How Often Should I Chase a Credit Card Signup Bonus?
See the accepted answer for this question.  What effect will credit card churning for frequent flyer miles have on my credit score? This does not directly answer 'how often...' that you asked, but it states that the answerer opens 5-15 accounts per year.  So the answer to your question is, as often as you want, as long as you manage your account ages. The reason for this is that there are two factors in opening a new account that affect your credit card score.  One is average age of accounts. The other is credit inquiries.  That answerer, with FICO in high 700s, sees about a 5% swing based on new cards and closing old ones. You'll have to manage average age of accounts.  I assume this is done by keeping some older ones open to prop up the average, and by judiciously closing the churn accounts. Finally, if you choose to engage in churning, and you intend to apply for a large loan and want a good credit score, simply pause the account open/close part of the churn a couple of months ahead of time.  Your score should recover from the temporary hits of the inquiries.   The churning communities really do have how to guides which discuss the details of this.  Key phrase: credit card churning. An inquiry to your credit report is a slight ding and lasts 2 years. I'd suggest that if you are playing the bonus game you watch your score closely, and if it drops below the level you'd like to maintain, hold off a while. Credit Karma offers a good simulation to show the impact of inquiries, utilization, new accounts, etc. Your credit score is definitely affected by the age of your credit accounts, so if you frequently close one card and open another new one, you're adversely affecting the overall average age of accounts.  This is something to consider and whether it is worth what you're trying to achieve. Sometimes, if you're a good customer and are insistent enough, you can simply call your credit card company and use the threat of closing your account in favor of another card that offers something attractive to get your current bank to sweeten its incentives to keep your business.  I know many people who've done this with real success, and they spare themselves the hassle of obtaining a new card and suffering the short term consequences on their credit report.  This might be an avenue worth trying before you just close the account and move on. I hope this helps. Good luck!
I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will be better off in the end if you can just not use your card you are better off in the long run.  That said if you are determined to get a card you can control go to a credit union or local bank.  Most of them will give you the credit limit you want.  This may provide you with a card that you can make use of but know that you can not go wild.  The down side is most of these will not be reward cards but my local credit union gave me a 7% card where my Chase card is at 18%(was 5% before the changes to credit card regulations). "Yes, it can be a good idea to close unused credit cards.  I am going to give some reasons why it can be a good idea to close unused accounts, and then I will talk about why it is NOT necessarily a bad idea. Why it can be a good idea to close unused accounts ""I'd like to close the cards.""  That is reason enough.   Simplifying your financial life is a good thing.  Fewer accounts let you focus your energy on the accounts that you actually use. Unused accounts still need to be monitored for fraud. You mentioned that you have high credit card balances that you are carrying.  This may indicate that you have trouble using credit responsibly, and having more credit available to you might be a temptation for you. If these unused cards have annual fees, keeping them open will cost money. Unused cards sometimes get closed by the bank due to inactivity.  As a result, the advice often given is that, in addition to not closing them, you are supposed to charge something to it every month.  This, of course, takes more of your time and energy to worry about, as well as giving you another monthly bill to pay. Why it is NOT necessarily a bad idea to close unused accounts Other answers will tell you that it may hurt your credit score for two reasons: it would increase your utilization and lower your average account age.  Before we talk about the validity of these two points, we need to discuss the importance of the credit score. Depending on what your credit score currently is, these actions may have minimal impact on your life.  If you are in the mid 700's or higher, your score is excellent, and closing these cards will likely not impact anything for you in a significant way. If you aren't that high in your score yet, do you have an immediate need for a high score?  Are you planning on getting more credit cards, or take out any more loans?  I would suggest that, since you have credit card debt, you shouldn't be taking out any new loans until you get that cleaned up.  So your score in the mean time is not very important. Are you currently working on eliminating this credit card debt?  If so, your utilization number will improve, even after you close these accounts, when you get those paid off.  Utilization has only a temporary effect on your score; when your utilization improves, your score improves immediately. Your average account age may or may not improve when you close these accounts, depending on how old they are compared to the accounts you are leaving open.  However, the impact of this might not be as much as you think. I realize that this advice is different from other answers, or other things that you may read online.  But in my own life, I do a lot of things that are supposedly bad for the credit score: I only have two credit cards, ages 2.5 and 1.5 years.  (I closed my other cards when I got these.)  My typical monthly utilization is around 25% on these cards, although I pay off the balance in full each month, never paying interest.  I have no car loan anymore, and my mortgage is only 4 months old.  No other debt.  Despite those ""terrible"" credit practices, my credit score is very high. Conclusion Make your payments on time, get out of debt, and your score will be fine.  Don't keep unwanted accounts open just because someone told you that you should." This isn't exactly the answer you were looking for, but it is something else to consider. Rather than just running money through the card to get the bonus, have you considered spending that $5,000 in the form of good debt? In other words, can you purchase some asset that will create more cashflow than you would be paying on the card with the $5,000 balance? The idea is instead of running up the balance and paying it back off to get the bonus, maybe you could buy an asset for $5,000, create positive cashflow with the opportunity for long term capital gains, and get the credit card bonus. You could even turn around and use the bonus to pay back part of the credit card balance, thus reducing the payments and widening the profit margin on the asset. This was a good move by Amazon.  If you don't already get your groceries delivered, you should really give it a shot.  It's often free delivery a few times for new signups.  Your produce, meat, everything is picked from the very best.  It's delivered in a fridge/freezer truck to your home.  I just have them hand bags off to me, quick and done in a few minutes.  The amount of money i've saved from using grocery delivery is amazing.  I'm a single guy, i don't shop all to well myself when i'm actually in a store.  I grab expensive chips and stuff I didn't plan on buying.   This way I plan out meals, google recipes for what's on sale, and don't even need to leave the house the entire time.  Amazon's trying to do exactly this.  That's great, but it's so cheap and awesome right now, you should really give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about.  edit: talking about king soopers, safeway, etc. I've tried all who offer it, service and experience is great across them all so far. "I think this advice to carry a balance each month is nonsense.  You're just wasting money that way.  Personally, I have always paid off my credit cards every month for as long as I can remember, and my credit score is only 8 points below the max.  The bigger factors by far are: It might be good advice to charge a small amount each month on your credit cards each month in order to keep seldom-used accounts active (remember, longer payment history is better), but there's no reason not to pay off the balance to avoid the interest charges.  In short, the ""ideal balance"" to carry month-to-month on a credit card is zero." "One key point that other answers haven't covered is that many credit cards have a provision where if you pay it off every month, you get a grace period on the interest.  Interest doesn't accrue at all unless you rollover a non-zero balance.  But if you do, you pay interest on the average balance, not the rolled-over balance, for the entire month. You have to ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish with your credit history? Are you trying to maximize your ""buying power"" (really, leverage)?  Or are you trying to make sure that you get the best terms on a moderately sized loan (house mortgage, car note)? As JohnFx and losthorse already noted, it's in the banker's best interest to maximize the profit they make off of you.  Of course, that is not in your best interest. Keeping a credit card balance from month to month definitely feeds the greedy nature of the financing beast.  And makes them willing to take more risks, because the returns are also higher.  But those returns cost you. If you are planning to get sensible loans in the future, that you can comfortably afford, you won't need a maxed credit score.  You won't get the largest loan amounts, but because you are doing the sensible thing and making a large down payment, the risk is also very low and you'll find lenders willing to give you a low interest rate.  Because even though the reward is lower than the compulsive purchaser who pays an order of magnitude more in financing fees, the return/risk ratio is still very favorable to the bank. Don't play the game that maximizes their return.  That happens when you have a loan of maximum size, high interest rate, and struggle to make payments, end up missing a couple and paying late fees, or request forbearance which compounds the interest. Play to minimize risk." Carrying a small balance is generally better for your credit score that paying off in full every month by virtue of the statistics and models that give you a credit score for a certain product. Banks don't want to lend to customers that aren't going to be profitable, in my experience customers who can show that they have credit over time are generally awarded a higher score. So my advice would be to keep a small, manageable balance on the credit card, paying off the balance and then spending a little again on the card to keep at roughly constant balance. This revolving credit is the purpose of the product, and by showing you can use it sensibly, you will be rewarded over time. Source: I build credit scoring models for a big UK lender, specialising in credit cards and personal loan modelling. Buy one and use it but never spend more than you can pay off at the end of the month.  Also, remember that the length of credit affects your rating too, so don't go canceling cards and/or getting new ones every time a new gimmick comes along.