We are just starting this right now. Stupidly, as I start most things. The key I have noticed is to be patient and wait for the truly good sign up bonuses. Apart from there being only so much spending you can do (short of MS), Chase has put a real slowdown on the whole thing. Between you and a spouse you can get one credit card per quarter, with one extra for an extraordinary deal per year that you didn't see coming. With cards requiring in the range of $1,000 and $5,000, that is around $20,000 per year, which seems to be within the spending capacity of most posters here. Just be sure to use it for everything. If not you can use plastiq to apply spending to mortgage principal with a 2.5% fee, which I have not tried yet but might within a few weeks. Manufactured spend doesn't feel right to me. We tried it last week and it was easy enough, almost too easy. Walmart refused our gift cards for money orders, so we went to a regional chain. Apparently this varies a lot by region.