Originally Posted by
tjbrooks
You can't use a card that doesn't exist anymore in an argument. And i dont think any blogger is recommending a 1cpm card for everyday spending. But to play along, by your own reasoning its acceptable to net 50K miles from $50K spend then redeem for a $1500 F ticket, but horrible to net 25K miles from $25K spend then use it on a $375 Y ticket on the same exact flight. Its 3cpm vs 1.25cpm, but that 1.75cpm difference is BS for the majority of travelers (most FT'ers I'd guess). It's "aspirational" value, something that you can't afford without miles. High CPM is just a bragging/reference tool unless you would actually pay that out-of-pocket.
I see value in Int'l premium, getting my dad on AF J last minute for a funeral, for 100K SkyPesos. The flight "cost" $8000+, but a marginal benefit over ANZ Prem Economy for $2000, so real cpm was ~2cpm. For me/my dad.
I agree. I think the big lie that bloggers put forward is that for leisure flyers points are worth anything close to 2cpm. They never talk about the downside such as award availability or routing. You have a pretty deep understanding to get a 2 cpm return that involves a class of service you would normally buy and destinations or routes you would choose. Saying you just spent 100,000 miles to get a $8000in flight is ridiculous b/c you wouldn't pay that normally. Most people would do better booking the cheapest possible flight and using the Fidelty card to get 2% and maximizing the category bonuses on Discover and Freedom. Now for business owners and flyers that pay out of their own pocket yes you can get 2cpm and possibly even more, but 99 out of 100 bloggers are targeted at the leisure side of it. AS for card churning which is 90% of the bloggers focus you can get pretty good returns but even if you max out the cards, the infinite days of apps are pretty much over, there is a limit to miles from bonuses (admittedly its a lot of miles, but the blogs present it as endless)
I do believe there are some really good bloggers out there.^