Originally Posted by
joer1212
But this still leaves the problem of having thousands of dollars left on gift cards that you still have to spend....sometime. Whether that's now, or later on, this will necessarily interfere with one (or several) of your app-o-rama minimum spend requirements. You will have to pay either Peter or Paul sometime, so it is a zero-sum game.
Considering that you need about 100k miles for an international r/t business class ticket in one frequent flyer program, you will necessarily have to do frequent app-o-ramas (and meet the minimum spends) to have any hope of achieving this kind of mileage in a single program. This, by itself, is a struggle. But, to have the added burden of also having to get rid of thousands of dollars on gift cards becomes overwhelming.
Now, if you could buy gift cards; get the bonus miles, and then return the gift cards for a cash refund (without losing the miles), it would be a bonanza. But, anything short of this just comes up......short.
People have told you how to do it, and it doesn't seem like you really want to put forth any effort at all. But yes, especially with the relatively small amount you spend on cards (and your unwillingness to take the steps that could at least modestly increase that), you will not be going to Europe in business class next month. However, over, say, 18 months or so, you could get the two AA cards, Chase Freedom, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and United MP. Yes, given your spending pattern you would probably have to buy some gift cards to meet the spend and pay them down over time. But at the end of that process you could have 100k (50k*2) AA miles and 105k United miles (10k+40k+55k) from the signup bonuses, plus some extra from the actual spending. Whether that's worth it is really up to you.
Two other things:
Yes, you can sell gift cards, probably for 85-90 cents or so on the dollar. Not a great deal, but it could be worth it for a really good signup bonus. For instance if you just bought $3000 worth of gift cards to get the 50k bonus and you could sell only them for $2550 (85 cents/dollar), you'd be effectively buying AA miles for 0.9 cents each, well below their value. And that would be getting a pretty bad deal on the gift cards.
If cash+miles appeals to you, look into Avianca/Taca. Just be warned that you're not going to be getting very many "free" Avianca miles from credit card signup bonuses. Mostly that program is just a way to buy premium-cabin international flights at a discount.