My dirty secret is I almost love Amex more than my family. They have bent over backwards when I’ve needed help (stolen wallet outside of the country while traveling), and while I pay $550/year for the card, I get all of the fee back in services while traveling (lounge, airline incidental credits, etc).

Can’t say enough good things about Americans Express.

Can't speak from personal experience, but my father would certainly agree with you. As would a number of other people I know.

A surprising number of people seem to have 'When shit hits the fan, Amex delivers' stories.

One trick with the AMEX Gold/Platinum is that certain airline e-giftcards under certain dollar amounts trigger the airline incidental credits: https://thepointsguy.com/guide/airline-gift-cards-amex-incid...

The life hack is to sign up for new cards with signup bonus every time you meet minimum spend on the previous card. Signup bonuses significantly dwarf any regular points, even in category cards.

(Personally, I find Chase UR much better than Amex MR.)

That kills your credit rating though, doesn't it?

Not in my experience. It definitely costs some credit rating, but (a) if you aren't applying for a loan, credit score isn't valuable to you to begin with, and (b) it bounces back within a handful of months. My credit score bounces around within a 30 point range centered at ~765 or ~785 depending on which bureau you ask.

I would suggest not doing this for a few months before applying for a mortgage or car loan. Also, only works if you pay your bills on time (auto-pay) and don't carry a balance (22% hurts) (i.e., have your personal financial house in order first).

Not really. Because of the rules to generate the score (see Credit Karma etc) the effects of a new card mostly balance each other out if you have an old enough average age of credit. On the order of -150 pts for a few months.

The only really valid question for point hacking is, "Are you planning to do anything with your credit score in the next 6 months?"

Decreases credit score: Decreases average age of credit

Increases credit score: Increases total number of credit accounts, decreases utilization rate vs total credit

The main barrier to doing this is single-card limits at certain banks (e.g. Chase's "No more than x new cards in y months").

Not even close to -150 in my experience, hah.

And Chase's 5/24 rule only includes personal cards; many people on HN may consult or otherwise have a business, and business cards don't count. Even sole proprietors (which is you, if you have a SSN) can get business cards.

I gave a ceiling number, as someone asking likely wouldn't have an optimized card portfolio for bonuses.

Worst case, they're pulling their second card, where it could easily have a 150 pt impact.

Last I heard, the Chase rule is a lot more nuanced than that with business cards. And if you're at 5/24, you'll be turned down for a new Chase business card as well.

It will lower it a few points.

If you have a house and a car it kinda doesn’t matter anymore. Those are the only credit I use, and both loans are already made. If travel hacking lowers my credit score from 800 to 785, which makes the APR of some credit card I never carry a balance on go from 18% APR to 21% APR.... so what?

You usually can get the best house loan rate at like 760 so not too hard to stay above that if you are past 30 and pay your bills (being old is s free credit score boost)