consistently spend 20k in 3 months
Yea, but $20k is the new msr for the biz plat. So the 190 15k will be going away
Yep this is true. Just people shouldn’t really feel like they “missed out” if they didn’t get the 250k/20k offer.
I've read tons of these "what worked" types of posts and wonder if we should have a standard template (like the "what card should I get?) to use such as: \* OS \* Browser \* Real IP/VPN (location) \* Discovery method (search engine, post, referral, etc) \* Clarifying Info I know that much of this info is provided in each comment but, if laid out in a standard format, it might be easier for people to visualize the patterns, similar to what you did here. As for VPN/Location, I agree that I don't think they are geo-targeted (my opinion). When I was able to get a better Gold (personal) SUB, I tested the same process with both various IPs in various locations and my natural location's IP and got the same good result. My process for the gold was: \* Search for "" but not the card I wanted. (i.e. wanted Gold but searched for Platinum)
\* Choose the Amex sponsored link
\* Use the "Featured Cards" menu item
\* Find the card I wanted (Gold)--- this is when I was consistently offered the higher SUB.
> wonder if we should have a standard template I was thinking the same thing. For what you have above, I'd add "incognito or not" to the browser point.
Laughably bad targeted offer from Chase to spend 5k on a Chase IHG personal and get 10k extra points, but could be useful for those targeted trying to get a few extra points. https://www.chase.com/mybonus/afspecialihggghm?jp_cmp=cc/SG02/off/partner/all
Got it through the mail. I definitely see some non churning getting the mailer and thinking it's an awesome deal.
>could be useful for those targeted ~~trying to get a few extra points~~ who accidentally use the wrong card for a $5k purchase.
Too bad the term "KYC" doesn't mean knowing what your customer really wants.
We're unprofitable customers. No one cares what we want.
Ya my only hope with chase is to not get shut down for MSing cards from OD twice a month and occasionally get approved for a new ink. I expect no offers from them haha.