Is there any validity to the idea that you should apply all at one time? Reason being to mitigate potential short term damage to score.
Likely doesn't make that much of a difference, but if you want, go for it. :)
The wife and I went on a spree last summer, signed up for a bunch of cards and earned 1MM+ miles. Well worth it. Credit took a small hit in the short term, then went back up.
If you have no plans for needing your credit in the next year or two, I'd say that's a great use for your credit. Why have it as a useless asset?
Just don't get in over your head, always pay your bills in full, etc. But it can be very lucrative, and even help your credit score, so when you go to buy a house your score is even better (or solidly in the highest echelon so you don't have to worry about it dipping down and affecting you).
I'd love to hear more about how you earned a million miles! Is there a thread on that by chance?
No thread yet, but it wasn't anything complicated.. my wife and I signed up for about 10 cards each, w/ each having about a 50k signup bonus (some had 30k, some 70k, but most had 40-50k, averaged about 50k overall) = 1MM miles (plus change from the spending we did on them to hit minimum spends, came out to just under 1.1MM). Total cost of fees not waived first year and manufactured spending was about 1k. We've already had 11 round trip flights, 2 nights at a hotel, booked 3 round trip flights for others (for which they reimbursed us, but saved them money overall versus paying for it themselves, and it recouped about 700 of that 1000), and still have about 700k miles left. So non-reimbursed out of pocket costs to date are $300, and we have dozens of flights left. (And I could redeem ~300k of those miles for $3000 cash, so I could literally having them pay me money, and still have a ton of miles, if I didn't have better uses for it.)
It was well worth jumping into, and I wish we had done it sooner.
Your credit score is an asset, and that's one of the best ways to use it.
I am SOO intrigued by this. I just read your post out loud to SO and we are very interested in jumping into this.
It's worth it. I wish I hadn't waited so long to dive in. I heard of it years before, but kept dismissing it as "too much work" or "not worth it" -- It absolutely isn't, and it certainly is.
Now some people go really hardcore and do tons of MS for the few % cash back.. we didn't care about that, but just went for the low hanging fruit. I knew that if it was gonna be a hassle, I wouldn't bother, so we just went with the easiest methods possible, even if there was a slightly more efficient way or slightly cheaper way.
In other words, if I could spend $1000 to earn $20,000 and make it very little work, or spend $800 to earn that 20,000 and have it be much more work (to the point where I wouldn't bother), probably better to spend the extra to make it less hassle, so that I will actually do it. In "normal" life I'm willing to put in the effort to save a buck, but with this I decided I'll just go for the easy so I don't have an excuse.
The best way to get started is subscribe to a few of the travel hacking blogs and podcasts, and after a few weeks/months of reading and listening, you'll know what you need. It's a lot to wrap your head around at first, but just learn a little bit at a time, and don't be afraid to try it out. :)