Yeah, those are credits almost anyone can use. We fully value the entertainment credit as it fully covers spending we were already doing, and I put a small but nonzero on the WM+ credit (mostly for Paramount+ streaming since we don't generally shop at WM). I think we can mostly use the hotel and airline incidental credit in most years, and with Schwab we get an annual bonus that offsets the fee some. At the end of one year, we'll see how much value we got out of it overall. For the first year, it's an easy winner with the 100,000 point bonus through the Schwab card. But we can re-evaluate about 10 months in to see if this makes sense to keep. I think there may be enough other benefits to keep it even if we can't recoup the entire $695 with credits and Schwab bonus, but we'll see.

I'd also add that the goal of a business is not to maximize revenue, but to maximize *profit*. Sure, sometimes you make a business decision to sell at a loss in the short term if it increases revenues, market share and customer base in the short term that should increase profits in the long term. But no sound business believes in the idea that "we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume". Not in a long-term strategy, anyway.

But I digress, and back to the thread topic, either the $695 is worth it or it's not. With a new Schwab Plat and its 100,000 point SUB, that's worth at least $1,100 and maybe more if it can be transferred to airline and hotel partners for even more, so Year 1 is a no-brainer and lets us see if there should be a Year 2. Ain't life grand?