You're welcome, but NO, I wasn't saying good bye. I'm sure I'll still be sending out Christmas cards for a few more years.

All I meant was, as good as the game may be for a total newcomer at 0/24 who can still apply for all these great sign up bonuses, for those of us who have been hitting it hard for a decade there is very little left to do, and certainly no low-hanging fruit to pick. DW and I both have another AA card in the mail, and one more mailer to do at the beginning of August. Which is good, of course, but compared to the probably 4 Million miles we have gotten together over the past decade, it's nothing to write home (to FT) about...

And we can still MS spend at grocery stores for 6/8 HH points per $. Which is far from free, but for mid level HH properties in Europe, it comes out to about a 60% discount over paying for the room.

But new cards? B/A, Barclays, Chase, and Cap One are all off limits, due to MAC. We've already had all of the AMEX cards. Without new mailers the only Citi cards we can get within the next 4 years would be another Premiere card. But as good as TYPs may be for Bus class to Asia (been there done that), they are pretty much useless for FC to Europe, which is our preferred way to go (yes in both senses).

For anyone who reads the major travel blogs, you know there is almost nothing of interest there. OMAAT is now reduced to posts like "JetBlue Suing Walmart Over JetBlackName", and "Pakistan Airlines wants to Launch Nonstop US Flights". It'll be a cold day in Hell when I fly either to or from Pakistan to anywhere, and non-stop flights aren't going to change that. And note that they aren't starting those flights, they just "want" to do so. Yep, if you aren't a newcomer to miles/points, there is virtually no news you can use.

So the miles and points game isn't dead yet, but it's on major life support. Aside from the occasional report of a Near Death Experience, there's not much there to hold our interest.