9 1/2 hours

Originally posted by: MisterPicture

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I pay $5.60 on Southwest for each one-way. I earned that privilege by getting two Chase Southwest sign-up bonuses in January, which set me back about $160 in fees. I will cancel those cards after a year. And I auto-pay the full amount on all my cards and haven't paid credit card interest in years, so the $160 is my total out-of-pocket.

 

I get almost no points from flying or spending, but I get almost all from sign-up bonuses. In January, I got 140,000 points, but because I also earned the Companion Pass, that is the equivalent of 280,000 points when flying as a couple. My most recent purchase, LAS/LAX ROUND-TRIP FOR TWO, cost less than 7,700 points in total.  So I can do that same round trip for two another 36 times before I have to pay more than $5.60 per one-way. No, I don't think I'll be driving.

 

Kevin, we've had this discussion before. Your objection to spending the $160 is that the credit card companies are money-grubbing corporations who take advantage of their naive customers. Funny, you never had that same objection about casino owners.

 

Would it make you feel better if we started calling it Advantage Play Travel?

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Originally posted by: Kevin Lewis

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It's funny to pretend that you get those credit card perks for nothing, because they obviously love you and don't want to make any money.

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Originally posted by: Matt Roberts

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The credit card perks happen because the banks are gambling that the customer will make the minimum payment instead of paying the full balance once or twice a year. If just a couple of customers do that, they can recover the cost of offering those perks to several people.

 

I had a long discussion with my nephew who works for one of the major credit card issuers. I told him my approach to credit card bonus hustling (generally mirrors Jerry's above). He said I'm considered a "negative revenue customer" (or something like that), but as long as I don't try to open more than 5 cards a year or do some of the more aggressive "cash churning" tricks, they consider my bonuses, cash back, etc. a cost of doing business. 

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Originally posted by: AKQJ10

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Kevin, Why limit your "teachings" to this small set of people here, when there are thousands out there, unaware of these views of yours that they should be adopting in their own lives?  THEY are the ones you should be "educating"!   Get to the airports, look at the list of flights to destinations that are under your cutoff for driving, and tell them that they are doing the wrong thing! Take them all through it.   Demonstrate that no intelligent person would take these flights.  Show them show they are wrong!  The amout of people reading your words of "widsom" here is microscopic compared to even just ONE trip you could take to the airport, to help the world!  

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Originally posted by: Boilerman

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   Amen.

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