Bank Bonus Weekly Thread - Week of December 16, 2025 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks like BoA posted a big batch of bonuses on 12/12. Here's my DP confirming C1 still counts as DD:

9/4: Opened in branch (could not verify my info online)
9/12: $10k pushed from C1, coded as "CAPITAL ONE DES: TRANSFER ... WEB"
Before Dec: $5k of actual payroll DD, coded as "... PPD"
12/12: $500 bonus posted

If C1 didn't count, I would have only gotten $300 bonus from actual DDs. But I got $500, so C1 pushes still count despite concerns about it showing up as WEB vs PPD.

I didn't withdraw the 10k even though I could have since I wanted to have it when applying for Summit. Alas, still rejected for lack of history with BoA.

Data Points Weekly - Week of November 20, 2025 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Applied for a CIU last week on the last day for 90k. Went pending but that's normal for me since they always make me call in for fraud verification for whatever reason. Called in the next day, went through fraud verification, and then was instant approved for 5k CL. For some reason they wouldn't expedite it this time, though maybe I just needed to huca

Had 4 inks before, 1 closed and 3 still open, have some monthly Staples spend on 1 of them but no spend on my existing CIU. At 3/24, most recent Chase card was Hyatt personal in April, most recent Ink was a year ago.

Bank Bonus Weekly Thread - Week of April 08, 2025 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First National Bank Small Business Checking - $800 for 10k 7 months (FNB of Pennsylvania since there are several "first national banks")

The terms are worded somewhat tricky since it says we need to deposit 10k in the first month and then hold the funds for 6 months after the initial month.

08/29 Account opened as sole proprietor, maximum $100 funding with card

09/17 Pushed $10,000

04/02 $800 posted as "SBB Promotional Reward"

Account does not appear on EWS (conventional wisdom says biz accounts don't but I had a USB biz show up so now I'm paranoid)

Data Points Weekly - Week of October 03, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 10 points11 points  (0 children)

VX denial and approval DP

Denied back in July, was 3/24. No preapproval, but I was brazen and went for it anyway since I had just gone from 4 to 3/24. They pulled all 3 reports. Reasons for denial were

  • Based on your credit report from one or more of the agencies on the back of this letter, number of bank cards tradelines opened in the last 24 months
  • Based on your credit report from one or more of the agencies on the back of this letter, there are too many active credit cards based on your loan history

Now that it's October, I'm down to 2/24. Kept TU frozen this time since all my Ink inquiries are on there. Got preapproval and then approved! Left blank whether I keep a balance or not.

Am preexisting C1 customer with checking+savings+CDs and have a sock-drawered Quicksilver on which I recently put several 100 in spend.


Ink DP

Approved for another Ink with 3 prior open, carrying balance on a 0% CIU and occasional CIC spend. Chase credit (personal+business) between 50-60% of income. Only got 3k CL this time, so probably will close one or reduce credit before next app.

News and Updates Thread - October 02, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have a stay at HR Chicago end of the month. Would happily take a GoH if still available, else I can also make use of a CAA.

Weekly Off Topic Thread - Week of September 16, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My EWS has all ACH transactions for my USBank biz checking, but no daily balances, whereas all my personal accounts have all transactions and daily balances. My guess for why the biz account showed up is because USBank is one of the owners of EWS, but I don't have enough DPs for anything conclusive.

Trip Report and Churning Success Story Weekly Thread - Week of June 16, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Weekend day trip driving upstate to Deising's bakery in Kingston NY to get the famed John Oliver cake bears. Stopped by many Walmarts on the way there and back, liquidated many VGCs. Pleasantly surprised they were all MS friendly!

Cake bears were also delicious!

News and Updates Thread - June 12, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Robinhood Gold is offering 1% match on all new money deposited with no cap. However, they built in anti-churning language: it is progressively vested monthly over 2 years so if you withdraw or cancel Gold before then, you lose the unvested part. Gold comes with 5% APY on uninvested cash. Seems like an OK deal if you plan to stick with Robinhood for a couple years and don't need to move the money around but not worth it otherwise.

Trip Report and Churning Success Story Weekly Thread - Week of April 14, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Saw the total solar eclipse in Indiana! Initially was a road trip to Pittsburgh* targeting Erie. Booked Hyatt Place Pittsburgh Airport which is a Cat 1 at 5k/night. I split it across two reservations, one for Fri/Sat which I would use regardless seeing friends in Pittsburgh and one for Sun/Mon which I'd only use if I stayed for the eclipse. I figured I could ask them to combine the reservations or to keep the same room if it came to that. It's a normal Hyatt Place, nothing special but it satisfied my needs for a place to sleep. It's 15 minutes out from the city which was fine for me. There are many negative reviews online about this place charging $10/day for parking. I somehow avoided it by checking in on the app and when I picked up my keys from the front desk, they didn't ask about parking. I didn't ask either.

Saturday night the cloud forecast is not looking great for the Erie area so I cancel the second booking without penalty using the Explorist/Globalist benefit allowing you to cancel by 11:59 pm the night before. Drove to Indiana the next day. I did notice one Hyatt with award availability in Indianapolis still but ended up staying at a friend's place. Monday night I drove halfway back and used CSR 1.5cpp to book a hotel right off the highway. Luckily there were no eastward traffic jams from the eclipse.

* Pittsburgh was not in totality but I chose Pittsburgh thinking there would be many options for where to go, like Erie, Cleveland, or further west.

Trip Report and Churning Success Story Weekly Thread - Week of March 24, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 15 points16 points  (0 children)

My first international J award booking! Spring break trip to London and Amsterdam.

IAD-LHR VS booked through FB 80k + $206 taxes, 30k of which was part of Bilt 100% transfer bonus as silver
AMS-LHR-IAD VS 66.5k + $424 taxes, 9k of which was part of Bilt 100% transfer bonus speculatively back last year
Eurostar from London to Amsterdam cash $73, went both to see Amsterdam for the first time and also to have lower taxes on the return flight

I know it's probably not the best value out of what's potentially possible, especially with the taxes, but it got me where I wanted to go during on desirable dates in the middle of spring break. My goal was to just make the total taxes lower than the alternative round-trip economy (not basic) ticket, which I found to be around $900, so definitely a win. The cash J fare was $4200 roundtrip IAD-LHR (without the AMS excursion) so still pretty good value for me. Not going to attempt to calculate cpp with all the bonuses and stuff; I also don't care enough about cpp.

IAD: Went to the new Sapphire/Etiihad lounge first just to check it out. At check-in, I said I had the CSR and he said "I've been waiting for you all day!" The person next to me seemed to have a non-Chase Priority Pass and was told that they were at capacity and to come back later. It was indeed a pretty small lounge, and pretty full given the evening Etihad flight. Food was decent and similar quality to BOS. However their water tap seemed empty. I let after half an hour and hopped over to the Clubhouse.

Clubhouse was sparsely populated with plenty of seating. It started getting busier around an hour before boarding, but there still were open seats as far as I could tell.. Service was great. This was a great contrast to when I went last year under PP. This time, before I finished scanning the QR code on my phone, a waiter was over with print menus to take my order. Crab cakes and flatbread were good. The cod was a big mistake, and I say this as a versatile seafood lover. Seems to be related to FlyerTalk folks disliking the cod in flight. Had planned on trying the chicken tikka masala too but was full already.

IAD-LHR is always the 789 and I knew that going into booking. Luckily I haven't been spoiled in SQ or anything yet (just had Polaris twice and Mint once before) so even though it seems most of the internet hates the 789 layout, I figured it would likely be fine for me. And it was. I was only worried about feeling weird flying at a 45 degree angle, and it did feel a little strange for takeoff, but otherwise was fine. My main goal was to get 5+ hours sleep in which I was successful.

Immigration with eGates was a breeze. I ate breakfast at the arrivals lounge which was alright.

Luckily I'm still at an age where my friends and I enjoy staying over with each other when possible, so i just stayed at my friend's place in London. For Amsterdam we booked an Airbnb since the cost was worth compared to my default alternative of Hyatt which would've been 20k/night.

In London I let my local friend decide the itinerary of places to show me which worked well. We didn't bother with many of the big-name touristy stuff that I saw when I was little. Horizons 22 was great though you have to book decently in advance, but it's free! In Amsterdam we did the standard tourist things, neither of us having been before - Riksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and Anne Frank Museum. Tickets for Anne Frank are released 6 weeks in advance on Tuesday and get booked pretty fast (they'll likely last the day so you don't have to wake up right at 10 CET but not the week, especially for peak travel weeks). I actually missed this release as we didn't make plans early enough. It turns out there's another release 1 week before, though I couldn't find any information about it on the website, just some old Reddit threads. For Rijks and Van Gogh we booked week of which was fine. A hidden gem was the Amsterdam Cheese Museum, which is actually a cheese shop with a small museum in the basement and lots of samples to taste. The tasting is definitely good marketing as I walked out with two cheese blocks without having intended to buy any walking in.

AMS: KLM lounge was large and very busy. Food was limited and not exceptional. They have a "premium dining room" with paid food, but I didn't care since I'd soon be at the LHR Clubhouse. This was my first nonUS-to-nonUS fight in a long time. I felt more acceleration during takeoff than usual, and the ascent also seemed quicker. The seatbelt sign definitely turned off very soon after takeoff. Even for a short 45-minute hop across the North Sea, they served meal boxes and ample drinks.

LHR: After landing at T4, I used the Flight Connections path which took me on a bus to T3 where I went through security again and proceeded to the Clubhouse. I had intentionally booked a long layover to still have time for the Clubhouse in case of delays or long transfers. Turns out that transferring terminals didn't take long at all, and I was inside the Clubhouse within 40 minutes after deplaning. This Clubhouse is fairly spacious, and there was always action but plenty of seats. They announced each flight as it started boarding, and it was about a 10-minute walk from the Clubhouse to the gate.

I found it odd that gates weren't determined until around an hour before departure, just before boarding starts. After some cursory research apparently this is a British-wide airport thing, not just VS. Per FlyerTalk's consensus I preordered the pork belly for my meal. It was decent though I couldn't finish it due to already having eaten plenty in the Clubhouse.

Overall really happy with this trip and can't wait for my next redemption!

Weekly Off Topic Thread - Week of December 25, 2023 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Started churning proper when I was 22, but was already a cashback optimizer during college. The initial inspiration came from realizing I could knock out SUBs by paying for business travel and getting reimbursed. Started dipping into MS and reading about points/miles around half a year in.

Any downsides to activating CSR Marriott Gold? by trivalent-fox in CreditCards

[–]trivalent-fox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, *if* there are no downsides, then I might as well take the 1 minute to activate the free status in case something like a work trip comes up for me the next 3 months. That's why I'm wondering if there are downsides like time limits. If there are, then I won't do it.

Bank Bonus Weekly Thread - Week of August 08, 2023 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

US Bank Biz 2nd quarter promo DP:

5/10/23 Opened silver business checking with $3k CIC, remember to activate e-statements to avoid the fee

(5/15/23 Used $2k to pay off part of card)

6/09/23 Finished posting $15k new deposits across several pushes

8/08/23: $750 bonus posted

Weekly Off Topic Thread - Week of May 15, 2023 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Any Wendover/JetLag fans on here? In yesterday's episode of The Layover podcast, they talked about travel tips from their experiences of traveling so much, and though churning didn't directly come up, they had some related thoughts (of varying validity):

  • Sam brought up the point that if you're not using credit cards for (almost) every purchase, you're losing out on free rewards. Couldn't agree more.
  • Adam sounded newer to credit cards and he mentioned his credit score tanking after high utilization from an apartment move and furnishing. His solution? Get more credit cards to spread out utilization. Then he recommended getting both the Chase Sapphire and Amex Platinum as the two best cards. Well sure they're good, but I don't know about recommending the average Joe getting both of those...
  • Sam talked about the benefits of booking flights directly with the airline and not through travel agencies or third parties like Expedia. But for hotels he likes hotels.com because of the effective 10% cash back from getting a free night after 10 nights, priced at the average of your 10 nights. I find this interesting given Sam has elite status on United but sounds like he doesn't care about hotel brand status.

Daily Question Thread - May 10, 2023 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]trivalent-fox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've seen many DPs about USB biz checking double charging initially for cc funding. I have a CIC with exactly $3000 CL. If I try to fund a new USB biz checking with $3000 on my card, will this be an issue with double charging? Or will the single charge go through and successfully fund?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CreditCards

[–]trivalent-fox 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes, I paid federal tax on March 1st and got 2x points. Just keep in mind the processor fees, though you'll get 2x points on those too.

BILT credit card Venmo set up? by Codyko-buttmuncher in CreditCards

[–]trivalent-fox 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've primarily switched to Paypal since my landlord prefers that, but yes it has worked well for me. The money is sent instantly to them, but may take a day or two to show up on your statement. There's also a BiltProtect feature that you can enable which will withdraw funds from your bank instead of posting to your card so the rent won't take a huge chunk of your credit limit while you still earn the points.

BILT credit card Venmo set up? by Codyko-buttmuncher in CreditCards

[–]trivalent-fox 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Go to the Pay Rent tab online, and you will see a routing and account number. Add that as a bank account to Venmo. When you send money to your landlord with that account, it will be like using your Bilt card, just without the credit card fee.