Want a free trip to Paris?
Just sign up.
Hard-core collectors of frequent-flier miles are turning credit card sign-up bonus offers into vast stashes of miles, points and expensive trips by opening new card accounts by the dozen. Some practitioners call it travel hacking, and at a time when travelers are frustrated by declining service and growing airline fees and fares, it represents a rare travel bonanza.
The big play among mileage addicts is signing up for what are now huge credit card bonuses - up to 100,000 miles or hotel points. Scott McCartney on Lunch Break explains how some people are signing up for more than 40 credit cards as a result.
Card sign-up bonuses rocketed onto the free-perk scene a couple of years ago, then waned. Now they've come back strong, with some companies advertising bonuses of up to 50,000 miles for people with good credit. Others are offering even more miles directly to high spenders in unadvertised deals.
In March, Capital One Financial Corp. gave away one billion miles by offering bonuses matching customers' airline frequent-flier account balances of up to 100,000 miles.
"Credit-card churn is the big thing now,'' said Brad Larney, a San Diego industrial salesman who has collected hundreds of thousands of frequent-flier miles from sign-up bonuses.
Fabrizio Costantini for the Wall Street Journal Rick Draper of Canton, Mich., grabs sign-up offers from credit cards and airlines to build up hundreds of thousands of free miles.
Mr. Larney is a skilled player of frequent-flier mileage stratagems. Three years ago when the U.S. Mint offered to sell dollar coins with free shipping in an effort to get more into circulation, he was among the crafty consumers who charged coins to credit cards, collected miles from their card rewards and deposited the coins in their bank to pay the Mint. Presto: free miles.
Among the loot he has collected so far from credit-card bonuses: first-class tickets to Cape Town, South Africa, for himself and his wife that would have cost more than $30,000. His cost: $2,000 in taxes and fuel surcharges on the British Airways tickets.
Most new cards are free since issuers typically waive annual fees for the first year. Sign-up bonuses come with requirements to charge $1,000 or so on the card within the first few months. People who churn cards say it's important to meet these requirements and pay off balances monthly to avoid hefty finance charges. They also typically check their credit ratings regularly.
Rick Draper, who does website work for a bank in Detroit, was offered 75,000 American Airlines miles for signing up for a Visa or American Express card through Citibank. With two browsers open on his computer, he put through applications for each at the same instant and got approved for both. Then his wife, a preschool and piano teacher, did the same.
Fabrizio Costantini for the Wall Street Journal Mr. Draper carries five cards in his wallet and has 30 to 40 at home.
After meeting minimum spending requirements, the couple had 300,000 miles—more than enough for two first-class tickets to Buenos Aires next month.
That was just the start. When Capital One earlier this year offered sign-up bonuses on its Venture card matching up to 100,000 miles on a frequent-flier account balance, Mr. Draper and his wife both got cards and 100,000 bonus miles each.
Fabrizio Costantini for the Wall Street Journal Mr. Draper's cards
Adding a Venture small-business card brought the total haul to 300,000 free points, which he parlayed into $4,500 worth of Hyatt Hotel certificates and free luxury rooms in Buenos Aires. Enough was left over for a family trip to the Disney Grand Hyatt Cypress in Florida.
"I carry five cards in my wallet and probably have 30 to40 sitting at home,'' Mr. Draper said. "I do this to experience a level of travel that I couldn't do otherwise.''
Credit experts say opening and closing card accounts can hurt your credit score, but the degradation is usually small and recovers within a few months.
When card companies request your information from credit bureaus, your score may drop a few points. And when you open an account, your credit score can take a hit because research has shown that people who open new accounts tend to be riskier, said Barry Paperno, consumer-affairs manager at Fair Isaac Corp., which created the FICO score, a key credit measure used by lenders. The average age of your accounts and how much available credit you use also affect your score.
Opening new card accounts over several months won't have much impact, but opening and closing 10 accounts at once could push a very strong credit score (760 and above) to average or below, said Kenneth Lin, who tracks credit issues at CreditKarma.com, a credit-information website.
Mr. Lin said he's a frequent flier-mile "junkie" himself who will turn over at least one card a year. "You take a five-point [credit] hit but pick up 25,000 bonus miles, and that's a good trade off.''
Banks issuing credit cards say the sign-up bonuses have been popular with "transactors''—industry lingo for people who charge heavily and pay balances off each month. The recession, credit crunch and a new law limiting how credit-card companies can boost interest rates or hit consumers with fees and penalties have made card issuers hungrier for transactors with good credit.
The banks say they target sign-up bonuses to particular consumers they want as customers, based on spending patterns and credit quality. The most generous offers get pitched to only the most desirable customers. Sign-up bonuses are also used to keep customers from straying to competitors by getting them to switch cards within the same bank. "The offers have increased over time,'' said Leah Gerstner, a spokeswoman for American Express Co.
Capital One said its Venture card offer to match up to 100,000 miles per customer hit one billion miles in just 25 days. The company said the promotion was intended to make frequent travelers more aware of the Venture card.
Since the offer was made in March, the company doesn't yet know how many customers will stay with the card once the first-year waiver of the $59 annual fee expires, but it expects the "vast majority'' to continue using it, said Shane Holdaway, a managing vice president at Capital One.
A "small but active group samples everybody to get free deals," but most consumers don't have the time to research lots of different programs, Mr. Holdaway said.
"The folks who go after these programs are pretty savvy, he said. "They know what they are doing."
