Points are nice but paying off a portion of a loan is better. My long term goal with Membership Rewards (MR) has always been to cash out using Schwab Platinum at 1.25 cpp. In last few months of holding Schwab Platinum I seem to have cashed out over $8k worth of MR. This is not intended to be a brag post so please don’t view it as such. If I was trying to brag I would not be talking about cashing out points.
Cards and Signup Bonus
The signup bonus towards this redemption came from 11 cards and ranged from 10k to 100k. I earned 520k MR from signup bonuses but only paid $1095 in annual fee. I’m highlighting this simply to illustrate how cost efficient it is to earn MR points through signup bonuses. Above number (520k) does not including points earned while meeting minimum spend requirement (MSR) or those earned through referrals.
| Card Name | Signup Bonus (in MR) | 1st Year Annual Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Platinum | 100k | 450 |
| Business Platinum | 100k + 110 from referral | 0 |
| Premier Rewards Gold | 50k | 0 |
| Regular Gold (discontinued) | 25k | 0 |
| Ameriprise Gold | 25k | 0 |
| Green | 25k | 0 |
| Blue Business (discontinued) | 10k | 0 |
| Business Blue Plus | 20k | 0 |
| Schwab Platinum | 60k | 550 |
| Every Day Preferred (EDP) | 30k | 95 |
| Business Rewards Gold (BRG) | 75k | 0 |
| Total | 630k @ 1.25 cpp = $7875 | $1095 |
6 comments
How many of these cards did you retain for a second year?
I have ditched them as AF came.
Extremely lucky to have gotten in on the biz Plat w the $0 AF glitch. Otoh, lower signup bonus compared when I did mine for the 150k bonanza a cpl yrs ago.
I think the better part of it was also the 25k referral bonus that was going on at the time. It was the only MR based card that I refereed people for.
FYI, there is a 2 cpp cashout benefit instead of Schwab’s 1.25 cpp
i assume you’re talking about the refund thingy. i gave it a pass.