EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of the smartest members of the community have stepped up with guest posts in my absence. Special thanks to TeddyH for writing a thoughtful contrarian post to the conventional wisdom in the community. I’ll see you on January 1!
Introduction
Oh, the 5/24 status. In a sea of rules that we have to keep track of in our game, 5/24 is without a doubt the most well-known churning rule. Even CNBC has an article (EDITOR’S NOTE: A terrible, awful article) on it as an excuse to dump TWENTY-FOUR affiliate links!
Perhaps because of this, most churners don’t even consider what could happen if you did decide to go over 5/24. You’ve probably decided to stay under 5/24 years and years ago—when you first found out about credit card SUBs prolly on The Points BlogTM brought to you by Chase® SapphireSM Reserve®. Since then, you probably have never thought about going above 5/24. Like how you also always stop the microwave one second before it beeps or if your name ends with 233 how you always step on every rake you see.
I’m here to present my unpopular opinion today that if you are reading this blog, you almost definitely should go over 5/24. Here’s why.
The Current State of Churning Chase Cards
Based on my scientifical survey of all of my imaginary friends, people who stay under 5/24 do so mainly because going over would lock you out of the Ink Train every 3 months, the Sapphire MDD every 48 months (which has been patched), and most importantly, stop the flow of oh-so-valuable Ultimate Rewards points which you need for all those Hyatt redemptions you are going to make. Oh, and did I mention the coveted Southwest Companion Passes?
To these people’s credit, the plays I just mentioned above are cult classics and they are so easy and straightforward! Buying VGCs at Staples with a CIC and turning them into MOs is usually the first thing I will talk about if one of my non-imaginary friends happens to get curious about
MSing. Unfortunately, though, it’s starting to look like these straightforward plays are becoming a thing of the past, and with it the Chase landscape has changed significantly even just over the past year.
The Ink Train
In the past, it was possible to open a new Ink card roughly every 3 months. With sign-up bonuses around 90,000 points, that would net you 360,000 points if you opened an Ink every 90 days for the whole year. Unfortunately, Chase has tightened up approvals for new Ink cards significantly, and reports show that it’s essentially impossible to get a fifth Ink card if you hold four, and even if you hold just three your approval odds would only be at 18%.
On top of that, Chase halved the referral bonus cap on the Ink cards to 100,000 points, significantly limiting two-player mode as well.
And the cherry on top? You can’t even product change Ink cards until 3 months after you open the card nowadays.
These new changes reduce the 5x Office Supply capacity, invite more application scrutiny, as well as reduce the referral cap, making the Ink Train significantly less appealing than what it once was.
What should I do instead?
Like I was saying previously, the modern MS landscape is quite different from the traditional Staples runs of the past. Consider the key differences:
- High multipliers are more important than the multiplying category
- In fact, the category being bonused is no longer important.
- It is more important than ever to consider cards that can phone a friend
There are Amex cards out there that give you 475,000 points instead of 90,000 points for an Ink. Why stop there? Apply twice in a row and now you can phone a friend on this card too for another set of 475,000 points.
Those Hyatt Points
But Teddy, where am I going to stay if I don’t get a fresh Ink SUB every three months? You may ask. Here is where I would argue that the microwave logic is coming back into play. With four Ink cards a year you are earning 360,000 points in sign-up bonuses. Once you maximize the office supply spend on these cards you’ll end up with 875,000 points. If you did the same thing with the aforementioned Amex card, you’d end up with 1.9 million points, netting you over 2 times more than you would get with the Inks.
Yes, Hyatts have good redemptions but I can tell you straight away that if I told you to double the points price on any of the rooms you would start to reconsider. Those 45,000 URs you used for Park Hyatt New York could have been 97,650 MRs; and with 97,650 MRs even if you decided to transfer MRs to Hilton (shudder) and book the newly devalued (second shudder) Waldorf Astoria, you’d still have a decent chunk of change left to put a mother-in-law (third shudder) you hate in the adjacent Doubletree.
Treat Points like a Currency
And currencies can always be exchanged.
Remember that many airlines sell miles at a discount very frequently. That cash back card that can phone a friend can be used to make an Aeroplan redemption.
Better yet, you can even trade with friends instead of dealing with the airlines/hotels themselves to make it even sweeter. Yes, you can always find a buddy that will buy Amex points from you at 1.35cpp; just like how you can also find a buddy that will sell Hyatt points to you at the same price. Does that mean you’ve transferred Amex points to Hyatt? I’ll leave you and your new Guest of Honor booking to decide for yourselves.
These jet bridge advertisements are getting… oddly specific.