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u/TheSultan1EWR, FTWJul 14 '21edited Jul 14 '21
After reading a ton of shutdown DPs, and the comments from others here, I realize I overestimated the bust-out risk. Sorry about that.
I did read through the entire flowchart originally, and did see the "Notes for Newbies" section; that was one of the caveats that I mentioned, but caveats sprinkled in a couple places don't overcome the implied high velocity.
Now that I have time to write, I would suggest the following:
Change "Under-5/24 approach" to "Basic under-5/24 approaches" (or "strategies") and change the text below to say something like:
"- Stay under 5/24: Stay eligible for Chase cards long-term by maintaining an average personal card opening velocity of 1 card every 6 months or slower. To increase earnings but keep your x/24 count low, add business cards that don't show up on personal reports."
"- Blow past 5/24: Make a list of all the Chase cards you want in order of highest-to-lowest priority/value, and start working down the list, maintaining an average spacing of at least 3 months between them. Plan out your personal (Chase) and business (Chase and others) card opening dates so you don't get to 5/24 before you've gotten the last Chase card you want. Remember, business cards from Chase don't add to the count, but you do need to be <5/24 to get them."
"Sometimes, a really good offer comes along, but taking it would affect the strategy you chose. In the first scenario, increasing your velocity by adding your next personal card 'early' may put you at 5/24 for a few months, which would prevent you from opening another Chase card soon. In the second, adding to your x/24 count with a non-Chase card (or a Chase card that you didn't think you'd want) may mean either dropping a Chase card (the last one) from your plan or switching to biz cards for some time to give an older card time to age past 24 months."
That "Blow past 5/24" part is wordy, but I'm having a hard time shortening it. Actually, I don't know if any of my wording is OK, that part about modifying plans is... bleh.
In the Chase Cards section:
- "you'll be able to get up to 5 Chase personal cards" - this is actually the one that made me think "5-and-done with Chase."
- "One Chase card per 3 months is the recommended sustained velocity" - this reinforces the "Apply for a Chase card every 3 months" in the top box, as it implies a speed rather than a speed limit.
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u/m16pSFO, SJCJul 14 '21
Thanks for the great suggestion!
The current flowchart does kind of implicitly assume you will go past 5/24 within 2 years of starting (i.e., you are applying for enough cards that 5/24 is actually relevant for you). So I guess in many ways the current under-5/24-section is basically like what you are calling the "blow past 5/24" option, just implicit in that regards whereas your suggestion makes it more explicit.
I'll definitely think about ways to incorporate your suggestion in the flowchart, likely the next iteration of the flowchart though (I think it'll be a big change...). It would be valuable to at least mention that staying under 5/24 indefinitely (or at least for a few years) is an option. Conceptually, this is kind of a new branching point near the top of the flowchart. Like if you answer "Yes" to being under 5/24, then the next question could be "Do you plan to get more than X cards in the next two years?", and if "No" then you don't need to worry about 5/24 and can just get whatever card you want. Pinning down a value of X is subtle though, since if you are open to business cards than X could be as high as like 10ish but if you aren't then X needs to be 4 or fewer. Also, actually adding this question up there will make the flowchart visually rather messy. So instead, perhaps leaving the core part of the flowchart as-is but adding a detailed "Note" somewhere (either in the "Notes for under 5/24 section" and/or as a new note near "General Notes") which mentions what you called the "stay under 5/24" option. Off the top of my head I'm kind of leaning towards the latter, since it seems like it is an alternative to the entire flowchart, not just the under-5/24 part, but I'll have to try it out eventually and see.
speed rather than a speed limit
I'll fix that soon by changing "3 months" to "3+ months". That'll be a very quick fix.
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u/TheSultan1EWR, FTWJul 14 '21edited Jul 14 '21
Thanks for engaging in the conversation!
The whole idea behind my proposed change is that the high velocity the flowchart suggests is more aggressive than most experienced churners took (and that many are taking).
I also think that the two options I wrote are both too much and not enough - they're very wordy and can be hard to grasp, while also not covering good high-velocity strategies like [5 personals - 5 biz - 5 personals - 5 biz - ], basically going from 0/12 to 5/12 repeatedly. And they (and this 3rd strategy, and the 1/3 velocity recommendation) imply big overarching strategies, to be pretty strictly followed, that almost no one here thinks is a good idea - "don't plan more than x months ahead" is good advice that's repeated fairly often.
I think there's a way to address velocity and x/24 management succinctly and without suggesting strict strategies, while keeping the rest of the chart basically devoid of it. Let me see if I can make it work, I'll get back to you soon.
