How do you all make this much on credit cards? IS it cash back or travel rewards?
Yeah I'd like to understand how this works as well
On three cards from this year, for fairly minimal work, I am planning on netting around $2.5k total:
$550 on Chase Sapphire Preferred
$1150 on Chase Sapphire Reserved
$700-1000 on amex platinum
For these cards:
The Sapphire Preferred has a 50,000 point bonus if you spend $4k in the first three months, plus another 5k points if you add an authorized user. Points are redeemable through chase for 1 point per cent, so 55,000 points --> $550, cash back.
The Sapphire Reserved has a 100k point bonus for the same spend ($4k/3 months) and reimburses $300 travel expenses per year. Converting the points to cash is $1000 cash, plus $600 in travel reimbursement, gives $1600 -- the card has a $450 fee you pay. This nets $1150 (assuming you spend anything on travel).
Both these cards have much better reimbursement if you redeem the for travel through Chase's portal, up to 1.5x the points - so combined, you could receive 150000*1.5/100 = $2250 in travel if you want.
The American Express card also has a 100k point bonus, for three months and $3k initial spend. Those 100k points are worth a minimum of $700 depending on how you redeem them. It also offers $200/year in travel incidental reimbursement and a $450 annual fee, so it's worth $700 + $200x2 - $450 = $750 minimum.
So far, I've barely spent any extra in order to meet this spending. The Sapphire Reserve we met easily by putting property taxes on it (~$40 extra cost). The Sapphire Preferred bonus we got with batched normal spend, needed a fridge and other misc stuff so we waited until the card arrived. The Amex I think will get hit with medical expenses, assuming insurance doesn't take a year to bill us.
These are the easy, big bonus cards, for people who don't really care for traveling and want the easy route of cash back. If we traveled a lot there are MANY cards with great travel rewards.
