@mefordis – I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what to reply.
It looks like you’re 5/24 right now (BofA, MPE, JetBlue, CFU, Marriott). The CSP should have dropped off after last month, the SPG Biz and Hilton Biz don’t count, and the Marriott upgrade bonus does not count as a new card account.
It looks like you could drop back down to 4/24 by January 2019, as long as you don’t get any more personal cards. This means sticking to business cards that don’t report to your credit reports. Your next card doesn’t age past 24 months until November 2019.
But since you’re looking at new cards now, you need to decide a long-term strategy of whether you want to try to get back under 5/24 and get more Chase cards, or forget Chase and Ultimate Rewards points and just hit all the other issuers.
The issue I see is you have only two Chase UR-earning cards, the CSP and CFU. The CSP earns 2x UR on dining and travel; the CFU earns 1.5x UR on everything. But neither are big UR points generators from natural everyday spend. And, as long as you are over 5/24, you’re disqualified from being approved for any of Chase’s other UR cards, many of which have big signup bonuses. Here’s the “BIG” IF – if you were under 5/24, you’d be eligible for, and could build a strategy around getting the following:
CIP [80k UR bonus] – business card, for which you have to be under 5/24 to get, but won’t add to your 5/24 count, and earns you 3x UR on bills that don’t otherwise accept credit cards by using Plastiq, e-gift cards to hundreds of retailers and restaurants through apps like Gyft and Swych, your cable, internet, and cell phone bills, and phone insurance, Venmo payments.
CIC [50k UR bonus] — business card, for which you have to be under 5/24 to get, but won’t add to your 5/24 count, and earns you 5x UR at office supply stores, which sell all kinds of gift cards, including retailers, restaurants, gas,
Amazon, Disney; e-gift cards through apps like Gyft and Swych; cable, internet, and cell phone bills.
CIU [50k UR bonus] – business card, for which you have to be under 5/24 to get, but won’t add to your 5/24 count, and earns you 1.5x UR everywhere.
CSP [50k UR bonus] – you could product change your current CSP to the no fee Chase Freedom (you should do this anyway to take advantage of the 5x UR quarterly bonus categories), which would allow you to sign up for the CSP and get the bonus again 24 months after you received your last CSP bonus.
CSR [50k UR bonus] – which you could double dip with the CSP when you’re eligible. 3x UR earning on dining and travel. UR points pooled on and redeemed from this card get a 50% bonus in value towards travel booked through the Chase UR portal and Chase’s
travel agency.
With a mix of these UR cards in your wallet, your spending would be worth a lot more because instead of the 1.5-2x UR that you’re earning on the CSP and CFU now, you could be earning 3x-5x UR on pretty much everything, and thus generate a lot of UR points from organic spend even while you are trying to cool down with Chase or locked out of more signup bonuses. I have the CSR, CIP, CIC, and CF in my wallet, and I posted a list a few weeks back that showed which card I use for almost every category of our spending.
And since the Chase business cards don’t add to your 5/24 count (but you have to be under 5/24 to get them), interspersing Chase business cards with applications for other cards can really stretch out your strategy to pick up more than just “5” cards with Chase.
The issue is you blew straight through 5/24 around November and December last year, and you didn’t pick up the Chase UR cards for their bonuses or long-term earning potential.
It looks like DH is 4/24, and could get approved for the above cards, but with only one slot left it’s best he maximizes the use of that slot with Chase business cards. But I understand he’s a little hesistant to apply for business cards.
One reason why it’s a good idea to build a stash of UR points and have a card like the CSR that can redeem the points at 1.5x value is your DeltaOne example. Now, I’m not a Delta flyer, but I understand they call Delta miles SkyPesos because it can take a lot of them to redeem for an award flight. Your 1 million SkyPesos award ticket has to have a cash value. Instead of trying to sign up for however many cards (I doubt you could sign up for enough cards that even gets you close to 1 million SkyPesos), you could use UR points to book that ticket as a cash fare through the UR portal for a more reasonable amount of points, and having a CSR makes your UR points worth 50% more (or, check my math, 66% off if you value 1 UR at just 1 cent.)
I’ll quote
@calypso726 ’s example about buying a Delta first-class ticket with 181k UR points rather than shelling out 700k SkyPesos:
Now, if you focus on only non-reporting business cards for the next 4-5 months, you’ll be at 4/24 by January. In the meantime, you could pick up the Marriott Biz now, since that’s not subject to the 5/24 rule yet, and it won’t add to your 5/24 count. You could pick up the CIP in January 2019. Then, wait 3 months – don’t apply for any new cards, or only non-reporting business cards from other issuers, then pick up the CIC in about April 2019. Note that the upper limit of how many business cards Chase will approve you for under only your SSN seems to be about 3. Each business card application gets tougher as Chase extends you more credit with each one. Come August 2019, when your Marriott Biz hits one year, you can cancel it, and try for the CIU. By November or December, most of your other cards will age past 24 months, and you should have a lot of options open with Chase again.
I’m going to end it here for now, and let you think about this and respond.
Do you want to try to get back under 5/24 and get more Chase cards, or forget Chase and Ultimate Rewards points and just hit all the other issuers?
If anybody posts something new and helpful here please encourage them to add it over there (or tag me so I can put it there).
was my settle in and enjoy it inspiration! (Admittedly my 
probably has more to do with why I’m enjoying it so much right now...)
