Sign up, and you'll be able to customize your font size and more! Sign up
Oct 23, 2018
2:58:35pm
GRCoug All-American
Question for all of the cb travel hackers:
I listened to a podcast about people who fly for free using credit cards and the Southwest companion pass etc so I was reading the requirements. I was trying to decide if it would work for me and if it would really save me money after I tallied up all of the costs and benefits.

I have a basic premise that I live by which is people who operate major businesses (especially big banks like Chase) are a heck of a lot smarter than I am and They are not in the business of losing money so there is no way that they are losing money on these credit card incentives. Most people that I talk to that try to collect points think that they are in the 1% and are outsmarting the banks (which might be true), but I am skeptical.

So I’m wondering since I’m to lazy to work though the mental gymnastics, I’m wondering if you were to really add up all of the numbers, do you really save a lot of money with all of these travel hacking promotions?

I’m thinking that the only way you could really say that you come out ahead would be if you meet the following conditions:
1. You only use credit cards for things that you would normally spend money on if you didn’t have any credit cards. (I think this is a tough one because there are a lot of studies that show we not only spend more money but are willing to spend more money for a given thing when we use credit cards vs. cash). I think that if you are trying to come up with things to buy just to earn points disqualifies you for this one.
2. You would have to pay off your credit cards on time every month without ever paying interest.
3. You only use points for trips or flights that you would have taken regardless of whether you used points or not. For instance if you got the companion pass on Southwest and you had a year to use it, it would incentivize you to go on more trips that you otherwise would have gone on without it thereby actually spending more money than you would have without the free flight.

There are probably more that I haven’t thought of but that is what I came up with.
GRCoug
Bio page
GRCoug
Joined
Jan 14, 2009
Last login
Mar 28, 2024
Total posts
9,936 (36 FO)
Messages
Author
Time

Posting on CougarBoard

In order to post, you will need to either sign up or log in.