topic Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why? in Credit Cards

How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:03:22 GMT

A recent thread about travel rewards versus cash back, along with comments I've seen from time to time about the pitfalls of diluting rewards across "too many" rewards cards prompted me to go to my spreadsheet and see what points and $ I have captive. I suspect many people have points, miles, and $ sitting in various buckets, for reasons which may include:

1. Not yet at a redeemable threshold

2. At a redeemable level, but saving up to a higher threshold which will provide more beneficial redemption
3. At a redeemable level, but hoping for a special limited time redemption option to come along
4. Waiting for the right trip to redeem for (e.g. airline and hotel programs)

I will admit that I chase rewards cards to an extreme and as a result have a lot of dilution. Between DW and I, we have rewards scattered across over 35 rewards programs. I've never lost rewards of any significance (my wife did lose about 30k United miles a couple years back, but that was not credit-card related and was before we started paying attention). I think I'll be able to redeem everything we have eventually and I'm willing to wait, but I don't discount the possibility that I could get stung if I'm not careful.

Here's what we've got. About $5,800 in total accumulated rewards value, based on nominal redemption rates (generally 1¢ per mile/point on travel programs; minimum redemption value for cash-back programs). Of that, $2,612 will be directly (eventually) redeemable for cash. Most of the rest is in hotel cards (64k LQ points, 81k Marriott points) or airline programs (101k AA, 166k United) (and we also have 100k USAir and 20k LQ points about to post). I'll likely actually get more than 1:1 value out of the airline and hotel points, but no guarantee. I also have a small amount in a variety of other programs which don't have easy cash-redemption options (PenFed Amex, Citi TYP, etc.).

Of the $2,612 I consider redeemable for cash, a fair amount ($1,780) represents 1:1 cash redemption rates in programs (e.g. URP, FlexPerks) where I could potentially get much better than 1:1 if I redeem optimally. Another $600 or so is in Discover CashBack, waiting for reason #3. What's left is mostly because of reasons #1 or #2.

Chris.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

kdm31091 — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:10:40 GMT

You're lightyears ahead of me haha. I have maybe $60 sitting in my Quicksilver account. I'm saving it up during the year for use against my Disney trip in the fall. My hope is it will be a few hundred by then.

I have like $50 or $60 from Discover. Just haven't had a reason to redeem it yet. I'm not in a shopping mood lately so I haven't taken any gift cards or anything. I'll redeem it for a gift card(s) when I want something but don't want to spend money on it.

I think I have about $33 sitting in the Sallie Mae account, $25 of which was from the first use bonus. Again just haven't felt a need to redeem it. Card has no balance right now so nothing to redeem against.

Amex has about ~$50 I've accumulated. Pretty decent for a BCE considering I do not use it very heavily. Just nothing to redeem it for at the moment that is pressing.

My Amazon Visa is pretty new so I only have like $10 available to redeem. I'll wait haha. My BJ's Mastercard has $20 waiting for me, which I will just deduct from the total at the register next time I go there. For BJ's people, the card is great, I've already gotten like $60 from it since September/October.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:14:25 GMT

About $3,900 in travel only rewards, and about $2,200 in cashable rewards.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:14:55 GMT

None, really. Three rewards cards at the moment.

$1.22 on the Cap1 Journey. It auto applies to the balance whenever the total hits $25.

With Barclay, I request a statement credit with whatever's been earned during the month, on the due date (making regular payments too, of course).

NFCU Cash rewards get deposited to the savings account each month, on the due date.

And I just hit the due dates.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

barthooper — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:18:06 GMT

I've only got 3 cards, Sallie Mae, Barclay Rewards, and Quicksilver. I usually redeem the Sallie Mae points every month or so when they get up to 30-35, just because. Rewards accumulates slower because I only use it for phone and internet bills, so I redeem lower for that. I only redeemed Quicksilver after getting the $100 spend bonus and I'm only up to $25 on it after about 3 months since the first redemption. I haven't decided if I'll redeem that soon or not.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:22:14 GMT

Roughly 100K UR and 100K AA. But cash gets redeened whenever possible (I have about $30 on my Dividend card, which I don't use so can't easily get to $59).

Basically, the dangers of banking are:

1) Forfeiting the points because of issuer AA. If you don't do bad things (and I don't on Citi or Chase), not usually a problem.

2) Devaluation. Most frequently associated with travel, as partners increase the miles needed for rewards. But can happen on any point card, e.g. about a year ago Penfed points went from being 1c per point to about 0.85c for the best redemptions, without any annoucement.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

NRB525 — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:32:01 GMT

I've got 155k miles in my Delta account, a combination of several trips to Netherlands and Brazil, sign up bonus, spend, and recently, found miles from another old account that were merged in.

Enough points for a saver fare in United. No cards I can feed, so will be trying to use these soon.

Nearly enough points for a domestic flight in Alaska. Will be adding to that from the Diners Club soon.

50k points in Club Carlson

Points in Marriott, plus 70k just added as bonus

Hyatt 2 free nights, and a few points added from initial spend.

Chase Freedom wants me to get a $25 Amazon card.

Discover has over $100 in cash back

US Bank Cash+ has some funds.

Capital One has 5,000 "miles" or so. That was a transmission replacement purchased.

The whole dispersion issue is something to consider. I prefer my AMEX Delta and Diners Club cards because I know the points from even small spend go to useable plans at reasonable exchange rates. The hotel cards are also a good way to route spend to gather points, as well as keep points alive in those programs.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:36:51 GMT

Right now maybe ~70 cash back between two cards. I usually wait till my balance gets a little higher than my comfort zone and use it towards the bal. More money in the bank has a greater value to me. Unless some incredible deal comes my way.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Josh611 — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:57:44 GMT

I'm at about $270 through my freedom ($200 of it is the signup bonus), $50 for my BCE, and $55 through my sallie mae. Have only had the Freedom and Sallie mae for couple months so I think I've done pretty good so far on those. Will be adding a lot more the next time my chase statement comes in. Was able to put some nice purchases on there . Saving them up for a trip to florida around this time next year.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

mongstradamus — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:09:18 GMT

As of right now i have about 100 dollars in discover cashback/statement credit , 22 dollars of statement credit on my amex bce, 190k in UR, 53k in aa, 52k in Us airways, and about 25k in MR.

The UR and AA/usair miles are going to be used for trip to far east next year.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

ddemari — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:09:43 GMT

$200 travel credit VentureOne Visa

$400 travel credit Barclay Arrival + WEMC

40,000 miles U.S. Airways WMC

40,000 UR Points Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa

140,000 Ritz Carlton Rewards points RItz Visa

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:14:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Roughly 100K UR and 100K AA. But cash gets redeened whenever possible (I have about $30 on my Dividend card, which I don't use so can't easily get to $59).

Basically, the dangers of banking are:

1) Forfeiting the points because of issuer AA. If you don't do bad things (and I don't on Citi or Chase), not usually a problem.
2) Devaluation. Most frequently associated with travel, as partners increase the miles needed for rewards. But can happen on any point card, e.g. about a year ago Penfed points went from being 1c per point to about 0.85c for the best redemptions, without any annoucement.

I don't worry about #1much as I don't do anything which should trigger AA. #2 is a bigger concern for me. I have had loss due to devaluation (PenFed being an example), so I'm wary. I've redeemed points earlier than I might have otherwise just because I had a feeling that a devaluation might happen. And of course, if there's no good reason *not* to redeem, I redeem as soon as I can. But for the rest, I cross my fingers and hope that I'll be able to eventually get full value out, betting that on average the rewards of waiting for optimal redemption will outweigh the occasional devaluation.

Chris.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

BlueRenew — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:12:39 GMT

I have $15 on my Cap One, $21 on my Navy Fed, $30 on my Chase Amazon, and $19 on my Sallie Mae.

I can't redeem my Sallie Mae yet. However I have redeemed that cards bonuses before,

All my other cards I just haven't felt the need to redeem them. I usually redeem my Navy

Fed around $50 and just throw it in my savings. I haven't decided what I want to do with the

bonuses on the other cards yet so I am just letting them sit.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

onstar — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:26:37 GMT

Approximately as follows. Travel miles/points are worth about 1c per.

Total cash (or cash equivalent points): $110

Total travel miles/points: 190,000

Some bonus miles have not posted yet, but they will post when the next statement cuts.

Most CB cards, I cash out about once a quarter. Except Amazon. I use it to shop at Amazon, so that's pretty much always $0 left since I shop at Amazon weekly.

I don't fly a lot. Maybe 2x a year. So the bonus miles have accumulated.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:40:54 GMT

$857 on Double Cash

1155 miles on Barclay Rewards (just PCd from Arrival)

$335 on Disney Rewards card

135 MR points.

I cash out usually once a year...we save these for our annual or twice yearly Disney trip. I am weary of just travel cards, like TY points and MR points and the like. Seems like a lot of work to find the best value of points.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:44:51 GMT

~$50 on my Travel Rewards (5000 points)

~$30 on my Amex which should be coming in soon

0 on my Capital One card, expecting a check for a little more than $100

0 on my SMMC, just redeemed ~$30 (showed up very soon after I redeemed!)

Expecting cash next month for the BBR card, not sure if that counts as banked.

~$120 on my Chase AARP card.

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

dddewdrop — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:49:27 GMT

I have basically nothing. Discover just removed their threshold on my card and my Chase I will redeem every time i reach threshold. My theory is that it is best to redeem free money as soon as you possibly can in fear of them changing policy and me loosing it. Cash in pocket is worth more than theoretical unconverted points in my mind. Way more.....

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:53:35 GMT

@dddewdrop wrote:
I have basically nothing. Discover just removed their threshold on my card and my Chase I will redeem every time i reach threshold. My theory is that it is best to redeem free money as soon as you possibly can in fear of them changing policy and me loosing it. Cash in pocket is worth more than theoretical unconverted points in my mind. Way more.....

I do this too, and put the money in interest bearing accounts (yes, up to 1% a year so not exactly compelling) but it is safer there than being unredeemed with an issuer. But I understand that some view it as a "forced" savings account, and are concerned that if they withdrew the money it would be spent on day to day stuff and sort of disappear.

Similar to tax refunds: financially, except in special cases, if you get a big refund it means you should be witholding less to avoid interest free loans to the governemnts, but some like the impact of a big refund once a year, rather than smaller amounts year round

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

maksimfa — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:12:56 GMT

about 1 million in points/miles.... between delta, united, amex, marriott, us airways

Should start monetizing them soon. lol. I am a hoarder, I like collecting, I HATE spending. =)

Re: How much do you have banked in rewards and why?

IWOL — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:13:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
A recent thread about travel rewards versus cash back, along with comments I've seen from time to time about the pitfalls of diluting rewards across "too many" rewards cards prompted me to go to my spreadsheet and see what points and $ I have captive. I suspect many people have points, miles, and $ sitting in various buckets, for reasons which may include:
1. Not yet at a redeemable threshold
2. At a redeemable level, but saving up to a higher threshold which will provide more beneficial redemption
3. At a redeemable level, but hoping for a special limited time redemption option to come along
4. Waiting for the right trip to redeem for (e.g. airline and hotel programs)

I will admit that I chase rewards cards to an extreme and as a result have a lot of dilution. Between DW and I, we have rewards scattered across over 35 rewards programs. I've never lost rewards of any significance (my wife did lose about 30k United miles a couple years back, but that was not credit-card related and was before we started paying attention). I think I'll be able to redeem everything we have eventually and I'm willing to wait, but I don't discount the possibility that I could get stung if I'm not careful.

Here's what we've got. About $5,800 in total accumulated rewards value, based on nominal redemption rates (generally 1¢ per mile/point on travel programs; minimum redemption value for cash-back programs). Of that, $2,612 will be directly (eventually) redeemable for cash. Most of the rest is in hotel cards (64k LQ points, 81k Marriott points) or airline programs (101k AA, 166k United) (and we also have 100k USAir and 20k LQ points about to post). I'll likely actually get more than 1:1 value out of the airline and hotel points, but no guarantee. I also have a small amount in a variety of other programs which don't have easy cash-redemption options (PenFed Amex, Citi TYP, etc.).

Of the $2,612 I consider redeemable for cash, a fair amount ($1,780) represents 1:1 cash redemption rates in programs (e.g. URP, FlexPerks) where I could potentially get much better than 1:1 if I redeem optimally. Another $600 or so is in Discover CashBack, waiting for reason #3. What's left is mostly because of reasons #1 or #2.

Chris.

I also have my rewards and/or cash back spread out over too many programs.

There are some ways to consolidate your points/miles. For example you could transfer your Marriot points to AA. I believe you get 50,000 AA points for 140,000 Marriot.

Also if you use www.points.com to track your miles accounts, some programs allow exchanges without a fee. Some are good value and some are bad. I just exchanged 10,000 Virgin America points for 7820 US Air. The Virgin points are valued by most at around $0.02 and the US Air at $0.19 so I lost about 20% in value for the exchange but I had more use for the 7820 US air and plenty of Virgin points so it was worth it.