Credit Card Churning: How to Travel for Free
We are adventure seekers. We love to broaden our mind. For many of us experiences are right there with humanity’s strongest emotions: love, freedom, and connection.
So, it breaks my heart to hear people say they can’t afford to travel. My life has drastically from a poor college student to a current designer now. However, my desire to travel with little to no cost is still as passionate as ever. Instead of watching vlogs and looking at pictures of beautiful places, why not just go there yourself?
For the financially responsible, credit churning is a great way to rack up the points necessary for free flights and hotels - the most expensive part of any trip.
What is credit churning?
Credit churning is simply meeting spending requirements on credit cards with large bonus offers. For most people, red flags are popping in their heads. Let me get this straight, you want me to sign up for credit cards, meet the minimum spend, cash out my points, and cancel within a year when the annual fee is due?
Short answer yes because the sign up bonuses are worth many times their value when redeemed correctly. The only big financial rule: do not manufacture spend for rewards because if you pay any interest it the bonuses are not worth it. Churning is not for people who are in credit card debt. It is for who have good to excellent credit and can pay their balances in full every month
To give you some examples with 35,00 Starwood Preferred Guest Points (base sign up for targeted offers is 30-35,000 with 3k spend in 3months) you can stay…
12 Nights at Category 1
Some examples include:
Aloft San Jose, Costa Rica: Right outside of the Costa Rica capital with high end restaurants, café, and bar. The nightly is 104 a night so you would be getting 3.5 to 5.2 cents per point!
Le Meridien N’Fis: Located in the beautiful Gardens of Marrakesh. This hotel has beautiful sunset views overlooking a lit oasis pool. Usually $97 a night so you would be getting 4.1 cents a point!
Sheraton Mustika Yoggakarta: In the heart of the city of Yoggakatara on the Indonesian Island of Java. Surrounded by nature and close to two heritage UNESCO world sites.
Three nights at a category 5
These are some of the best hotels that SPG has to offer and range from 12,000 to 16,000 a night for redemption. These include the design hotel collection, which have built an international reputation for luxury, beauty, and location.
Hotel Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Designer Hotel: A part of the design hotel collection, it is located in the middle of the capital right next to the popular Museum of Modern Art. At $319 you are getting 2.65 cents a point.
Sheraton Kuai Resort: Right on Poipu Beach with all the water activities in existence ranging from snorkeling to scuba diving. At $281 a night you are getting 2.1 cents a point.
The Library, Koh Samui, Designer Hotel - Twenty-six cabins dot the beaches of Koh Sumai with a red bottomed swimming pool – a now cultural artifact of the area. At $289 a night you are getting 2.4 cents a point.
Two nights at a category 9 Marriot Hotel
Since SPG points are so flexible you can transfer them to Marriott a rate of 3:1 to be redeemed in their category 1-9 and 1-3 Ritz Carlton hotels. So 35k in SPG is 105k in Marriott Rewards. The highest category Marriott is 9 can be redeemed for45,000 Marriott points a night. Here are some examples:
Frenchman’s Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort: A luxurious hotel in St. Thomas US Virgin Islands the resorts has multiple outdoor pools, spas, and breathtaking views to the garden or the ocean front.
Boscolo Exerda Roma: Located in the heart of Rome in Piazza della Repubblica, it is one of the most luxurious hotels in the city. With multiple restaurants, spas, and pools on site and its prime location, the Boscolo is a popular hotel at 375 a night and you will be getting .8 cents a points.
Also, comes with thousands of dollars’ worth of perks
Most travel cards wave the fee for the first year and usually range between 59-150 dollars. However, let’s look at the high-end consumer cards like the Chase Ritz Carlton (would wait for a 3 night offer) that don’t waive the 450 annual fee. Take a glance at the primary benefits.
The travel credit alone is 300 dollars and since it resets during the card anniversary year, you are getting 600 dollars of travel credit in the first year. If done correctly, you can redeem these for gift certificates that can be used on tickets!
There is also a 100 dollar hotel credit, complimentary lounge access to over 350 lounges, and free hotel upgrades. The crazy part? This card is on the lower end of the benefit spectrum!
Cards such as the Amex Platinum or Chase Reserve include a 100 dollar TSA pre-check credit, Uber credit, and free hotel nights. NONE of this includes the 50-100k in sight up bonuses you are getting!
So for the Ritz you have a 350 fee:
- 600 in travel credit
- 2 Nights at a tier 3 Ritz (45,000 each) so 90,000 -
- 100 Hotel Credit
- Lounge Access worth about 200
Most people won’t need these high end cards and I won’t recommend getting any of these until the sign-ups are higher (see the bottom of the post for card recommendations), but if you travel frequently, you are making anywhere from 4 to 5 times the annual fee in the first year. Profit.
Still not convinced?
Let me put it this way – credit card bonuses are free money. I think it’s safe to say most people in the US spend 1,000 dollars a month: food, gas, clothes, eating out, gifts, or whatever else. Most minimum spending requirements are 3,000 dollars in the first three months. So, if you are spending that anyway, why not get anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand back in travel?
What about my credit score?
I have 10 credit cards and my score is in the top .5%. To understand why, you have to understand how credit scores are calculated. Along with paying your credit card on time, the most important metric is credit utilization. This metric makes up 30% of your score FICO score. Simply, if you have 10,0000 in total available credit and you use have 4,000 in debt you are using 40%. When you apply for a new credit card, this increases your credit and lowers your utilization. Remember calculate how much you spend first, don’t try to over spend to meet bonuses. If you are paying interest none of this worth it
Age of credit is the next big factor. So, you would want keep around 3 cards you use frequently and hold them for a very long time. These are your baseline cards that you should have for a decade or more. The rest are the ones you churn.
Opening up a new credit card only dings your credit 5-7 points for a month and you can minimize the impact of this. The trick is that for certain credit card companies will process multiple applications with one inquiry. For example, when I started churning did the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Freedom within a minute of each other. Both instant approvals with one inquiry which is useful for situations described below =D.
Research and the chase 5/24 rule and Amex once in a lifetime
You are kind of late to the game. Although churners only account for 1.5% of the total credit card community, we are a whole culture.
So much so that chase recently released a 5/24 rule in order to limit the churning that was happening with their cards. The rule states that you cannot have more than 5 credit inquiries over 24 months when applying for chase cards. Otherwise, whether you are in college or millionaire, its an instant denial. So, the recommendation from the churning community is to always start with Chase cards first as they have the most lucrative sign up bonuses.
For example, recently this year the Chase Sapphire Reserve had a 100,000 points sign up offer after spending (a flat 1k in USD value) 4k spend in 3 months. When you redeem travel through their portal you get 20%, so the bonus is really $1200. As Ultimate rewards are valued at about 2.1 to 2.5 cents a point based on how you value them, the sign up bonus can be worth as much as 2500 to 3000 based on a 2.5 cent per point redemption. Recently, a friend of mine who I got into churning, took a 2 week fully paid vacation (minus food and attractions) to Paris based on Reserve and Sapphire rewards.
Amex has a similar rule that you can only get a credit card bonus once in your life time. So, in the case of Amex you NEVER want to sign up with their base bonuses. For example, Amex may offer 20,000 on their Gold Amex Preferred with 1,000 spend. When I did it was 75,000 per 2,000 spend. Waiting on this targeted offer was a life saver for me because it allowed me to go to my grandmother’s funeral on very short notice for free.
Finding the best deals and the approval
The key to churning is understanding how much you spend a month, find cards within the spending requirement, identify the best offers, and get approved. How do you find the best deals?
This is the easy part. There are tools that match you with current targeted offers (higher than normal bonuses) that you will most likely be approved for. None of these impacts your credit score in anyway and have become invaluable tools for churners and general consumers. Banks also have their own checks for prequalified offers. For example:
Credit Match Tool
Chase prequalify
Amex prequalify
After you find a great deal you are matches for, fill and submit your application. These don’t guarantee approval as remember, this does not count as an inquiry. However, if you are pre-qualified that means you passed the pre-screening and have a much higher chance of being passed.
So what are the most valuable points?
Starwood Preferred Guest : 2.7c a point
Chase Ultimate Rewards: 2.1c a point
American Express Membership Rewards: 1.9
Alaska: 1.9
Finding the best redemption
After you get your points, the only thing left is to redeem! Credit card rewards have become such a competitive and profitable space that you never have to worry aboutblack out dates, can transfer to nearly any airline or hotel group, and even multiply your current rewards programs by three times.
How much have I racked over 2.5 years just on credit card bonuses?
Ultimate Rewards: 200,000
Membership Rewards: 200,000
Starwood Preferred Guest: 150,00
Delta Sky Miles: 100,000
Southwest: 120,000
Remember these are just the sign-up bonuses. This does not include the thousands of dollars I received in benefits and amplified rewards programs. This pool is enough for me to vacation anyway I want (the most luxurious hotels in the world) and fly anywhere in the world for taxes.
With these points I’m taking my family of 4 (father, mom, brother, and myself) on a two week vacation to Australia: free flights and hotels. Will still have enough for many personal trips over the course of the year.
So what are the best deals right now? 
Chase Southwest Base and Premier 60k each: 120k and Companion Pass
A no brainier. Remember the 5/24 rule applies here. If you get the base card and the premier you get 120,000 for 4k spend that you can use on flights. The real value here though is the COMPANION PASS. Southwest lets you have a companion pass for the year if you acquire 110,000 SW points in a year. Normally the bonuses are 50k meaning you had to earn the last 10 but now with just two cards you can get the Companion Pass!
How can the points and companion pass be redeemed (flights for two people + taxes and fees)?
Baltimore to Bahamas: 10,800 points round trip for
Normally: Over $800
Atlanta to Punta Cana Round Trip: 25,056
Normally: 850 for two tickets
For the rest check your targeted offers for some of the hottest cards. Why?
Amex Platinum: 60k for 5k in 3 months/75k if you try with incognito browser but it has reached 100k in the past. You can only get this once.
Amex Gold Card: 25k seen it go up to 75
Starwood Preferred Guest: The most valuable points by far. 25k is the base offer but I would check for targeted 35k. Recent promotion wait for it
The Delta offers: I got 60k for 1k spend. Plus Delta Skymiles are one of the least value points.
Chase Reserve: 100k just expired. I would wait or see if you are targeted for higher.
Chase Ritz Carlton: Seen 3 free nights – 90 to 100k points
Marriot Rewards: 120K a few years back. Not sure if this will come back but you would want at least 100k
Conclusion: Travel for free, Join the Community, We are here for you
The churning community is small but they are tens of thousands of us…maybe even more now. You can check out the churning sub reedit, The Points Guy, Doctor of Credit, The Frugal Travel guy, and money others who make a fabulous living churning and telling the world about it.
I’m here for you. Remember that you should never spend more than you earn. Here’s a summary of the steps:
- See how much you normally spend in a month
- Find cards that fit within that
- Use card match tools to find pre-qualified offers
- Apply/Get Approved
- Spend
- Redeem for maximum value
I plan on posting the latest flight deals, redemption values, new credit card offers, comprehensive card reviews, and some other nuances all the time. So, if this is something you like please follow and stay tuned.
Great information. I just want to add the HYATT credit card from Chase I think is the best deal on the market right now with Intro Bonus
Up to 50,000 points
25,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Plus, 25,000 Bonus Points after you spend $6,000 total within 6 months of account opening.