I'm a noob to churning (cc) so please excuse my ignorance. I've opened 3-4 cc's this year for the cash back. I noticed my credit score keeps dropping as I open new accounts. I knew this would happen going into it. My question is, how do you guys keep your score up when churning? It seems if it gets too low you'll get denied at some point. I do put most (90%) of my spending on the cards, I'm not sure what else I can do to keep my score relatively high?
Bank accounts shouldn't usually hard pull (check DoC for data points). I've found that my score dips when I get a new card but after a month or so ends up even higher. What's your current score? I am not super hardcore, I open about 4 accounts per year, but have found that my score is actually increasing with additional lines of credit.
Currently, it's 786. Before I started churning it was 8-something. It has gone up 3 points since last month, so you're right about the month to month thing. I'll keep tabs on it. I would do some bank account churning as well, but my credit union is kind of the "hub" of my financial life, I'm not sure I want to switch my direct deposit up.
I think people fuss too much sometimes about their credit score.
Generally speaking, anything above 760, sometimes as low as 740, will get you the best interest rates on mortgages and the like. So the fact that it dropped from 8XX to 786 is inconsequential.
Secondly, unless you're planning on getting a loan anytime soon, I wouldn't care about your credit score one bit. So long as you don't care about getting loans, your credit score is an asset that can be used to get you credit cards with juicy signup bonuses. So long as you keep getting approved for credit cards and can meet the minimum spend requirements, I'd just keep applying for more cards. If/when you start getting denied for cards is when you know you should slow down.
And if you are getting a mortgage in the near future, you probably shouldn't be cc churning anyways since while the cc signup bonuses can be lucrative, even a small increase in your mortgage rate can easily add up to tens of thousands of dollars which would easily dwarf credit card signup bonuses.