I’m currently using the Venture X as my catch all card for the 2x miles, but I have been questioning how long it actually makes sense to hoard miles versus taking guaranteed cash back.
I also have a Fidelity Signature Visa and the Apple Card, both of which give me a flat 2% cash back. With those, I can immediately invest the cash back, use it to pay bills, or save it, all of which provide real liquidity and potential growth. Miles, on the other hand, do not grow and are always subject to devaluation.
For people who use travel cards long term, is there a point where you stop putting catch all spend on travel cards once you have accumulated enough miles? Do you think in terms of a rough mileage balance, a time horizon without a planned redemption, or a target value covered for future trips?
To clarify, I am only talking about catch all spend. Category spend is already optimized with higher multipliers like 5x on travel and 3% or higher on other categories, so this is strictly about what to do with non category spend (like utilities and other everyday purchases).
Curious how others think about the trade off between continuing to earn miles versus switching catch all spend back to a flat 2% or higher cash back setup.
At what point do travel miles stop beating 2% cash back for catch all spend?
byu/iam_spr inCreditCards
Posted by iam_spr
7 Comments
When you decide to retire from traveling
Have an earning:burning ratio that works for you. When the value goes over that figure, switch to cashback.
I’m about to stop, I somehow have $14,000 worth of miles sitting there with no plans for big trips this year to consume some points.
I think I’ll chill with 2% cash back for a while, cash is king.
The hard part is finding a trip where the points will actually work to book reasonable flights in my opinion.
When I tried Amex I thought with that long list of airlines one would surely work.
That wasn’t the case when I tried to book a trip. I did eventually make them work (and then closed my Amex cards).
When I tried Chase I did better, but still found it frustrating when the redemption I thought would work didn’t due to what’s called “phantom availability.”
As far as saving points, the general vibe seems to be to not save them. In the 20ish years I’ve been paying attention to airline points they’ve devalued *a ton*. Often without notice.
Does any of all that make sense?
For me it was life circumstances. I found out my fiancee was pregnant a few weeks ago. Pretty soon after I applied for the Fidelity card to replace my VX as catchall. I figure we won’t do much traveling for the next few years so might as well get out of the points game for the foreseeable future.
This is one of the reasons I tend to try to stick to Hilton and Hyatt points.
It’s just so much easier to transfer and find hotel stays that actually fit my schedule than it is to find good value with most airline partners. I value flexibility, and I think hotels offer that much more than airlines do in the current state.
At the point where you can’t get better than 2% return on spend by redeeming those miles, or at the point where you don’t travel enough to redeem all your miles.