Originally Posted by lkar

I used it to meet the 10k spend on a recent 100k American citibank card. In retrospect, I think it was a bad move.

Instead of the 100k card, I could have instead gotten the 75k card with a $1.5k spend. The cost, in fees, to put the additional $8500 on the card to meet the spending requirement, was $170. The incremental benefit was 25k extra miles, plus the 8670 miles generated by the tax payment. So, basically, $170 for 34k miles. Not really ideal. Not terrible, but still 2 cpm. (Overall it was great -- 110k miles for $200 -- but the option of getting the 75k card instead made it not worth it in retrospect. I should have either tried to meet the spend a different way or gotten the 75k card.)

For the Starwood Amex standard promo, which gives you 10k miles for signup and then 15k bonus miles after a $15k spend, I think it's a decent approach if you don't want to mess with coins and don't really have many other great options for meeting a large spend. You end up with 30k miles (15k bonus and 15k for the spend) for a fee of about $350. Not ideal, to be sure, but for those without other good options for meeting large spending requirements or who don't want to mess with coints, it's not bad.

Another possible use that makes sense is with credit cards that give EQM.