Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
I try not to commit to spending targets so aggressive that I need to find ways to charge even small purchases or make purchases I normally would not make.
This.
If you're having to spend money you wouldn't otherwise have spent, it's worth a careful cost-benefit analysis to ask yourself if you're actually spending more than the bonus is worth...to take it one step further, as an example: Let's say I get 50k mile airline bonus, which maybe is worth $500. Let's say I make $475 non-normal purchases trying to get the bonus. So it's only worth $25...but I ALSO could have just bought the airline ticket and got points on another card.
Use any numbers that work, I was just using simple numbers vs. actual to illustrate.
As far as cash-only restaurants, fine with me, but it gets annoying at a high end place, just because you never know how much cash you'll need if you're enjoying yourself, and it kind of stalls the evening to have to run to an ATM.