Easy come, easy go!

Earn for my wife and I
Amex PRG 100K X 2
Amex Gold Biz 100K X 2
Citi AAdvantage Amex 75K X 2
Citi AAdvantage Visa 75K X 2
Chase Sapphire Preferred 50K X 2

Burn
Amex 400K for a car downpayment ($4,000)
AA - 280K for 4 tickets to Asia ($2,200 each)
Chase UR - 112K for a 65" Panasonic Plasma, Canon S95, and 1.5 TB Hard Drive using the Black Friday return-o-rama

Excellent earn and burn.. especially the Chase UR.. a 65" Panasonis Plasma? I bought my 65" Panasonic Viera for $4K a couple of years ago.. @ 0.01 per mile, that $1,112.00.. a great deal.^

Thanks! The Chase UR is an interesting circumstance. They offered 25-50% off merchandise on Black Friday (fulfilled through Best Buy) which could be returned for higher prices in store credit. The best return I had was a camera for 7,824 points which translated into a $299 Best Buy gift card. I don't do biz/1st class tickets since I'm moving a family in economy class with miles, so that's a nice redemption rate. In the end, the 112-114K of UR points I spent got me about $2,300 of store credit.

Why I'm going to pay special attention to this again next Black Friday, is because while some people hate Best Buy store credit, it can be transferred into Amazon credit => buy Kindle gift cards. This would a killer way to get Amazon credit @ .02 per point.

blue sky card - 37,500 pts or 500$ credit for travel
chase southwest - 50,000 miles
Chase Freedom - waiting for 30,000 UR points to be credited aka 300$ cashback
Barclays US Airways - 40,000 miles - just got



So far I transfered the SW miles to amazon and Wal Mart gift cards; gave about half of them away for my christmas presents

now wanting sapphire preferred, Citi AA card x2, SPG card eventually.. hoping to get another US Airways card also heh heh.. guess i'll just keep an eye out for targeted offers like premier rewards gold otherwise

Earn:

75k AAx2 + spend + hockey puck = 160k approx
55k UR (statement pending; I think they owe me 3700 or so)
24k Continental (three TATL paid flights, in significant part because I got two vouchers)
10k Delta flown
60k Carlson
3k USAir (Grand Slam, $0 spend)

Burn:
100k Continental (TATL + stopover, about 2cpm)
15k Lufthansa (to avoid expiration) (oneway award Schengen-CIS) (about 2cpm)

Cards:
AAx2, Sapphire Preferred
Cancelled - Chase Continental
Previously held - United MP

Balances:
160k AA
86k Delta
60k United
60k Carlson
55k UR
4k USAir
2k IHG

2012 goals:
Nov-Dec trip to South America on miles
Maintain Delta status, SM or higher (15k more miles)
Use remaining CO voucher ($300)
at least 25k Grand Slam

I'm doing a lot more earning than burning, which I'm a little bit concerned about, and need to pick cards for this year - unfortunately I'm not eligible for MP Explorer because Chase MP was my first card and I still have it. Not particularly impressed with the other offers out there...

I earned about 150,000 this year with about 23,000 to AA, 33,600 to DL, and about 80,000 between UA and CO plus a few dribs and drabs elsewhere.

Redemptions:
AA: 32,500 JFK-SFO (F)
US: 25,000 RDU-IAD-RDU (Y)
UA: 15,000 Y-C Upgrade, 55,000 RCC Membership
CO: 12,500 PRG-VIE (Y), 37,500 PHX-RDU-PHX for a friend (Y)
DL: 100,000 IAD-PRG/VIE-IAD (J)