[quote=gzz]That’s a good point if you are picky about your hotel when you travel. I usually use priceline and save 30-50% off the lowest published price for a 4 or 3.5 star hotel in the area. I only end up having to pay listed rates about 10% of the time when priceline fails me. Thus for me a free night in a downtown LA hotel like the giant Westin or the Marriott is only worth the $135 I pay on priceline, not the normal $250-300.
There is no comparable way to save on airfare. Priceline and hotwire will save you, at best 8% over lowest published, and so rarely that I usually don’t even check.
Also, the big bucks are in the sign-up bonuses. My CC spend is about 30K a year between biz and personal, so even with a 2% reward that is only $600. But with sign-up bonuses, I actually get more like $1500 the last couple years, and $2200 back when it was really rich 2008-2012.[/quote]I actually don’t use points for cheap areas like downtown LA where there there are an abundant of cheap hotels. I’m saving those points for places like Fiji, Bora Bora, Tahiti, etc. where there aren’t any cheap hotel around or when I want to do a splurge vacation and be able to stay at a 5 star hotel for a 3 star price. BTW, I don’t dispute signed up gets you a lot of sign on bonus. But signing up for a lot of credit card every year could affect you if you want to refi your house. I don’t know how lenders would look at your if you have open that many cards.
