Credit Card Churning

Credit Card Churning is the practice to identify cards with large benefits to abuse their opening bonus. This works in the following way. You identify a card, you apply and receive the card. Then you meet the minimum spending amount to get the benefits.
After this you can either keep the credit card, close it, or downgrade to a card without an annual fee. As I currently have only a single active credit card, I will try to identify a card where the long-term benefits will allow me to keep the card.I looked into some Credit Cards, and these are the offers I identified so far.

Name	Bonus	Minimum Spending	Cash Back %	Annual Fee	Other Benefits
Capital One Venture	50,000 Miles	$3000/3months	2% in miles	95	None
Chase Sapphire Preferred	60,000 points	4000/3months	1-5%	95	Food delivery subscription
American Express Platinum	70,000	5000/3months	1-5%	550	200$ for Uber 200$ for Airline Fees
Chase Sapphire Reserve	50,000	4000/3months	1-3%	550	300$ travel budget Food delivery subscription
American Express Gold	50,000 points	2000/3months	1-4% 4x on Supermarkets	250	120$ for Grubhub 100$ Airline Budget
American Express Green	30,000	2000/3months	1-3%	150
Citi Premier	60,000	4000/3months	1-3%	95

It seems like it is important to know what you spend on average via credit card to avoid paying more in the 3 months than you would usually do:
My average spending last year was approximately $2000 per months. This will equal $6000 for 3 months. Therefore, a credit card with a $4000 minimum spending should be okay. A $5000 minimum spending rate can be considered as well as long as one large item payment will be included in the 3 months.
To maximize the dollar amount of the point Aeroplan seems like a good option.

I believe that currently the Amex Gold is a great fit for me. However, the Chase Saphire Preferred has a very large bonus. I am considering getting both of these cards this year.
Let’s look at some more passive income ideas:

• Create an Alexa Skill
• Crowd-funded real estate with Fundrise
• Start a Podcast
• Become a rental property manager
• File my taxes

For next time

Next time I will try to finish the list of credit cards, and make a decision which one I believe is the best for me. Then I will investigate one more topic on my list of passive income ideas. The goal will be to generate get started on one idea every week.

Update 02/09/2020

I have decided to get the AMEX Gold for two reasons:

1. I believe it will be a credit card that is profitable for me in the long run
2. There was an offer to get 50,000 points instead of 35,0000 points when spending $4,000 in the first three months.

This means I will redirect all of my expenses to my AMEX for the upcoming months and in three months, I might revisit this topic again. However, this is the current calculation for my AMEX GOLD:

COST :

250 / Year

BENEFITS :

$120/ year in Grubhub
$100/ year in Airline Credit
50,0000 points = $500 (one-time only)

Because I use delivery services, and need to pay for checked bags no matter what, both of these are evaluated at 100%. There is also a $100 hotel credit that i valued at 0% because I have not yet found a way utilize that benefit effectively.

CASHBACK

The two major cashback opportunities that I will use this card for will be Grocery and dining. Both of these give 4% cashback. My grocery and dining expenses are usually $150 per week = $7800 per year, and I have previously received 1.5 % cashback using my Chase Freedom unlimited card. The difference using the AMEX gold will give me a benefit of :

Grocery and dining: $7800 * (0.04-0.015) = $195

Additionallly, the AMEX will also give me 3% on flights. While I plan to get a travel credit card in the future, for this year this will give me a 1.5% advantage over my Chase Freedom card on the approx. $2500 I spend on flights per year:

Flights: $2500*(0.03-0.015) = ~$40

PROFITS

Total profit (first year): -$250 + $120 + $100 + $500 + $195 + $40 = $705

Total profit (following years): -$250 + $120 +$100 + $195 = $165