I find that the biggest "bang" for the buck are the signup bonuses. Like the 100K BA(better last year--what we took advantage of) , 50K Sapphire Preferred, 50K UA, 50K CO (last year), 40K US, 70K Marriott w/1 free nt, the hilton cards (60K AMEX, 50K Citi), Capitol One 100K (last year), etc. Also, about 300K pp AA cards in the past 2 years. Forgot about 2 free nights at any Hyatt for their card.

Also Starwood AMEX 30K personal/biz (2 yrs ago). We would do INK bold but we are over saturated with Chase at the moment.

As for which card is best for long term? It depends. We like the Starwood AMEX for the value of a point and its flexibility. For cash back, if one is not much of a traveler, the 2% Fidelity AMEX seems to be one of the better cash back cards for long term.

We do alot of travel cards because the stuff that shows up in our mailbox are 0% balance transfer offers & $50-100 cash bonuses. We don't need the balance transfer offers since we have plenty of funds in the bank earning very low interest and we do not carry balances on our credit cards.

Bottom line: Alot of the travel offers are worth between $500 and $1000 in equivalent value or even more if used for intl Business/First redemptions. We usually shred the $50-100 bonus offers since we do much better with what is posted on FT!!