Quick points for an airline flight

[zerbert]

Hi,
Came a cross your site today it's really great.
I currently have two credit cards a Chase Rewards Visa Signature (3% on gas 1% everything else) and as backup the American Express Cash Rebate Platinum (1%).

Our family of 5 wants to fly to Florida in February. My wife received an offer for the American Express Gold Rewards Plus for the first year free and a credit of 50,000 MR points if we spend 500 on the card by Jan 31. Those 50,000 would score us 2 tickets.

I was wondering if the following is doable : opening up four Amex Starwoods cards - 1 personal and 1 business each for myself and my wife. These cards would give a 10,000 point signup bonus for a total of 40,000. These 40,000 would transfer over as 50,000 in airline miles and score us two more tickets.

Besides for whether this is doable, how could opening up a whole bunch of credit cards affect my credit score and how could I close these accounts or consolidate them after I have my tickets without affecting our credit scores too much. The only card I may be interested in keeping is one Starwoods card.

Thanks

[MrCreditCard]

frequent flyer folks used to do this all the time. But given today's economic environment, I'm not too sure if you could pull this off. But you might as well give it a try. Your score will take a slight hit (a few points per inquiry - which is probably only temporary).