Episode 10: How to Organize and Keep Track of All of Your Credit Cards

Welcome back. In this short episode I'll elaborate further on how to keep track of all the credit cards that you apply as well as how to track the time line of all of your credit card applications and how long you would have to wait until you would need to cancel the card and apply again and get the bonus points if you can. 

So there's a lot that goes on in this. The best way I can tell you in terms of tracking this is to just have an Excel spreadsheet and if it's not Excel spread sheet, to have a journal, put in a couple columns down so you know, for example the first column can be the date that you applied for the card and a check mark next to the second column to see if you're approved or declined. 

If you're approved for the card, then you would write down the name of the card, the date that you got the bonus points and the amount of the bonus points deposited into which airline account. It's important to write down the date of when you got approved and the other information because it will really help you track all the cards you have, if you are like me who has 12 credit cards at one moment. 

Usually, the last column in my Excel spreadsheet is written out of the eleventh month approaching right before the annual fee comes. This is when I would call up the credit card company to cancel my card.

The thing is that there's no point in paying for the annual fee when you're not going to get anything back from it. You know you're not going to get any especially for the cards that didn't waive the first year fee. There's no way that I would want to pay for the second year annual fee which can you know add up after you have like ten twelve cards at once, and when you do have ten twelve cards at once it can be quite hard to keep track of all of them. 

It's quite important to actually have them written down so that you know cards you have and you know and what they are and when the annual fee will come up. That way you can call up the credit card companies and then cancel them. I definitely highly encourage you guys for those who want advanced and do these travel hacking stuff to actually keep track. And the thing is that it's quite important to be organized with this and if you feel like you're not going to be you know organized with this then this may not be the right thing for you to do unless you're okay with paying the annual fees yearly. 

And another note on the annual fee thing. There are some strategies to avoid paying them like I said on the eleventh month I usually like to just call the credit card company and just tell them that I would like to cancel the card and then you know a lot of times they will ask why. Just make up a reason that doesn't have to be an actual reason or not, and a lot of the times you'll be transferred to a relationship manager and what they'll do is waive the fee and then offer some you know bonus points. 

It won’t be as much as the introduction offer but it's still better than nothing. And if they do that then I usually just accept them. But if they don't then you know I'll just have them close out the card. And you know that will be it. And so now you might be thinking well when can I apply for the next card and the thing is that it really depends on the bank that is behind the credit cards. 

One thing off the bat is and you want to know immediately is that the American Express cards once you apply for them once you get the bonus points. If you apply for the card again you can get approved to get the card but you will not be approved to get the bonus points again.

And that's because the rule is that once you get the bonus points you will never be able to get the bonus points again in the future. So that remains there as their statement as I speak as of August 2016 so you know. I don't know if they'll ever change that but that is the rule for any of the American Express cards. 

Just keep in mind once you apply to the cards once you know everything points again, but for the other banks it can be a little bit easier although nowadays it's getting a little bit harder as all the banks are kind of like moving into the same direction and changing these rules. So for chase cards you have to wait a time period of twenty four months and I believe it's usually one should cancel the card when that twenty four months starts, and after that twenty four months and if you do apply for the card again and you do get approved then you are able to get the bonus points again. But within the twenty four months and if you apply for the card and try to get the bonus points you will not be able to because that is within the time constraint that they don't allow people to get the bonus points again.

I believe Citi recently just started doing that so that is a new rule. Now one last stronghold interestingly that hasn't changed the rule is Bank of America especially with their Alaskan Airlines credit card. Interestingly you can apply for the Alaskan personal business. So this is what I did. I applied for the Alaskan personal business card. I waited ninety days and outside of that ninety days then I applied for the same cards again and got approved. So believe it or not you can actually get the same cards over again and get the bonus points again as long as you pay the annual fee. So in the Bank of America's case they make you pay for the person business annual fee on the first year.

But the great payout is that you get thirty thousand Alaskan airline points pretty quickly to use and later on in the other videos I'll tell you kind of the lucrative airlines and routes that you can use to redeem these Alaskan Airlines points for cool free cheap flights to faraway places or even to treat yourself to an upgrade to business and first class.

I hope this episode helps you out in terms of like timing and organization of having multiple cards. You know once you get five or more then it starts getting a little bit confusing and you want to keep track of the credit cards that are coming in. So that way that you don't forget that you even apply to that card. 

I've done this as my strategy and keeping track of cards and it has worked out really well for the five years that I've started doing this. So I definitely can vouch for it. If you guys have any questions about any of this, definitely let me know and I will answer it in the next episode. 

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Do you have a strategy for keeping track of 10 or more credit cards?

Just comment and let me know if you guys have any questions that you want me to address. 

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If you missed, Episode 09: Major Travel Credit Cards & Their Perks and Benefits

Next, Episode 11: Understanding Airline Alliances & Partnerships Before Redeeming Points

Follow me @hustletoparadise to stay up to date on future episodes of Travel Hacking with Hustle to Paradise.

(Introduction photo courtesy of Richard Tilney Bassett found on Unsplash)