Churners love to talk about their precious points. Almost all churners will tell you how (now expired) 100k CSR signup bonus they got is worth at least $1500 and some will even go as far as to put a $5k value on it. While I like flexibility of points as much as the next churner, often I simply cash them out. Recently while writing a post “I Schwabed out $6k worth of MR” occurred to me that I had flat out profited $3000+ from a single card.
Last October I reported that Amex was randomly waiving 1st year AF on 100k MR business platinum card offer. Around the same time they were offering 25k MR per referral for up to the standard 55k MR referral bonus per year. Since the 100k MR bonus was superb, I was very comfortable to recommend this offer and after a bit of time I eventually hit my annual quota for 2016 and then again for 2017 as well, overall netting me a whooping 110k bonus from referral.
You must understand that 100k offer via referral is very rare and the ability to earn 25k per referral….well, this was a golden goose that everyone chased and it made everyone points rich. I know of many churners who earned many referral during this period.
Anyway, fast forward to early July and I obtained Schwab Platinum which allowed me to cash out 210k MR for $2625. So where is the remaining $400 coming from? The annual $200 airline credit for 2016 and 2017.
Summary in a table
| What | How Much |
|---|---|
| Signup | 100k MR = $1250 |
| Referral 2016 | 55k MR = $687.5 |
| Referral 2017 | 55k MR = $687.5 |
| Airline Credit 2016 | $200 |
| Airline Credit 2016 | $200 |
| Total | $3025 |
Lesson
Jump on a deal when you see it. A decent number of those who jumped on this deal early got their AF waived and a many who held 100k referral links ended up with rather high referral bonuses.
You snooze you lose. Don’t snooze.
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