They Each Own 50 Credit Cards. Should You?

Forget dog walking or lawn mowing. Matthew Palm’s side hustle is signing up for credit cards.

Every few months, Mr. Palm, a 57-year-old freelance television producer who lives in Illinois, goes online and applies for a new credit card.

He opens only cards that come with a sign-up bonus: a reward of a few hundred dollars in points for new customers who reach a modest spending target.

“The highest point of anxiety is when you click the submit button for your latest card application,” he said. “And then, as soon as it’s approved, there’s that adrenaline hit.”

Each sign-up bonus is small, so to make a decent income, Mr. Palm keeps applying. During the seven years he has been into this side hustle, he estimates, he and his wife have opened more than 50 cards.

The promotional bonuses have netted his family more than $40,000, he said.

Mr. Palm is a member of what is known as the churning community — people who regularly open credit cards to harvest lucrative promotional rewards. The churning logic is simple: Hundreds of credit cards come with sign-up bonuses. So why not apply for as many cards as possible?

Mr. Palm doesn’t consider himself an extreme churner. While he has opened more than 50 cards over seven years, he knows of others who open 20 cards annually. Some people have been at it for decades.