Good you admit it.

As much as I dislike amex, I would rather put $25,000 in spend on a Delta Skymiles amex card next year than waste an extra $6,000 in unnecessary MQD spending for Delta tickets. Anyway, that's my plan for 2014.

Very annoyed that putting so much spend on a Gold Delta amex card is going to severely crimp my credit card churning activity in 2014.

Btw, I thought ANY of the three amex Delta Skymiles cards works for meeting the $25,000 cc spend requirement. The Gold one has the cheapest annual fee.

That's the other thing that annoys me. Me being Diamond and wife being Plat works well for us because I can guest her into Skyclubs. Her upgrade percent is almost as good as mine, so no loss there. (We always fly separate PNR's on domestic travel.)

I can just barely do the $25,000 annual amex spend to re-qualify Diamond.

Wife flies enough MQM's for Plat, but only half of the MQD's for Plat ($7,500). No way in hell for BOTH of us to do $25,000 spend on amex.

Annoys me to no end that I might have to buy her a full fare biz-class ticket to Paris just to keep her from dropping to FO. Her upgrade percentage as FO or Gold would be bad enough otherwise to cause marital discord.

(I told her a little white lie that it is strictly forbidden by Delta to swap boarding passes to let her sit up front.)

The $25,000 AMEX threshold is easy for me to reach, even in retirement. I charge my $10,000 annual property taxes, something like $10,000 in Delta plane tickets, throw in another $5,000 or so at restaurants, and I'm there. No problem at all. I also charge gasoline on AMEX, and that's a couple thousand a year.

Bruce

I'll have no trouble qualifying with my spend flying, as I am really a frequent flyer. Nonetheless, it is a condescending to hauntingly claim it's easy to spend $25k annually.

Fortunately, I live somewhere that doesn't soak us on real estate taxes, so my taxes are under $2k. Plus, anyone who refinanced a mortgage in the past couple of years is not only paying well under 4% interest, but is also likely to have taxes escrowed.

Many of us who must use corporate credit cards for business travel just do not spend that much a year outside business expenses. It is quite easy to live pretty well without spending that much money. I am purchasing a car right now, and most dealerships have a limit on how much you can put on a card and charge an additional 3% for the pleasure. If I pay cash, they'll give me 3% off, which translates to an additional $3k just to get DL miles. Who would do that?

I don't eat at restaurants when I'm in town: I do enough of that on the company's dime when I travel, and most of my friends like to cook and invite people over. I buy most of my food at the DeKalb Farmer's Market. They don't take credit cards. Heck, I'm even likely purchasing a Volt, which will mean almost no gas expense starting in May.

Maybe in your circumstance it is easy to spend $25k, but for those of us who like to save/invest more than we spend on restaurant meals that are gone before you are out of the restaurant and other unnecessary expenses, $25k is above necessary spending.

With property taxes, most counties use a third party company that charges a 2 to 3 percent fee, so it isn't worth it to me. If someone has no problems with paying the fee they can always pay the IRS online if they owe money on their taxes or make a large payment at the end of January and get the money back when they file their taxes.

I am curious as to what kind of car you bought for $100K? I think every dealer has a limit of $2 to $5k on a credit card.

I value my sex life too much to risk that ;)

I got a dealer up to $10,000 once. It was really, really hard!

Bruce

Now can you tell me the opportunity cost to earn those miles?
At a minimum for me in Canada it's 1.14% + CX miles, and in the US it's MR/UR earning opportunity.

This!

This too.

As a contrast, the last dealer that I used said that he would take no more than $10,000 on the card when I offered to pay the whole thing that way.

While I applaud you for your penny pinching ways (I myself subscribe to the same) it's quite difficult for a typical American family (2.5) with typical savings habits (2.4% as of Jan 2013) and typical spending patterns ($49,638/year) to not be able to spend $25,000 on a CC. All stats are from BLS.

You are the extreme tail of the distribution my friend. The other poster is closer to the middle.

As far as opportunity cost, yes that is a valid argument.

$50k is the average for the cars I'm considering. (Chevy Volt is under $50k, Audi S5 Convertible and BMW 328 Hardtop Convertible are above.) The one dealer willing to let me put the whole thing on a cc will charge me 3%, or $1,500 additional, to use the cc. If I pay cash at the same dealer, he is willing to take $1,500 off; thus, a $3k difference. If I finance, there is no surcharge or discount.

(OT, I may wind up going to Germany to get a car, saving thousands, even with the shipping costs. SMs and MR points will help hold the cost down if I do that. The Volt is my favorite car right now, but it doesn't come with a manual transmission or as a convertible.)

The one big ticket item that many of my friends are still able to charge is private school tuition. One friend puts about $60k on a DL card that way each year.

You are Delta PM, so you are spending at least $7500 on plane tickets alone, not counting the taxes. That's a third of the way to $25,000!Wow, I have never seen such low real-estate taxes on a reasonable home. But I've lived most of my life in the Northeast and now Florida.Good point. I haven't had a mortgage in over 20 years and forgot about escrow requirements.I had a corporate card, too, when I was employed, but I used my personal card instead, mostly to get the miles. Nobody seemed to care, fortunately.Debatable, for sure.I don't buy cars very often. I currently drive a 2000 Mustang GT convertible. But when I must buy a car, I put as much as the dealer will allow on a credit card, without ever agreeing to pay a fee for the privilege. If they won't let me use a credit card for at least a hunk of the cost, then I go to another dealer.I don't know what to say to this, but my $100/week in restaurant spending doesn't seem excessive.Nice!The average American family spends double that. The amount put on credit cards is probably what distinguishes me from the norm, not my total spending.

Bruce