How I’ll Churn $500,000+ in 2024.. and You Can Too!
TL;DR: I’ve been horrible at keeping up with the blog, the Churner’s Lounge is now full of juicy content, and I managed to MS $104,000 to earn $6,310 in value this month.
Welcome to a new year for the blog! Before we diving into the juicy stuff, let me toot my own horn a little and catch you up.
It’s been almost 8 months since my last proper blog post… yikes! Since then, my main focus has been on cultivating the Churner’s Lounge, and I think we’ve done a great job. Thanks to our 200+ members for contributing to our community!
Here are some highlights since last November:
The Churner’s Lounge now has 28 exclusive posts
We launched our Slack! There are tons of discussions and exciting things happening there.
I’ve built several bots on Slack to notify us about stock alerts and more
Going forward, there’s a lot of new stuff in the works for our members, so that’s where the bulk of my focus will be. But I’d still like to keep the blog active, so you can expect occasional posts like these, where I share my personal MS progress towards this year’s goal. New MS methods beyond those already shared on this blog (and there is plenty here for anyone to get started with the MS game) will be posted to the Churner’s Lounge.
So, if you want to chat with me and 200+ other churners, learn new MS methods, or whatever, join our Churner’s Lounge! It has a 7-day free trial, so you can leave with no hard feelings (and a full wallet) if you don’t feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.
Anyways, on to the relevant stuff!
My MS plan for 2024
Last year, I blew through my $100,000 spending challenge in a matter of months. So, I’d like to up the ante significantly this year and see how far we can go. I’ve also got a new player (P3) in my circle, which increases my credit line potential.
My goal for 2024 is to complete a $500,000 spending challenge. To make the accounting easier, let’s start the clock from this month, giving me 7 months to complete the challenge. My approach might be different from most of you. Since my main focus this year is to grow the Churner’s Lounge, I need methods that are time-efficient, even if it means higher fees. My spending goal this year is motivated by two things:
My P2 and I have become addicted to first-class travel and hotels
I’ve made a deal with P3: as long as I can open credit cards in their name, I will fund all of P3’s travel with business class flights, and I get to keep the rest of the points.
With that, about $500,000 in spending should do the trick.
So, how do I plan to do it? Primarily through a combination of the F* method from the Churner’s Lounge and taking advantage of whatever plays are available at the moment. Let me cover what I’ve been doing in May and what kinds of cards I’ve been chasing.
This Month’s Spending
Spending on existing cards (i.e. chasing category bonuses)
Chase Ink Cash x 3 cards
This earns 5x on office supply spending for up to $25,000 on each card. This means there’s a potential of 125,000 UR on each card.
Value: 375,000 UR.
Spent this month: $12,000 ($4,000 Credit Limit per Card) = 12,000 * 5x => 60,000 UR = $1,200 @ 2cpp
Spending Potential for Challenge: $75,000 (currently at $12,000 / $75,000)
Wyndham Earner Business
This card earns 8x on fuel. The Wyndham ecosystem has great redemption value if spent at Vacasa. Maxing my credit limit * 7 months gives me $56,000 of spending potential towards this challenge.
Spent this month: $8,000 = 8000 * 8x => 64,000 Wyndham points = $640 (keep it simple @ 1cpp)
Spending Potential for Challenge: $56,000 (currently at $8,000 / $56,000)
Venture X
This card earns a measly 2x on all spend. Historically, I haven’t used this card towards MS, but got excited when an opportunity presented itself this month to earn a bunch of Cap1 points. More on this later.
Spent this month: $30,000 = 30,000 * 2x => 60,000 cap1 points = $600 @ 1cpp
Spending Potential for this Challenge: $30,000 (currently at $30,000/$30,000. I assume this opportunity won’t appear again)
Citi AA Biz
Recently I’ve been traveling AA domestically, much more than expected. So I’m topping up my AA balance here. Plus, the main benefit with this card is that you can pay it by phone. Pay it with a debit card that earns cashback (the T* method on the Churner’s Lounge), you get 1.5% in cashback. Pair that with the 2x on fuel and that’s ~3.5% back. I’ll be maxing out the credit limit on this card every month as well.
Spent this month: $9,000 = 9000 * 2x => 18,000 AA miles = $270 @ 1.5cpp
Spending Potential for Challenge: $63,000 (currently at $9,000 / $63,000)
Amex Biz Gold x 5 cards
This card earns 4x in certain categories, up to $125,000 in spend. That’s a lot of points if you can find a juiceable category. Fortunately, there is a certain category that I’ve been able to chase for 1.5% cost. This play may not last too much longer, so I’ve been hitting it hard this month.
Spent this month: $45,000 = $45,000 * 4x => 180,000 MR = $3,600 @ 2cpp
Spending Potential for Challenge: $45,000 (currently at $45,000 / $45,000. Let’s assume for now that this doesn’t continue next month)
Spending on new credit cards (i.e. chasing SUBs)
I went hard on the +10x Amex dining referrals this month. Between P2 and I, we’ve done 6 referrals. I know many others do much more than this, but this will result in more than enough points to tide us over for a while. With this offer, we’re eligible for up to 250,000 MR ($25,000 in spend * +10X points per dollar spent on dining) for each card that made a referral, so that comes out 1.5M MR. As part of this, we obviously opened up 6 new credit cards. I haven’t started the SUB for any of these, nor have I started the dining spending, so I’ll cover that in next month’s post.
Total Spending in May: $104,000
Total Value Earned in May: $6,310
How did I do all that spending?
Now, let’s talk about how I completed that spending. I mainly used two methods, both of which have been discussed in the Churner’s Lounge Slack.
The F* method to get most of the category-based spending. I won’t go into this here.
Online gift card reselling. This was how I managed $45,000 in Amex spend and $30,000 in Cap1 spend. There is currently a gift card company selling cards at 10% discount. In the beginning of May, my favorite Buyer’s Group (one of the ones I have listed here) was buying these gift cards at 0% cost. This let me MS on my Cap1 card at 0% cost to earn the 2x points. I won’t cover how I earned the 4x in Amex points here, but it’s much more straightforward than you would think.
That’s it for now, see you next time!
— Aleks
