On the other hand, if you don't want to stay in luxury hotels or fly in premium classes, then likely the cashback cards are better for your situation. My money is where my mouth is on this one.

Sure, but that wasn't his question. :)

Touché.

However, the question I think that was actually intended was 'can you get more than $1500 value from $75K spending'. The answer is yes - if premium class travel and luxury hotels are worth anything like the sticker price to you. If not, the answer is no.

(To use one of the examples quoted above: I would never pay $4000 for 8 nights at a hotel, any hotel. 8 nights in Rome is worth maybe $500-$600 to me, at most, and I'll be equally happy in a cheap pension or the Cavalieri (probably happier in the pension actually). If you wouldn't pay $4000 cash for it, then it isn't worth $4000 to you either.)

Thanks for the responses. I have never flown first class or business class and never will. I would also never pay $500/night for a hotel stay anywhere. The value is just not there for me. I guess that is why I use a 2% cashback card.

But you will use your 2% rebate to pay for a hotel somewhere. While they emphasized high end hotel, the formula works well for the lower end too. If you don't spend time in any hotels, then this BB is not for you.

Nonsense. This board is for people who want to maximize the rewards from their spending and traveling. Often that's by using miles and points well. I do that: I earn way too many miles from flying, and I value the status I earn. (I am just finishing grad school and have flown several hundred K BIS miles, earning nearly a million redeemable miles, just from flying during my grad school career. And I've definitely spent a lot more time in hostels than hotels in that time, and most of the hotels haven't been chain-affiliated (not too many Starwood properties in central Asia or rural Australia or most of Africa or...). But I still have several hundred K miles sitting around to be redeemed (for international - coach - awards mostly :) ).

However, sometimes the most valuable reward you can get is not points but cash. And what I'm saying is that that can be true for credit card rewards. The question of whether you want extra miles from credit cards is an entirely different one from how to fly cheaper, earn more miles and more status per flight, and burn the miles you earn that way for what you actually want. This board (ok, other boards on FT more than this one) is very useful for hints on how to do that better too. That's why I'm here. Other people make very good use of mileage / point earning credit cards. It's just not for everyone and since most people on here never point this out, I felt like I had to... :)

Sounds like me, a couple of years ago. :)

I fly NW all the time. I pay el cheapo fares, and get upgraded to First most of the time. Would you refuse that?

If you want to do some long haul flying (i.e., Europe, Asia, etc.), you must be aware that the the time spent in your seat can be considerable -- if you can upgrade yourself by spending some miles, would you deny yourself that just because, I don't know, maybe you feel you don't "deserve" it?

Re: hotels. Yes, we've done the B&B/pensione route, too. It can be a lot of fun. But since I spend a lot of time in hotels anyhow, why not take the points I'm getting for free and splurge a little? Maybe you'd never pay $500/night in Rome -- well, I wouldn't either. But if I wanted to visit Rome on the cheap, I can prpbably find a decent hotel for ~$100/night. 6 nights is $600. A GLONP2 from Hilton costs some points, and I get a very nice hotel for $0, plus free breakfast, excellent service, etc. And, I get to stuff that $600 in my pocket.

Different strokes for different folks and all that, but the reason most of us are here is to find out how to maximize our return on things we would have to do anyhow. I know I've learned a lot -- the cash value I've received from tips learned here far outweighs anything I would have likely done myself, and I've enjoyed some pretty comfortable travel in the bargain.

yellow77 -- Most of us here do know the tradeoffs of cash vs. points/miles. We wind up earning the points/miles in the course of our business. Money is fungible -- miles are not. There's very little we can spend them on except airlines and hotels. I often make the mental calculations of "should I use cash or points". We all do.

If you have no interest in international premium travel or upscale hotels, well, OK - that's fine for you. But an awful lot of people would very much like to experience that, and that's what this board is all about.

Don't forget, while many of us here are relatively young, quite a lot of us are older -- we've done the backpacking thing. We don't necessarily have decades of travel ahead of us. We're cashing out in style, and FT is helping us along.

[/sermon]

If the person has already determined that the best reward from credit card spending is what he has already been doing, then he has acheived the ultimate he can get. He doesn't need any further information on miles or points. That's not nonsense.

We basically agree. So I'll post only one more clarification (for now...). What we disagree about is not 'should I maximize the number of miles and points I earn from what I do anyway, like flying and staying in hotels?'. The answer to that is (almost) always yes. The question is 'should I use a credit card to get more miles?' You opened this thread by saying 'yes, of course'. I disagreed by saying 'yes, you should choose to get some kind of reward, but for many people cash is better.'

Credit card spending is the rare case where you can choose between getting extra money (rewards) and extra miles (rewards) - so, if you like, the miles are fungible at the time you choose what credit card to use and so whether to earn them. So you should use your valuation of a mile to decide. If you're getting 2c - 5c on the dollar with cash reward cards, then your value of a mile must be more than that, or else you're making a mistake. For people flying in F or staying at the Cavalieri, the correct valuation may be more than 5c per mile. I understand that. But if you check out the MR forum, where there are many threads on this, most people use a valuation of between 1 and 2c. In the case of credit card reward choice, since you are making a direct choice between the cash and the reward, the 2c-5c per dollar cash reward is your real opportunity cost. So for most people, including most people on FT, the cash rewards are a better choice. Particularly if, like many people on FT, you are already earning more miles than you can use anyway.

chauming: Sorry if I sounded rude; it wasn't intended.

The Choice is made for me....
 

Three or four times a year, I have to pay hotels for the food, beverages, etc. for groups, routine charges of from $5,000. to $40,000.. Using a mileage reward card makes the bills a hefty addon to my FF milers from flights.

Then there are the rewards from hotel group affiliations, points which make everything from modest rooms on vacation trips or while consulting (self-employment, flat fees, no itemized expenses) to the occasional plunge into outright luxury. A $40,000. hotel bill comes with a bucket full of points.

I don't travel enough to be a high status flyer with any airline, and personally barely make modest elite status with a couple of hotel chains, but I've noticed that the company-owned "stores" in Marriott's upper tier of hotels do treat "high mileage" with a touch more consideration than a guy with zero ponts.

That first Transatlantic seat up in the front of the bus on a reward ticket and the first holiday weekend in a hotel at which I would have balked at even a discount rate were all it took for the choice to be made for me.

TMO

The FF program thing is understandable. But why do ppl use inferior airlines. Example being, 2 of my friends bought a £750 GBP ticket from LHR-SIN-SYD-CHC return on Qantas. I purchased a £740 GBP ticket from LHR-SIN-CHC on SQ. I get more legroom and awesome IFE and I don't wait 6 hrs in SYD after an exhausting flight.

I can't understand why ppl do this? I can only assume out of ignorance. If SQ really pushed their product specs out into the open, I think a lot more ppl would choose them over BA/QF

Well, you seem to have given your own possible answers. 1: it wasn't worth it to them to search any more once they found something good enough (the QF flight). 2: they like QF. 3: they are collecting FF points on some Oneworld airline. 4: they have no information that SQ and QF might differ in quality, or if they do, which one is better. 5: it didn't occur to them that the flights might differ in duration by as long as you think.

If you have to make a decision in a domain you don't usually deal with, I'm sure you (and I and almost everybody) get things just as wrong. (Or just optimize a different objective.)

I don't think you can assume that people are "clueless" just because they're not interested in earning miles/points. After all, it's gotten harder and harder to use the miles, and with some airlines you have to pay a hefty fee to use them anyways.

I think that some people don't have the inclination to spend any time learning about how to earn them. Some would rather spend time learning on how to get something you can spend outside of frequent flyer land.

I think the real clueless people are the ones who, four years after 9/11, don't know to have their IDs/boarding pass ready, don't know to take their shoes off, don't know to take their laptops out (even when they see everyone around them doing this), and seem surprised to be asked this by the screeners.

This is the reason why every airport needs a frequent flyer line.

I totally agree on all of the above, except the shoes! I approach the line with watch, change, and cell phone already dumped in carry-on. Boarding pass in passport, facing in the direction so that the checker can see both BP and passport photo in one glance. And, I have my laptop out ahead of time.

But the one thing I do not do is take my shoes off! First of all, not all airports require it. And you can't always tell by watching whether others are taking their shoes off. On a number of occasions, most people ahead of me had their shoes off. I didn't, and TSA passed me on through without making me take mine off.

And, I really resent that pointless nonsense, so if they're gonna make me, I'm not gonna make it easier for them by taking them off in advance!

Not to mention that QF may very well have the WORST FF program in the world!!! With SQ, not only are you flying on a markedly superior airline, but as a member of Star Alliance, you can accrue both status and redeemable miles on UA. UA's FF program is miles above QF's. Less than 1/2 the miles required for an intl. flight reward, far easier to upgrade than on QF, and if ya hafta sit in Economy, they have 35" E+ seats vs. 31" pitch on QF.

Just not a lot of compelling reasons to fly QF when you have a choice!