Originally Posted by Khabibul35
I still think the ~$140 extra you spend could be used towards a MR or other trips.
1.4 cpm($140/10,000 miles) is ok, but it's still not eqm... and even if it put you over the top to get the 5,000 eqms thats 2.8 cents per eqm. I think that's too high to say it's worth it.
Just to be clear - the $140 brings in addition to the upfront 25K of RDM
and 5K of EQM, with the possibility of another 10K of non-BIS EQM, 5K of it with an annual spend of >$35K and 5K of it matching united.com spends of up to 5K. So it is not $140/10,000 miles, unless the 10,000 in your denominator is the difference in RDM between a no-fee card and the $140 one. And if you are going to treat those "extra" 10K RDM as though they were being purchased for $140, that is at 1.4 cpm, then you ought not at the same time treat the upfront 5K of EQM as costing 2.8 cpm, because you are in effect double counting analyzing it that way.
Would you buy RDM at 1 cpm? If you would, then perhaps you should allot $100 of the $140 to purchase of RDM, leaving $40 to be counted against the purchase of 5K EQM, with the potential to earn more non-BIS EQM. 1 cpm for RPM and .8 cpm for EQM appeals to me. (Re-jigger it all the way down to an absurdly cheap .5 cpm for RDM and you will still have non-BIS EQM, the stuff that 1K-lite is made of, at 1.8 cpm, a reasonable cost.)