Background: Million Mile Madness is the fun and foolish quest to earn a million points in one month. Throughout March, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. To keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000. In case you’re interested, all points earned and expenses incurred will be tracked via this Google Docs spreadsheet. See all Million Mile Madness posts (in reverse order), by clicking here.
Today is credit card churn day!
My plan today is to spend the day signing up for credit cards and calling reconsideration lines. Below are the cards I plan to sign up for, in order. The expected signup bonus for each card is listed in parentheses:
- US Bank Club Carlson personal (85K bonus after $2.5K spend) and business (85K bonus after $2.5K spend) cards. For more details, see: Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: US Bank and others.
- Barclaycard US Airways personal (35K bonus after first use) and business (25K bonus after first use) cards. For more details, see: Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Barclaycard.
- American Express Platinum Mercedes card (50K bonus after $1K spend) and Premier Rewards Gold (50K bonus after $1K spend). For more details, see: Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express.
- Citi AA business (50K bonus after $3K spend) and ThankYou Preferred (6K bonus after $300 spend). For more details, see: Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Citi.
- Chase Ink Plus business card (50K bonus after $5K spend) for each of two businesses, and either the United MileagePlus card (55K bonus after $1K spend) or the Sapphire Preferred MasterCard (40K bonus after $3K spend). For more details, see: Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase.
With the above plan, I could earn as many as 541,000 points & miles (not counting miles earned on spend).
In the post where I planned my Barclaycard card signups I said that I would also sign up for the NFL card ($400 bonus) and the Arrival World MasterCard ($220 or $440 bonus depending on which offer I get). However, when I see all of the planned applications lined up, I’m less inclined to push my luck with these. We’ll see how lucky I feel after I apply for all of the others.
Keep up with the results
As I go along, I’ll post results in the comments below and on Twitter. I’ll also post a summary at the end of the day.
Reader Participation
Are you signing up for cards today? If so, which ones? Comment below with your results as well!
Learn about Million Mile Madness:
- A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
- Million Mile Madness, it’s on
- Million Mile Madness: Strategy
- Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
- Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Corridor: Sorry, I couldn’t help myself :). No, I’ve never frozen anything purposely
David: Yes I confirmed 5X TYP on the phone. The agent didn’t know the specific categories but said she did see the extra 4X points for certain purchases.
Steven: I can’t remember. I think it is a charge card, but I’m not sure. Anyone?
Is the Amex Gold card a charge card?
@FM,
Did you confirm 5X on TYP card after approval either via phone or secured message?
=) I am from Illinois so I too freeze my ARS off when I go outside. I shouldn’t have left it that easy for you.
Very surprising on the US bank card. They usually are not thrilled with alot of inqs. I like the Flekperks cards myself. I will consider these on the next round
@FM- love it; freeze my ARS 🙂
My churn day is still a few weeks out. I am going to go for the SPG business, Citi AA Business, Citi MC x 2 (husband and I) and I am not sure what else quite yet. I would like to get another for him and leave 3 for me, but we will see.
Can anyone get the 50k personal Chase Explorer card link to work with the biz Explorer card? I was able to replicate the 50k personal offer, but not the biz.
ZekeNix: thanks
PaulX: I don’t know
Chimmy: thanks
Update: The Club Carlson personal card was approved yesterday (received email) and the Citi TY Preferred was approved today (after phone call). Automated system says that Club Carlson business card is approved, but I’m not going to count that for certain until I hear from a person tomorrow (I’m concerned that the automated system may be reporting the results of my personal app).
Good luck!
Corridor!: I live in Michigan, so yes of course I have experience freezing my ARS. I freeze my ARS every time I go outside
Interesting. Chase always pulls Transunion for me. On occasion, they would also pull Experian. I now freeze my Experian when applying for Chase cards and during the recon call. Once that is done, I unfreeze Experian and apply for the Citi and Amex Cards.
That being said, I was denied for the personal Club Carlson card. The reason in the letter is because of numerous recent applications using ssn. What is odd about that is they pulled Equifax for me. I had only one inquiry on my report and that was for a refi. As soon I applied for the card and got the pending message, I froze both Transunion and Experian. I was reading on Flyertalk, that I might need to freeze my ARS if I have to apply again in the future.
Do you have any experience freezing your ARS?
I applied for Club Carlson personal card two months ago and got it approved after asking for reconsideration. I could use some extra points for an upcoming trip. If I apply for a business card now, am I likely to get denied?
Hey, I know it’s a piddling amount of points but you can get 1000 Club Carlson points by “liking” them on Facebook. I saw it this morning on The Points Guy’s blog. Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/clubcarlson/app_457009351020168
@Elizabeth- Thanks for the insight! I will give a rest over the weekend then call in without canceling to see if they will move credit around to get me the pending card.