I spent $695 on a piece of metal last year and I still feel like an idiot. It was the Amex Platinum. Everyone on the internet was screaming about the 150,000-point sign-up bonus, calling it the ‘best offer ever,’ and I bit. Hard. I was standing in Terminal B at Newark, sweating because the air conditioning was broken, staring at a closed Centurion Lounge sign, and realized I’d just paid seven hundred dollars for a coupon book I’d never use. It was a total waste.
The 100,000 point trap I fell into at Newark
The problem with looking for the “best offer” is that we’ve been trained to look at the biggest number. 100k points! 150k points! It looks like a win. But here is what happened to me: I got the points, sure. But then I realized that to actually get the ‘value’ out of the card, I had to spend my life tracking $200 hotel credits, $15 Uber stipends, and a digital entertainment credit that only works for like three apps I don’t use. I spent 42 minutes on hold with Chase last month just to argue about a $50 hotel credit that didn’t trigger automatically. My time is worth more than $1.19 a minute.
I tracked my spending for 14 months across three different ecosystems—Chase, Amex, and Citi. What I found was depressing. I was spending more money just to ‘earn’ points. I’d go to a restaurant I didn’t even like because they were on a specific rewards portal. Chasing points is like trying to catch a greased pig at a county fair. You might catch it, but you’re going to be covered in mud and everyone is laughing at you. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me rephrase that—actually, let me put it differently. The points aren’t the product. You are.
The biggest sign-up bonus usually comes with the biggest headache.
I used to think the ‘best’ offer was just the biggest number
I was wrong. I was completely wrong. For years, I told everyone to just ‘churn’ cards. Open it, get the bonus, close it. But the banks have gotten smarter. They have these ‘pop-up jail’ rules now where they won’t give you a bonus if they think you’re just gaming them. It’s exhausting. Now, when I look for a travel credit card best offer, I don’t even look at the sign-up bonus first. I look at the multipliers. If a card gives me 3x on groceries, that is worth way more to me over two years than a one-time 80k splash that requires me to spend $6,000 in three months.
I know people will disagree with this, but I honestly think most people shouldn’t even have a travel card. Most people would be way better off with a flat 2% cash back card like the Wells Fargo Active Cash. It’s boring. It’s not ‘elite.’ You don’t get to post a picture of your metal card on Instagram. But you also don’t have to spend your Sunday afternoon reading flyertalk forums to figure out how to transfer points to a Singapore Airlines flight you aren’t even taking. Cash is real. Points are a currency the bank can devalue whenever they feel like it.
The part where I complain about Capital One’s font choice
I refuse to recommend the Capital One Venture X even though every single blogger loves it. I know, the math works out. They basically pay you to hold the card because the credits outweigh the fee. But I can’t do it. I hate the branding. The font they use on their cards looks like it belongs on a cheap protein powder bottle from 2004. It feels ‘budget’ in a way that annoys me every time I open my wallet. Is that a rational reason to dislike a financial product? Absolutely not. Do I care? No. I have to look at this thing every day. I’m an adult; I want my cards to look like they were designed by someone who doesn’t wear neon board shorts to the office.
Anyway, back to the actual offers. If you’re dead set on a travel card, here is the short list of what actually matters right now:
- Chase Sapphire Preferred: Usually has a 60k or 75k offer. The $95 fee is the only one that feels ‘fair’ anymore.
- Bilt Mastercard: I might be wrong about this, but I think this is the only ‘innovative’ thing in the industry. You get points on rent. No fee. It’s the only card I actually tell my friends to get.
- Amex Gold: Only if you eat out constantly. If you cook at home, the 4x on groceries is great, but the $325 fee (it just went up!) is getting harder to justify.
What I’m actually looking for these days
The Amex app is like a casino floor where they keep moving the exits. They want you lost in there, clicking on ‘offers’ for 10% off at a wine shop you’ve never heard of. It’s a distraction. When I see a ‘best offer’ headline now, I ask myself one question: ‘Would I use this card if the bonus was zero?’ If the answer is no, I move on. I’m tired of being a pro bono accountant for multi-billion dollar banks. I just want to go to the airport, sit in a chair that isn’t broken, and not feel like I’m being scammed by my own wallet.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting cynical. Maybe the ‘golden age’ of travel hacking is just dead and we’re all just fighting over the scraps. But I’d rather have a simple life than 100,000 points that I can’t find a redemption for. It’s not worth the stress.
Get the Bilt card and call it a day.
