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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'll give my take as a frequent traveler with little spare time. I don't "churn" cards because I dont' have time for that. I have 2 cards:
AmEx Platinum
Chase Sapphire Reserve

AmEx gets all my airfare because you get 5x points. This also gives me gold status on both Hilton and Marriott hotels. Lots of free breakfasts and routine upgrades (usually outside the US).
Chase gets everything else.

Then, each partners with various airilnes so you can convert AmEx/Chase points to that airline's points, and it's diferent airlines for each. When I want a flight, I convert the points at that time.

Big caveat: the annual fee on these cards is $600-700/year. However, you get credited for various spending so actual cost is a lot lower.

But for all this, you need to spend a lot to make it worth it. Work lets me use my personal card for travel, so between the 2 cards I'm spending $200-300k/year.

As for the "just get a cash back card", you don't get much value from that _if_ you want to use it for business class travel. A simple example: a round-trip business calss flight from here to Europe may be $7k if you buy it, or 140k points. To earn $7k on your cash back card, you need to spend let's say $350k. To earn 140k points, that would be $30k on airfare (AmEx 5x points) or maybe $100k on typical regular spending (Chase gives 3x points on restaurants).

In summary, it's a balance of how complicated you want to make your life.. the marginal benefit compared to your time to manage the "tricks".
[/quote]

I feel like am doing something wrong. Every time I check, the flight cost in miles is not cheaper for me than just paying cash. For example, I was recently pricing out a business class flight on united to London, cost was ~4K, but also costs 400k miles! Is there a particular airline or hotel chain where this is more feasible? Would love to make this work, but have never had much success[/quote]

Yeah you need to search out/hunt down the saver awards that are around 75-80k each way in business. But they are few and far between. That's why it's a bit of a game with a learning curve and straight up work- searching, booking, etc. That's why it's not for everyone.[/quote]

This is the PP again and thanks for all the tips. My strategy so far has been to find the flight I want (searching for the cheapest/best times) and then check if it would be cheaper using points, which it never is! I will try next time searching for  saver award flights and/or using the seats website mentioned above 
[/quote]

Virgin has a reward seat checker tool that shows availability 11 months out for all classes of service and their cost. Economy can be as low as 6k. Business as low as 40-50k. If you have flexibility, just pick your dates many months out. [/quote]

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