I have a crazy plan for points that I heard about on here but I can't find the post.
So I'm going for the Southwest Companion Pass (spouse always can fly with you for free). I need 110k points in one year. I've signed up for one card that gets me 50k signup points and my spouse signed up for a card that gets her 25k signup points. I can get one point per $1 of balance transfer up to 15k in the first 90 days with a 3% fee. Southwest points are worth 1.6 cents per point or 3.2 cents per point if I'm using the Companion Pass (2 flights for the price of 1). Even if we didn't do this plan, my wife and I would fly Southwest for at least 1 round trip flight and then fly one other round trip for a vacation we have planned which may or may not be via Southwest (we live away from both families). Total annual cost is usually around $2000 on flights for us. So here is where the crazy comes in.
Given that my wife and I would spend at least $2000 on flights anyway, and we can buy points for 3 cents that will be worth 3.2 cents after we get the companion pass, we are planning on maxing out our balance transfers in the first 90 days for the points. Seeing as we don't keep a balance on other cards, this requires creative thinking. The plan is to get a balance transfer to another credit card (Barclay card), then have the Barclay card say "um, you way overpaid us for this month's bill, here is the difference." Then I take the check for the difference and use that to pay back the Southwest card.
So if everything goes correctly, we will have spent $900 in balance transfer fees on 30k in points, we'll have 75k in points from the signup bonuses leaving us 5k points shy. $40 flower bouquets are worth 1000 points right now, so I buy flowers for my mom's birthday and then mothers and grandmothers get flowers for mother's day, leaving us with 110k Southwest points.
Total costs $900 in balance transfer fees, $200 in annual fees, $200 in flowers = $1300
Received: 110k in points (worth $1760 alone or $3520 with the companion pass) and a companion pass through the end of 2015.
Fingers crossed.