Churning Life Podcast

This month was a big month for buying groups with a lot of Amazon deals for Prime Day. On the travel side I talk about a quick trip to Cabo to visit the Waldorf Astoria and my experience with Starlink internet. 

This is a beginner focused episode and is part one of a two part series: Part one is focused on the making money side of churning and part two will be more geared towards points and award travel. Topics include a rundown of the credit card issuers to start churning sign-up bonuses with, some basic methods for manufactured spending, and the types of skills that a churner should develop.

Amex:

• Can hold up to 5 credit cards at a time.
• Can hold up to 10 charge (pay over time) cards at a time.
• Maximum of 2 credit card approvals every 90 days (2/90). No restriction on charge cards.
• Only one approval per product every 90 days (1/90). Upgrades and downgrades don't count.
• Must keep a card open for 12 months to avoid clawback of the sign-up bonus.

Chase:

• You can't get approved for any credit card if you have had more than 4 personal card approvals in the last 24 months - stay at less than 5 (5/24). 
• There's no hard limit, but there tends to be a max of 3-4 ink business cards before they won't approve any more.

US Bank:

• Applications made on the same day will only have one hard pull (most of the time).
• LLCs can help scale duplicate applications.

Bank of America:

• Applications within 30 days will only have one hard pull.
• LLCs can help scale duplicate applications.

Amazon:

• Accounts need to be well-seasoned (6-12 months is ideal).
• Up to 3 accounts can make the same order with the same credit card every 7 days.
• One prime account can add one additional household member account and up to 6 teen accounts that share prime benefits (teens must still be seasoned).
• Address jig is not required, but if you don't jig then you can't get a refund for lost items.

Walmart:

• Accounts need to be somewhat seasoned.
• It helps to avoid changing payment methods prior to making large orders.
• Limits reset overnight (usually limited to two orders per day of the same product).
• Hard to get a refund for missing items.

Best Buy:

• No seasoning required.
• Once a credit card has had a canceled order, that card will no longer work.
• Limits reset every 24 hours.
• Very hard to buy apple products and streaming sticks.
• Hard to get a refund for missing items.

The 12th monthly recap episode! Echo dots went on sale again and I had success with some smaller buying groups, which made for another great month. This episode also has a mini-trip report to Colorado to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park.

A quick episode to recap our trips to LA to visit Universal Studios Hollywood and a week-long trip to Guatemala. 

This was another breakout month for me for buying groups as I was able to order over $200k worth of product, mostly from echo dots. I am very happy with the automation tools that I've set up for BGs and hoping for more deals like this in the future!

In this episode I chat with a member of the Slack on how one might be able to leverage churning skills towards other "AP" ventures such as sports betting and casino games. 

Resources discussed in the episode:

• Risk of Ruin podcast
• Circles Off podcast
• The Unabated Podcast
• Be Better Bettors podcast
• Gamberly (message to get into the Discord)
• Betbash conference

This month had it's ups and downs with some successes with Best Buy and Pepper but had a series of missing items shipping to buying groups. It was overall a solid month but I missed on a few key spots that could have made it even better.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

In this episode I talk with Logan from Aligned Incentives about how he started his gift card brokerage and how it operates today.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

Business is continuing to go well with Best Buy with laptops and this month I was able to buy Playstation Portals for the first time. I did have a few issues with packages not getting delivered and I had my first missing items case with Amazon. I also recap my experience with the Bank of America business checking bonus and how I eventually got it to post.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

A recap of our week-long trip in Miami and St Croix, USVI, where we had a really fun experience. I also discuss the latest Wyndham/Vacasa and Hyatt devaluations and what's next after Best Buy.

To join the free Slack group and sign up for the mailing list, head over to churninglife.com.