Also - sometimes you have to let people making mistakes.

People always learn from hard ways rather than easy ways.

Understand that most people ask about things out of sense of social politeness and desire no more than a perfunctory answer. For example, "How's it going?" is not an invitation to explain your frustration with your boss at work or the gastric distress you suffered after eating the wrong thing at lunch; you're expected simply to say, "Good, thanks," and leave it at that.

I guess that would work if someone has already joined a hotel program, but I don't know anyone other than frequent business travelers who use hotel programs. I'm not an expert on them, but they seem to have limited utility for casual travelers. Almost everyone I know is a member of at least one airline program, but tends to book hotels on Priceline or Expedia, or stays with friends or AirBnB.

I have successfully convinced a couple of close family members to use a simple cashback credit card (Discover It) for daily expenses instead of a debit card, and put it on autopay to automatically pay in full every month. One of them told me that the ~$300 a year he gets is a nice little bonus and thanked me for urging him to set it up, but I don't think I will go any further.

Wow. Yeah many of my friends have the cash back cards and say how much they love them. I can't even bring myself to say that the $1250 they just cashed out Is equivalent to the $5700 In flights that will take my family of 5 to Hawaii.

Until you really get in deep or make a commitment to research and creativity, you're not going to "get" this game. For me, it has truly become an art. I devote time to it and enjoy it. The big trip payoffs are the rewards. And the mini perks of lounges and upgrades are reminders along the way.

This is a good analogy that people here should keep in mind. However, as a counter point, I (in the same boat as you on health) don't chime in when people ask for health advice with "Eating whatever I want and working out minimally works great for me!" Yet I've seen Facebook friends ask for reward credit card advice and people reply "We've been very happy with our <insert 1% credit card>." I have no problem with people focusing their attention on other things (it's what makes the value we get possible!) but everyone thinks they know something on this subject. And of course you can't verify that someone giving you financial advice, or in this discussion, reward CC advice, has the personal results to back up their advice. It's pretty easy to see you shouldn't listen to my health advice.

My eyes would probably gloss over too. But the big difference is you probably never asked for their advice. I'm also sure you didn't tell them how wrong they are on a subject that they clearly have more knowledge about.

Well, my experience is different. A friend of mine who was for a couple years moving around the country following jobs in different cities got into the Choice Hotels program just for the stays along the way during the moves.

And a recently wed relative of mine signed up for Hilton HHonors for a first anniversary driving trip. (And expressed interest in possibly other hotel programs later, since they do a lot of driving trips, not always to places where they have family/friends to stay with.) In this case, the relative's parents traveled to various places on vacations, and so this person was used to their parents staying in chain hotels. (Plus hearing about me staying in chain hotels and some of them for free, including I gave them a honeymoon stay with my Marriott points.)

So I think it depends on whether you have friends/family who travel, where and how they travel, how long they've been travelling, etc, etc.

Perhaps you see fewer of them on FlyerTalk if you don't hang around the hotel forums, but there are people who travel more by road than by plane.

I don't consider what I do a hobby..more like common sense. I own a business and have $75K legitimate spend a year. Why would I put this all on the same card when my wife and I(and the business) can receive multiple sign up bonuses by opening up multiple cards? We have opened 19 cards since Dec and have accumulated 1,000,000 points just in the sign up bonuses. I found it quite simple actually, no spreadsheets...just adding the cards to quickbooks. Keeping track of the spend was just going to the accounts online and looking at the statements.
Having said that, I know many people who wouldn't even dream of doing this because of the reasons many have already posted...mainly that they don't think they have the time.

I agree. Credit card rewards are like any other interest or hobby. Some people just don't care, and that's fine. At the end of the day it's not life changing money, just a little extra bonus on spending. If people don't care they don't care.

It seems many people in the general population either don't use credit cards at all, or else have one or two cards that they have probably had for a long time and use them for everything. They aren't maximizing their rewards but if they are happy it's their choice.

If you have friends/family/whoever that don't care, stop trying to force the issue. In general people get annoyed if you are constantly trying to butt into their finances, including credit cards.

There are people who have no interest in travel, and there are some that would love to travel but don't simply because of finances. Looking at it from that angle, credit card rewards literally can change your life. Here's a perfect example from the New York Times article on the CSR: