Thanks again to everyone for your help!

Roki, very good point about UR cash back- I could always do that if I bought my travel in other ways and wanted some extra cash. I don't technically NEED the cash to get by, it's just that my practical brain says that extra cash in the bank is never a bad thing. It sounds more concrete than hypothetical trips I hope to take. But I probably WILL end up taking a couple trips this year, so the flexibility of UR is very cool. It's good to know that United is a great redemption value. I never fly United, since I haven't been able to for work and most of my personal travel in the past few years was actually branched off from work trips. But since I can just transfer UR points to United, seems like I'd be able to pull something off! Without status but hey, whatever, I'll take what I can get.

Redtop, I will definitely need to give Priceline a try, that article was very helpful. I usually try to stay with friends or get uber cheap hotels off of sites like hostelworld, but that doesn't always work! Another trick I do is to just stay by the airport if I get in late at night since the airport hotels are always fewer points to redeem vs. a city center hotel. Not a big deal to lose 4K spg points.

I'm thinking maybe I do the spg amex but only use it for hotel stays at SPG + whatever it takes to hit the amount to get my sign up bonus. i'd make sure that spend was in categories that doesn't get me extra stuff through Chase, so basically not dining or travel. I appreciate the referral links but actually already had one I promised to use if i signed up.

All your help is very appreciated. As you might have guessed, I'm not looking for the most luxurious perks, though I definitely wouldn't turn down suites or first class seats. But I'm also not about to spend more points to get a better ticket- even if the incremental value is amazing, I'd rather save my points! I'm young, I'm still ok with "roughing it"