Originally Posted by
MM_someday
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.
yeah i think i didnt phrase myself properly. i mean definitely depends on person to person. but for me it certainly feels harder to get award tickets nowadays and the flights, at least those im looking at, are getting cheaper. the incentive is getting quite small to warrant the effort for me
Originally Posted by
ZenFlyer
I don't see a card on any of those lists that will result in net of 5% cashback, nor even a combination of cards that would result in a net of 5% back on all spend -- only in certain categories. I'm not arguing those are better or worse than miles-earning cards overall, just observing that hypothesizing a net return of 5% cash back seems a bit far-fetched for purposes of your comparison.
i dont mean a net 5% cashback for every catergory, but you can find 5% for most high spending catergories like grocery, dining, travel.