Juggling 3 Credit Card Bonuses Is Hard

 Ugh, I got too excited trying to join the credit card churning game. I haven't quite joined the super-churners of churning credit card sign-up bonuses for huge travel points but I dabble a bit.

I think last year I did about 3 cards. I did the... buy gift card and use gift card to buy money order. It was a little scary because it involved other humans. But I had free time then.

Without any real goal there, I kind of let that part of Churning go for a little while.

But then I received my HOA bill for 2022 and it was about $700. I thought hmm, that's an easy $500 spend, let me get a credit card sign-up bonus.

Well suddenly 1 sign-up bonus led to three. Ugh. I got caught up in all the chatter on the Doctor of Credit site and I wanted to join in on the fun.

I originally was like let me just do 2 sign-up cards because I could split the $700 HOA fee across 2 cards for potentially $400 cash back.  For the remaining $300 spend, I could finagle a couple utility bills. Win! 

I even tested the HOA platform to make sure I could split payments. Apparently, I didn't take the test far enough.

Earlier this week I tried to see if I could just schedule the payment for January 1 to make sure I don't forget and lo! There is like a $30 fee to make the $700 payment. I expected maybe a small fee, but $30 was a glaring number. I don't even like paying my utility bill with a credit/debit card because they charge $2.25 for the first $1k, so $30 was offensive. 

Ugh. 

Even though I stood to gain at least $350-$370 in cashback (depending on if I split the cost across 2 cards), I was not happy.

So instead of just sucking it up as a lesson learned, somehow I convinced myself to apply for another card! One of my current Bank Churners were marketing $300 cashback on $900 spend. I thought, sweet. This way I can use 1 card for the HOA fee ($700) and make up the rest. That way I at least get closer to $270. I don' t know why $270 sounds better than $300+ but that's how my mind works. I think because it would be with one transaction vs 2? I don't know.

So luckily I was approved for Credit Card #3. I hope it gets here by Jan 1 when the HOA bill is due!

So now I'm left with 2 Credit Card Spends to meet.

So, now I remember, part of the appeal of getting the 3rd card was leftover from trying to use a CC to fund a new checking account. It's something I hadn't tried before and definitely wanted to!

So I figured I would use Credit Card #2 to fund a new checking account. Ugh! The bank I had in mind required Paypal to use a credit card to fund the account. Okay, another log-in but this is part of the churning fun. I even downloaded the Paypal app because they were giving $5 to do that. Fail! I needed a real cellphone number apparently to use Paypal now! I haven't needed to before but I guess that's a thing now.

Thwarted. I tried to open new checking and savings accounts with institutions I already had relationships (that led you fund with a CC) and was swiftly denied.

Ugh. What was supposed to be fun, now just took a turn. 

Credit Card #3 will be split between internet and power bills for 4 months. Luckily it's a 0% interest rate because I will be a bit cash poor in January due to my aggressive savings this year. It will take a couple pay periods to build my reserves back up. 

So I still just have to figure out Credit Card #2.  If all else fails, I can still begrudgingly go the giftcard-to-money-order route, I suppose. 

That's all for now! I signed up for a free trial of YouTube TV so I have some TV watching to do! Merry Christmas!