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!
"The bottom line is that you are kind of a terrible customer for them.   Granted you are far better than one that does not pay his bills, but you are (probably) in the tier right above that. Rewards cards are used to lure the unorganized into out of control interest rates and late payments.  These people are Capital One's, and others, best customers.  They have traded hundreds of dollars in interest payments for a couple of dollars in rewards.  The CC company says:  ""YUMMY""! You, on the other hand, cut into their ""meager"" profits from fees collected from your transactions.  Why should they help you make more money?  Why should they further cut into your profits? Response to comment: Given your comment I think the bottom line is a matter of perspective.  You seem like a logical, altruistic type person who probably seeks a win-win situation in business dealings.  This differs from CC companies they operate to seek one thing:  enslavement. BTW the ""terrible customer"" remark should be taken as a compliment.   After you get past the marketing lies you begin to see what reward programs and zero percent financing is all about.  How do most people end up with 21%+ interest rates?  They started with a zero percent balance loan, and was late for a payment. Reward cards work a bit differently.  Studies show that people tend to spend about 17% more when they use a reward card.  I've caught myself ordering an extra appetizer or beer and have subsequently stopped using a reward card for things I can make a decision at the time of purchase.  For people with tight budgets this leads to debt. My ""meager"" profits paragraph makes sense when you understand the onerous nature of CC companies.  They are not interested in earning 2% on purchases (charge 3% and give back 1%) for basically free money.  You rightly see this as what should be a win-win for all parties involved.  Thus the meager in quotation marks.  CC companies are willing to give back 1% and charge 3% if you then pay 15% or more on your balance. Some may disagree with me on the extracting nature of CC companies, but they are wrong.  I like him as an actor, but I don't believe Samuel Jackson's lines." "This may be a lame answer, but the best IRA contribution strategy is the one that will actually stick to. A single lump sum contribution every year may be a difficult thing for you to maintain.  When it's time to make your contribution, you may say ""eh, $5000 is a lot of money, and my checking account balance is kinda low, I'll wait before I contribute"".  You keep putting it off, and then you miss the opportunity for the year. If you setup small regular automatic withdrawals, your IRA contribution will run on auto-pilot.  Depending on your cash flow, this may not be favorable, though." "These good rates all tend to be ""on up to $X"" where X is some low'ish number that could require multiple accounts. They often also come with other strings, like set up automatic deposits/withdrawals, and use debit card at least 15 times per month. The two you mention have these flaws, whether or not it's worth it depends on if you are happy to meet those requirements and how big your emergency fund is.  Personally, I'd rather get rewards on a credit card than use a debit card, and I don't want to open a bunch of accounts, so I have a boring savings account with a pretty low interest rate for my emergency fund. It's liquid, earns some interest, and I don't have to think about it." 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. If you carried a balance from the last month, then pay the card off as soon as possible. Otherwise I agree with @mbhunter that you should wait until close to time for the bill to become due. Then always pay the credit card off in full and you will borrowing Chase's money interest free for up to 30 days. Depending on who you have the loan through and how they figure the interest charges (whether daily, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. normally monthly I would assume), your interest is probably figured either daily or once a month.   Let's assume that it is figured daily, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to make bi-weekly payments.   At 4% Annual Interest on a $150,000 home loan the interested added each day is about $16.44, but it doesn't stop there because it is compounding interest daily so the next day it becomes 4% of 150,0016.44 (which is negligibly larger amount) and they will tack on another $16.44. So what will happen is that the amount of interest you owe grows rather quickly, especially if you miss a monthly payment.  Everyone knows that the faster you pay something off the less interest you pay, but not everyone knows the formula for compounding interest.  a quick Google search rendered this site with a simple explanation Compound Interest Formula  unfortunately this formula doesn't take into account the payments being made. The big thing with making your payments bi-weekly rather than a bigger payment once a month is that you pay off some of that principle right away and it won't collect interest for 14 more days. if the interest is only calculated once a month, make your full payment before the interest is calculated, the same goes for your credit cards. There are lots of things to consider in addition to your questions.  The rules changed in the US recently. I think you mean you will save more money. Your interest rate isn't likely to go up, but your principle will, so you will earn more interest income than before.   I would wager it won't be a significant amount however. You can certainly earn a reward, either cash back, points, miles or something else. BUT the sticking point with earning things with your card is harder than before.  Due to rules changes, merchants can now recuperate the fees they pay for accepting your credit card.  Rewards cards have a higher fee than non-rewards cards (because banks aren't in charities).  So now, depending on the merchant's choice, you could see a higher cost paying with a credit card (or a debit card) and that cost could wipe out your reward. And if your card has a fee, it has always been true that you need to evaluate the annual fee to confirm the benefit is more than paying for the fee. Additional advantages to credit cards "Between 6 months and a year is normally regarded as the ""standard"".  Plan out what your monthly expenses are and save that money away.  One thing to consider is what extras can you give up.  If you are currently eating steak and lobster every day can you live with switching to ramen noodles for a period of time?  Can you switch from premium cable to basic cable (or cancel it altogether)?  Questions like this can greatly impact the amount you have to set aside. I personally have my emergency fund in CDs that mature the first of every month.  I know there is less liquidity in this approach but I'm ok with that.  My emergency fund is a sum of cash I'll always have so I wanted to reap the benefits of a higher yield.  If it comes down to it I can place an expense on a credit card and pay off the credit card when funds become available." "First, bear in mind that you're talking about having an average of ~£2000 saved up at any given time (if you spend all your stipend every quarter at a steady rate you'll start out with all of it and have none left at the end of the quarter), along with any long-term savings you manage to build up over time. In today's low-interest rate environment of ~1% interest rates, we're talking about approximately £20/year interest. So it's not worth a huge amount of effort to optimise this. You mentioned a ""bonus"", but looking at the Charter Savings website I don't actually see one listed for either the Cash ISA or the savings accounts you mention. In general, banks in the UK actually use bonus rates as a short-term measure to suck in new customers, and the bonuses typically expire after a while leaving you with a worse rate. Also, I don't think either of the rates you mention is guaranteed - they are both listed as ""variable"". In reality, I doubt they will go down too much more, given that the likely next move in UK interest rates is upwards. The typical main advantage of an ISA is its tax free nature. But from your question I assume you don't have any other income, so you won't need to pay tax on any interest you earn outside an ISA either. Also, given that your budget is quite tight and you expect to spend most or all of your stipend, there's no advantage to using an account where you can build up long-term tax-free savings. Even if you do have a few thousand pounds left over by the end of your PhD, you'll easily be able to put those into an ISA at that point given the annual limit of £20K. You're right not to want to take any risks with the money, and there aren't really any risk-free investments other than savings accounts available, at least on the timescales you're talking about. So overall I'd just go for the 1.26% return. Edit: as @marktristan's answer points out, you will probably be able to find a ""loss leader"" current account that actually offers more interest than a savings account. You'll need to either use a single current account and manage your budgeting carefully, or use a second current account as your ""savings"" account and make sure to set things up to satisfy the requirements of the account you choose, such as incoming payments or outgoing direct debits." "Not everyone pays their balance in full every month. They may not make interest off of you or me but they do make interest off of a lot of cardholders. In many cases, the interest is variable and the larger your (running) balance, the higher your rate. If you're close to your limit and making minimum payments, you can literally take decades to pay off $2,000 or so.  Some people don't pay at all every month and end up paying late fees. Some people use their cards overseas and pay foreign transaction fees. Ever take a cash advance? Me neither but they charge you interest right away for that instead of waiting until your statement. The list of fees and charges is as long as my arm and in tiny print. That's how they make money. The points/bonus/cash back and other rewards programs are to get you in the door. It's like when you see a luxury car advertised for a ""too good to be true"" price and you get to the lot and find out that the one they are selling for that price is a manual transmission without AC or a radio, they only had one and they sold it an hour before you got there. It got you on the lot though. The rewards programs function in much the same way (minus the disappearing part), they get you interested in their offering among a sea of virtually identical products but rest assured, if the card issuers were losing money because of them, they wouldn't exist for very long." The first thing I assess when looking at new credit cards is whether it has no annual fee, the second thing I look at is how long the interest free period is. I always pay my credit card off in full just before the due date. Any rewards program is a bonus. My main credit card is with CBA, I have a credit limit of $20K and pay no annual fee. I get a bonus point for every $ I spend on it, for which I exchange for store gift cards to help with my everyday spending. Approximately 3500 point would get me a $25 gift card. But my main reward with the card is the interest I save by keeping my own money in a Home Loan Offset account whilst I spend with the Bank's money. Then I pay the full amount off by the due date so I do not pay any interest on the credit card. I only use my credit cards for purchases I would usually make anyway and to pay bills, so my spending would be the same with or without a credit card. I can usually save over $500 each year off my Home Loan interest and get about $350 worth of gift cards each year. If I didn't have any Home Loans then I would keep my money in a high interest depost account so I would be increasing my interest payments each year. Sure you can probably get credit cards with more generous rewards programs, but how much are you paying each year in annual fees, and if you don't have an interest free period and you don't pay off all the amount due each month how much are you paying in interest on the card? This is what you need to way up when looking at rewards programs on offer. Nothing is for free, well almost nothing ! Based on the formula used by FICO which is pretty much what you want to focus on, the following is recommended for someone with no credit history: When you get all this, follow the following habits to make sure it does you some good: Follow these and you will do great, I started with a $500 Discover card and $500 Chase Visa at UCLA and a Union 76 gas card, I had 700+ credit in less than 2 years. Good luck and be vigilant. As mentioned in other answers the interest you make is negligible and the calculations would depend on the bank. In saying that the general trend is calculate daily, pay monthly.  A typical scenario would be that every night at midnight the interest for your account at that point in time is calculated. This occurs every midnight and at the end of the month the sum of those calculations will be added to your account. You could have had several significant transactions pass through your account in one day although if the interest is calculated at a specific point in time some transactions may not contribute to any interest. These calculations are worth thinking about,  even in circumstances of negligible returns, as it could assist when considering combining credit cards with home loan offset accounts so it is not a complete waste of time to understand how interest is calculated. The more you know ;) 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. Banks don't care that you are responsible cardholder. They care to make money. Interest rates are basically 0% by government policy and the banks charge their responsible cardholders 20% interest rates. Think about that for one second, and realize they really do not care about your ability to avoid paying interest, they only need you to 'slip up' one month during your entire lifetime to make a profit from you. It is in their interest for you to get into a spending habit, from 0% promo rates, so that eventually a frivolous purchase or life changing event causes a balance to stay on the card for over one month.