How much did you do in credit card rewards/bonuses this year?

[aspiringnomad]

110k Southwest RR points + SW Companion pass until Dec 2016
250K AAdvantage points
135k Membership Rewards Points
85k Chase UR Points
75k Starwood Points

Pretty good year, with minimal work other than using ChargeSmart/Plastiq a couple times for the mortgage and a few $500 Visa GCs liquidated as MOs.

Mine was remarkably similar to this. Banner year for me as well with AAdvantage (around 240k) and am timing the 110 RR points to hit next month so that I have the companion pass through 2017. About 60k Starwood Points this year, but not much in the way of Chase UR points since the Sapphire is my steady line of credit and got the bonus last year. I don't even have a Membership Rewards account yet (something for next year, I guess!), but I did score 50k BA Avios points this year.

As far as using miles, three round trips booked this year (including a ticket I "bought" for my sister) and one already booked for March 2016. Love this game!

[aspiringnomad]

I have been doing credit card churning/bank bonuses since 2013, but I think this was the year that I really hit it hard. We bought a house last year and I was being conservative so it wouldn't impact our mortgage and refinancing (although, I found that it didn't really impact us much..). Anyway, this year between my partner and I, we accumulated the following:

• $2,000 in bank bonuses
• 750K in airline miles (across different airlines programs)
• 450K in hotel points + 6 free nights (across different hotel programs)

We don't anticipating hitting it hard again next year, but this 'game' changes so much that anything is possible!

We sure did enjoy all the points and miles though: 7 trips in total in 2015 (15 hotel nights and 6 round trip tickets) and 4 round trip tickets for my parents to visit us twice last year to visit their grandson :) In addition, we booked a trip in 2016 for 7 nights and 2 round trip airfare to the French Polynesia. The FP trip is a splurge, somewhere I have been wanting to go to and when I found out it was feasible with miles and points, I thought why not? Credit card rewards has really made it possible for us to book this trip (and all others) at a fraction of the actual cost (which I would never have paid!).

Impressive! And some good inspiration to up my game in 2016. I've tended to ignore hotel points, except those like SPG that can be transferred to airlines, because we still stay in hostels or other cheap lodging, but it seems like a good place to focus on if I run out of airline affiliated cards to churn.

[sol]

For all of you serious churners our there, I have a serious question:  At what income level is this not worth your time anymore?

I understand that you can bank three to five thousand dollars or travel spending by signing up for the right credit cards and then learning the subtle details of air miles rewards programs.  That's sort of like real money, if you were going to be doing that traveling anyway.  But what if you were to earn $1,000/day at your regular job?  Did it take you the equivalent of one 40 hour work week to learn how to utilize the programs efficiently, implement all of the trickery, and then carefully cash out for maximum value? 

What if you earned $2,000 per day?  If an average spender can bank $3k of air miles in a year, or work an extra day and a half to earn the same amount, is it really worth cluttering your life with the calendar reminders about credit card bills and signup bonus conditions and cancellation scheduling?  Because for an aspiring early retiree, every spending/saving decision can be directly translated into "just work X more days instead to make up for it" and I like my life simple.

And while I recognize the benefits can be sweet, just using any regular old cash back credit card will still net me over a thousand dollars per year.  My main card has a 1% cash back and 5% rotating categories, so I bank about a grand a year without doing a damn thing.  Any credit card churning benefits I might earn have to be compared against that totally effort-free $1000 I get by not doing anything.

I'd like to consider playing the churning game, because hey free money is still free money.  But honestly an extra few thousand dollars per year isn't going to move the needle on my near-term retirement date when my net worth is already climbing by over six figures per year. 

To use my favorite rich person example, Brad Pitt probably doesn't do credit card churning.  His life is complicated enough as it is, and the marginal benefit he would derive just isn't worth the hassle to a man of his means.  At what income level am I more like Brad Pitt than I am like milesdividend?

[StetsTerhune]

Good question sol. I'm a relatively serious churner,  though there are probably people who put 30x as  much time into it than I do.  The blogs refer to this as "the hobby" and thats really how you have to see it. I have no idea how much time I've spent on it this year  less than 40 hours I'd guess, but it doesn't feel any different than the rest of the time I spend putzing around the internet. It sure has a better Return than writing on this forum...

I churn pretty badly though because I essentially don't do anything that isn't fun for me. I'm sure I'm leaving money on the table,  oh well, when you make hundreds a day working, as you point out.  To that  point, and to the original question, I don't have good records of what I've earned and used (an don't let any one fool you, most "cash equivalents" of hotel and airline points are generally BS). My 2 year tally on my Sw companion pass (expires next week) and sw points alone has to be 6-7k though.

[Paul der Krake]

I would probably play the game even if the value to be extracted dropped by 80% overnight. It's fun and by far the most lucrative hobby I've ever had. There are many aspects that need to work in concert for the whole thing to work. It's kind of like directing an orchestra.

I have optimized my avenues so that the actual time spent on it is very low. There was an upfront time investment to get the hang of it, but nowadays it's about 30 minutes per week of keeping up with the landscape, and my minimal MS operations blend into my normal life. I ride my bike for leisure regularly, so what's a 5 minute pit-stop at a store that happens to be in the middle of the route?

There is something very satisfying about seeing your stash of made-up travel currencies accumulate.

[kpd905]

For all of you serious churners our there, I have a serious question:  At what income level is this not worth your time anymore?

As far as doing the reading to learn how to do it, I can't really say how long that took.  I did most of that reading during my free time at work.

But once you know how this stuff works, it can take as little as 30 minutes to sign up for a card, activate it, and hit the minimum spend.  This can easily get you $500, so $1,000 an hour.  So I'd say if someone has a salary of over $2 million a year, this would be close to their hourly rate.  But then again, this is tax free.  Figure out how much extra income you'd have to earn at your marginal rate to get this $5,000-6,000 a year for travel.

I try to get a minimum of $300 for a hard pull, so normally around $600/hour.  My best have been both the United card for 50k miles and the Amex Gold card for 50k points.  Both had a $1,000 minimum spend and got me around $750 in value, sure beats my 2% cash back card.

[dude]

Amex Blue Preferred -- $650 cash back
Travelocity Amex - $500 statement credit toward travel
Total = $1,150

The latter reward program is going away in favor of something else which I really haven't looked into all that much.  I feel like I could do better with all the traveling we do (4-6 trips/year), but I don't want to have to stick to one airline or hotel chain to do it.  I generally book all travel through Travelocity, and get pretty good package deals (airfare + hotel), and we don't typically stay at big-name hotels, but rather at more budget-conscious (and usually locally-owned) options, so I'm not sure the big players' cards out there (AA, Hilton, Marriott) would benefit us much.

[brooklynguy]

But honestly an extra few thousand dollars per year isn't going to move the needle on my near-term retirement date when my net worth is already climbing by over six figures per year. 

Really?  If we assume the ability to earn three to five thousand dollars worth of value through churning will remain available indefinitely (which may or may not be a valid assumption), you would need to extend your retirement date by long enough to accumulate an additional $75-125k in order to replace that value if you're using a 4%-rule-based retirement plan.  Even for those of us with net worths ratcheting up at a rate in the low six figures per year, that's a pretty high cost (in terms of retirement delay) for some life decluttering.

Like Messrs. Terhune and der Krake, for me churning falls under the umbrella of my general FIRE-planning hobby, like tax avoidance and other financial optimization activities.

[Cathy]

To be fair, sol said that his net worth was "climbing by over six figures per year", i.e. it is climbing by at least seven figures per year. If my net worth were climbing by millions of dollars per year, I might not have time for credit card churning either, but then again, I might very well. After all, Joshua Kennon likely earns millions of dollars per year and he recently was excited to earn $160 from the Bing search engine, a far less lucrative pursuit than American credit card promotions.

[SuperSecretName]

And while I recognize the benefits can be sweet, just using any regular old cash back credit card will still net me over a thousand dollars per year.  My main card has a 1% cash back and 5% rotating categories, so I bank about a grand a year without doing a damn thing.  Any credit card churning benefits I might earn have to be compared against that totally effort-free $1000 I get by not doing anything.

get yourself a 2% card and double your profit with no effort

[sol]

Really?  If we assume the ability to earn three to five thousand dollars worth of value through churning will remain available indefinitely (which may or may not be a valid assumption), you would need to extend your retirement date by long enough to accumulate an additional $75-125k in order to replace that value if you're using a 4%-rule-based retirement plan. 

Churning is still work.  I've sort of assumed I would only do it while otherwise working, and then stop when retired.  If I wanted to work while retired, there are other ways to make a little side money.  Lots of things I will be doing anyway can be turned into income.

Do you think your ability to qualify for a bunch of credit cards will diminish once you have no income?  I know most of the easy wins I've seen have been sign up bonuses for checking/savings accounts, but they require temporary direct deposits and I won't qualify for them without a paycheck.

To be fair, sol said that his net worth was "climbing by over six figures per year", i.e. it is climbing by at least seven figures per year.

I work for the government.  I do not make millions per year, and intended the phrase "over six figures" to mean more than the minimum cutoff for six figure dollar amounts, not more than any amount that can be expressed in six digits.

[TheAnonOne]

Really?  If we assume the ability to earn three to five thousand dollars worth of value through churning will remain available indefinitely (which may or may not be a valid assumption), you would need to extend your retirement date by long enough to accumulate an additional $75-125k in order to replace that value if you're using a 4%-rule-based retirement plan. 

Churning is still work.  I've sort of assumed I would only do it while otherwise working, and then stop when retired.  If I wanted to work while retired, there are other ways to make a little side money.  Lots of things I will be doing anyway can be turned into income.

Do you think your ability to qualify for a bunch of credit cards will diminish once you have no income?  I know most of the easy wins I've seen have been sign up bonuses for checking/savings accounts, but they require temporary direct deposits and I won't qualify for them without a paycheck.

To be fair, sol said that his net worth was "climbing by over six figures per year", i.e. it is climbing by at least seven figures per year.

I work for the government.  I do not make millions per year, and intended the phrase "over six figures" to mean more than the minimum cutoff for six figure dollar amounts, not more than any amount that can be expressed in six digits.

I think the value of this can be higher than stated here. The low hanging fruit can be immense, like the southwest companion pass.

For instance, we had our honeymoon in Maui for 7 days at a top tier hotel, and we flew first class. This required us to open 7 cards, but to buy this exact trip would have had been well over $10,000

Though to buy any trip to Maui using coach and a lower class hotel, would have cost 4k.

So is the benefit 10k or 4k? Or do you not value travel, so the value is really 0?

(US airways X2, AA X2, Hyatt X2, Chase Saph X1)

[brooklynguy]

Do you think your ability to qualify for a bunch of credit cards will diminish once you have no income?  I know most of the easy wins I've seen have been sign up bonuses for checking/savings accounts, but they require temporary direct deposits and I won't qualify for them without a paycheck.

I expect it to diminish but not disappear when my income drops drastically in retirement.  I think I will still have a healthy enough income to qualify for a bunch of new cards -- if the news reports about (totally incomeless) housecats and pet goldfish qualifying for credit cards are to be believed, then a retired human with a bit of rental and investment income and an excellent credit history should be able to qualify too.

Bank account bonuses with direct deposit requirements will be harder, but many of those can actually be satisfied through account transfers (despite the terms in the fine print to the contrary).  But the credit card bonuses tend to be far more lucrative than the bank account bonuses.  I agree with TheAnonOne that $3-5k of value is a conservative estimate of the value to be had, but it all depends on how much cluttering of your life you are willing to put up with.

[sol]

So is the benefit 10k or 4k? Or do you not value travel, so the value is really 0?

I would probably say more like $3k.  Buying a fancier trip isn't saving money, it's increasing spending.  And the $4k cost of the trip I would have booked as a non churner should be reduced by the effort-free $1k I'm getting anyway and would lose by churning.

Plus the non churner doesn't worry about black out dates or open jaws or tracking card spending.  Just log on and book the trip whenever you want, no hassle, for an extra $3k out of pocket.  That's a lot of money to some people, but not so much to Brad Pitt.

At some point the marginal utility of money starts to decrease.  If you make $20k/yr then the extra $3k seems worth it.  If you make $200k/yr then paying the $3k is probably less hassle than earning and spending the points.

[StetsTerhune]

So is the benefit 10k or 4k? Or do you not value travel, so the value is really 0?

The shit that really drives me crazy is the blogger's talking about 1st class airfare like it's real money saved, or hotel's rate being the actual value you saved. Or the phrase "aspirational travel." If they wanna feel like a rich person, good for them, but to me luxury is a weakness. I can sit on a plane for 6 hours, it's not worth $10,000 to have champagne given to me and a decent meal and some extra legroom. I have my feet up right now, and I could go buy champagne and a nice lunch for $40. That's approximately the value to me of first class over coach. And I don't consider a $700 five star hotel to be the value I'm getting for a hotel points night. I consider it to be the ~$70 I would have paid on priceline for a hotel that is essentially the same value to me.

I think the theoretical value of the trip to Maui is whatever you would have paid cash to book that exact trip. I don't mean what it would have cost in cash to book that exact trip, but rather what cash amount you personally would have been willing to pay to book that trip.

It's complicated further because you likely wouldn't have even gone to Maui if not for the points. Maybe you would have gone to Mexico, spent $1500 and enjoyed it just as much or more?

This is why I love Southwest points, because there's no hassle of "figuring out" the points, they're just as good as cash on Southwest, which is very convenient for me to fly, and I fly a lot. Easy, low-hanging fruit, that doesn't change anything about what I'm doing, just how much I'm paying for it.

[Paul der Krake]

So is the benefit 10k or 4k? Or do you not value travel, so the value is really 0?

The shit that really drives me crazy is the blogger's talking about 1st class airfare like it's real money saved, or hotel's rate being the actual value you saved. Or the phrase "aspirational travel." If they wanna feel like a rich person, good for them, but to me luxury is a weakness. I can sit on a plane for 6 hours, it's not worth $10,000 to have champagne given to me and a decent meal and some extra legroom. I have my feet up right now, and I could go buy champagne and a nice lunch for $40. That's approximately the value to me of first class over coach. And I don't consider a $700 five star hotel to be the value I'm getting for a hotel points night. I consider it to be the ~$70 I would have paid on priceline for a hotel that is essentially the same value to me.

I think the theoretical value of the trip to Maui is whatever you would have paid cash to book that exact trip. I don't mean what it would have cost in cash to book that exact trip, but rather what cash amount you personally would have been willing to pay to book that trip.

It's complicated further because you likely wouldn't have even gone to Maui if not for the points. Maybe you would have gone to Mexico, spent $1500 and enjoyed it just as much or more?

This is why I love Southwest points, because there's no hassle of "figuring out" the points, they're just as good as cash on Southwest, which is very convenient for me to fly, and I fly a lot. Easy, low-hanging fruit, that doesn't change anything about what I'm doing, just how much I'm paying for it.

Yup, I too ten to disregard any "savings" math. I occasionally redeem for premium seats. When I do, it's because I'm comfortable spending that particular number of points on that particular flight (lots of reasons, often revolving around keeping a certain someone happy for a journey with uncomfortable hours and routing), NOT because "it's a 4.5 cents/mile redemption!!!!1!!1!".

Banks and airlines aren't stupid. The only reason mileage programs exist is because it's still a net positive for them.

[bacchi]

The shit that really drives me crazy is the blogger's talking about 1st class airfare like it's real money saved, or hotel's rate being the actual value you saved. Or the phrase "aspirational travel." If they wanna feel like a rich person, good for them, but to me luxury is a weakness. I can sit on a plane for 6 hours, it's not worth $10,000 to have champagne given to me and a decent meal and some extra legroom.

Agreed. There's a lot of bragging in the hobby.

@Sol There's always just getting 1-2 cards/year for the bonuses. Get an AA/United card, spend $1000/$3000, and earn 1-2 flights with the miles. Or make an easy $200 from the AARP card with no AF. No need to go all-in with multiple cards, MS, a spreadsheet with dates, etc.

[FIreDrill]

Between the Wife and I we got over 200k AAdvantages air miles.  Used 80k for 2 round trip tickets from Anchorage AK to Athens in April/May.  Should be a fun trip! :)

SS

[Zikoris]

$250 of groceries, or a little over one month's worth of food and cleaning supplies for the two of us. We've also started collecting SkyMiles and Aeroplan Miles since we travel fairly regularly, though not enough to cash in for some time yet. Given that the time and effort put forth over the year has been precisely zero, I'd say we did okay.

[StetsTerhune]

Agreed. There's a lot of bragging in the hobby.

Yeah. And I get it, the sort of travel I do, while probably more fun for most people, doesn't play as well in a blog post as "fly first class to the Maldives and stay in an over water villa!" The bloggers are trying to make a living with cc links and selling luxury is how you do it. 

Luxury for the sake of luxury just drives me crazy. Do whatever you want, enjoy life, but if you're just doing stuff so you can post pictures and brag, I have issues with that. I actually posted a link in "anti-mustachian wall of shame" a couple years ago to one of the bloggers posting an absurd braggy trip log, one of the "I only spent 6k for 30k worth of travel!!" type posts. I don't think anyone else agreed with me that it was wall of shame worth, but I think that stuff is a joke.

[AnEDO]

About 1k cash back and 100k AA miles between the wife and I.

[Richmond Savers]

Wow!  Some really insightful information on this thread.  I'm fairly new to the points and rewards game.  Is there a site or other resource any of you use to learn of ways to maximize earning/using rewards?

Find Brad and Alexi around here somewhere and take their class.   Check out TravelMiles101.com.

We'd love to have every Mustachian interested in travel hacking and credit card rewards get started with our 100% free Travel Miles 101 course!  MMM just linked our course up on his main credit cards page: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/credit-cards/  or the link in my signature will take you directly to the registration page. 

This is a course by Mustachians for Mustachians and it's a nice, step-by-step way to get into the strategy; the community we've put together is really helpful and a good group of people. 

[muckety_muck]

sadly, I didn't discover Cashback/reward cards until about October. So we are at $125ish for the year.

Not sure if I will get into cc rewards, churning, etc in 2016... I have too much other stuff that I need to shore up first, but come 2017... I'm on it!

[sol]

While you're here, Brad, can I get your take on my question above about what income level you think makes miles hacking more hassle than it is worth?  Presumably billionaires don't bother.

[Meggslynn]

I am in Canada where the CC rewards are not nearly as plentiful as in the US.

But this is what we received thus far -

PC Mastercard - $520 in free groceries
AMEX - 6500 airmiles in sign up bonuses and referrals  (enough for two tickets to DisneyWorld)
Capital One MC - $300 in costco cash cards for sign ups

[tj]

I have not kept track of the cashback for regular spend, but for bonuses:

2015:
50k AAdvantage miles (Via US Airways mastercard)
$500 Capital one Spark
$401 Amazon gift cards (50k Southwest points less $99 annual fee)
$300 Chase Checking Acct
$250 BBVA Compass Build my Savings (now dead)
$200 Bank of America Travel Awards
$140 Santander Extra20
$110 Amex offers (Cashback for using Amex at Amazon x2, Walmart, AT&T and Jet)
$100 Consumers Credit Union Credit Card

2016 already looks to be a pretty good start:
$500 Merrill Edge
$400 Barclaycard Arrival or Chase Sapphire Preferred (or both)
$250 E Trade
$175 Bank of America Cash Rewards

[Glenstache]

I spend about 2 hours per year on CC stuff and pulled in about $900 including bonuses and rewards. I travel judiciously, so all of that is as direct cash/credit on previous purchases that would have happened regardless rather than finding ways to use it on travel. I don't put a ton of effort into it, and was getting about $300/year before I put any effort into it other than the cash back rewards. Marginal return on effort is about $350/hr which is more than I make at my normal job. As sol points out, this probably isn't going to significantly change my FI status.

[Digital Dogma]

I used up my 150$ amazon prime points on xmass gifts at the beginning of the month.... soo probably about 160$ for the year.

[StetsTerhune]

While you're here, Brad, can I get your take on my question above about what income level you think makes miles hacking more hassle than it is worth?  Presumably billionaires don't bother.

Ok, thinking about this again... doesn't this question apply to nearly everything? Presumably billionaires don't do 99% of the things discussed on this forum. The forum is (among other things) a place where getting efficient use out of your money is discussed.

So, Sol, at what income level do you think thinking about using money efficiently is more hassle than it is worth?

[brooklynguy]

Ok, thinking about this again... doesn't this question apply to nearly everything? Presumably billionaires don't do 99% of the things discussed on this forum. The forum is (among other things) a place where getting efficient use out of your money is discussed.

A possible distinction is that, consistent with the overarching message of this website, many of the financial optimization techniques we discuss on the forum (primarily, ways to reduce consumerist spending) are "optimal" in the sense that they simultaneously work to maximize (i) personal wealth, (ii) personal happiness, and (iii) the ecological health of the planet, while this particular financial optimization technique (that is, travel hacking), in and of itself, serves only the first of those three functions.  But that's definitely not limited solely to travel hacking--it's also true for at least some of the other financial optimization techniques we routinely discuss, like tax avoidance strategies.

[Jeremy E.]

110,000 Southwest miles + companion pass (had to spend $10,000 between 2 southwest credit cards + a $79 and $99 annual fee)
50,000 Amex points (had to spend $1,000)
$300 for opening Chase checking account (not credit card but I'm counting it)
$150 from Chase Freedom (had to spend $1,000)
30k Barclaycard wyndham points + 1 free night for hotel = 3 free nights in hotel (had to spend $1,000 + a $69 annual fee)
$100 from Capital One quicksilver (had to spend $1,000)

Luckily I was working on my rental plus I bought my electric bike this year so I was able to meet all of these without manufactured spending.

[aFrugalFather]

I haven't actively tracked my main rewards card but its 1-2% back with some 5% bonuses here and there.  Probably ~$500 that way, it doesn't take much time, I just have a sticker on my cards to remind me which ones give the best bonus rewards for supermarkets, gas, etc. 

Also got a $250 bonus for signing up for an Amex card with good benefits, no annual fee. 

Should have another $2300 back from doing the Apple Pay + Discover promotion that ends in a week.  22% back for groceries at Trade Joes and some Lego investing.  Also used apple pay to pre-pay my ATT cell phone family plan and DSL bill ahead of time. 

Probably won't be doing any churning though, will probably stick with these cards unless something really tempting comes along.  I find that its good to have a mix of card types as there are promotions for each one that can be useful (e.g., VisaCheckout was offering cash back, Amazon was offering cash bonus for linking Amex etc.)

[Richmond Savers]

While you're here, Brad, can I get your take on my question above about what income level you think makes miles hacking more hassle than it is worth?  Presumably billionaires don't bother.

Hi sol, sorry for the delayed response -- away from my computer for the holidays :)

It's a great question and while I'm not sure I'm more qualified to answer than any other Mustachian here, I'll give you my thoughts certainly:

Something like this is always going to come down to personality & mindset, what value you put on your time, precisely how much money you make and/or your net worth, etc.  There's also a huge difference between someone opening 1-2 cards per year and 30-40 and the value they can get out of it. 

Some people (many around here) also just like to optimize life, play the game (of life) to the fullest and all that good stuff.  This is a fun game and I suspect they'd do it regardless of income. 

I think clearly a billionaire wouldn't be bothered with travel hacking on a small scale like how we do it.  Though I did just read an article how a billionaire bought a $100MM+ painting on an Amex and earned something crazy like 130,000,000 Amex Membership Rewards points.  Different world...

We have a few hundred physicians in our Travel Miles 101 community and I assume many of them make hundreds of thousands per year and they still find value in travel hacking. 

Alexi likes to say that his 30-40 cards per year earn him well over 1 million points per year that he'd value at over $20,000.  At his tax rate that's somewhere in the vicinity of a $40,000 raise.  He judges that to be worth his time while I'm sure others wouldn't at that income level.

I would imagine anyone making under $200k/yr would find value in travel hacking.

What do you think generally?

[tj]

I'm clearly doing something wrong if 30-40 new cards per year is obtainable and repeatable. :D You wonder how long the banks are going to make it so easy. Chase has already put more rigid rules in place, I believe.

[Gin1984]

I'm clearly doing something wrong if 30-40 new cards per year is obtainable and repeatable. :D You wonder how long the banks are going to make it so easy. Chase has already put more rigid rules in place, I believe.

One of the reasons I am taking advantage now.  Might as well save my cash for spending later and use other people's money now that I can.  :)

[Helvegen]

I just tallied this up last night and looks like I am at $700 without really doing that much. That only includes one sign up bonus ($100) and one airline reimbursement ($100). The rest was regular spend rewards.

2016 I will be doing some churning because I have a lot of travel planned in the next 18 months.

[Gin1984]

I just got an AMEX gold with 50,000 points with a $1000 spend.  However, my husband seems to only get the 25,000 for $2000 bah.  But this means I am 2/3 of the way for my family to fly free on delta for a wedding in Sept.  Though credit card companies are crazy, who in the world would pay $195 annual fee for this card, the rewards are not that good.

[iamlindoro]

I just got an AMEX gold with 50,000 points with a $1000 spend.  However, my husband seems to only get the 25,000 for $2000 bah.  But this means I am 2/3 of the way for my family to fly free on delta for a wedding in Sept.  Though credit card companies are crazy, who in the world would pay $195 annual fee for this card, the rewards are not that good.

If it's a premier rewards gold card, don't forget to use the $100 credit on travel expenses, which includes gift cards on airlines.  Some people have managed to make non-airline purchased through the United X app, but I haven't done it personally.  I just bought a $100 Southwest gift card.  Note that you have to elect the airline:

http://www.americanexpress.com/selectafc

Not that I kept the card when the fee hit, but it at least offsets a good part of it.

[aspiringnomad]

I just got a bunch of referral codes for the 50k bonus on the SW Premier card. I figure it's not kosher to post here, but how do those of you without websites publicize the availability of these referrals? Email? Facebook? Another forum dedicated to that?

[JPatch]

I'd already done Chase Freedom, Sapphire, United, and Marriott before this year.

This year I did about $1,000 in cash signup bonuses.  I also got a $200 travel credit from another signup bonus.

Got 52,000 Southwest points and about 70,000 Hilton points in signup bonuses.

Sitting on 60,000 United points, 35,000 Marriott points too from past churning.