Originally Posted by
Caspavio
my current setup has 0 annual fees. the cashback cards im talking about generally have 0 AF. just amex, citi exec and venture x alone is 1,685 in AF. im not a big enough spender to justify that. i know you get other benefits with those cards as well, but they are generally not for me, defintely not enough to justify the AF.
also correct me if im wrong, but credit card points are valued more than actual airline because of flexibility, so i would compare against the value of airline miles, which are usually lower. but i agree that you can technically get more value of out miles. the issue here is flexibility and convenience. i cant put a value of that, but sometimes it certainly feels like the additional value i may get doesnt commensurate with my time and effort.
I was trying to say that the annual fees for me pays for itself without considering the cashback portion of the cards, so all those cards are effectively zero AF cards for me. But this may not be the case for you unless you normally spend on Club membership, Hulu, $600-ish on travel, Walmart+, etc.
Very fair point about time and effort and this is subjective from person to person. Cashback cards are definitely easier mentally, and cash is the ultimate flexibility compared to points or miles. I was merely trying to give you a datapoint on how the math works out for me since I only take AA in the form of miles and the rest are points.
That being said, I don't think my setup is scalable because right now, the points/miles I earn is roughly equal to my burn rate for travel. AA miles from hotel spend and UA miles from flight spend are exclusively used to cover flights for my family. The other bank points are used for hotels. Beyond this, I'd probably be looking at pure cashback due to the flexibility of cash for non-flight and non-hotel expenses.
If you have the time and are willing to put in the effort I'd look at it from a top down perspective on how much you burn on personal flights and hotels, and play the miles/points game just enough to subsidize that. Cashback for the rest.