I'm calling it a year with the credit card rewards. I didn't track well at all this year. My snowflake spreadsheet ended in March, so I had to go looking through all of our credit card accounts.
The final (slightly estimated tally) is $2,595!
The best new reward was from Marriott (we earned $87K points by opening their Rewards card and spending $3K). Those are worth about $612. We have not redeemed all of them yet. In fact, we may have only redeemed one or two nights so far for 25K points. I noticed we also earned another 10K points, so a total of 97K points for the year. This card does have an annual fee. That fee covers one free night the following year.
Southwest Rewards. We earned just over 19K miles. With miles from the previous year, we were able to redeem miles for my daughter's flight home this month. That ticket would have cost me $600 out of pocket. I also upgraded from the Plus card to the Premier card and received a $25 statement credit. Total $625.
The next best reward was for another card we opened. The American Express Premier Gold card. We earned 50K points after spending just $1000. Those 50K+ points earned us over $500 in gift cards. We have already cancelled this card as it had a large annual fee.
Here is the breakdown of other cards we have and the rewards we have earned on them. I do a lot of switching around thus, the small amounts on some of them.
American Express Blue Everyday (CCF) $235
American Express Blue Everyday (DH) $199
USAA $117
US Bank $140 (a 5% saving off our cell phone bills)
Citi ThankYou Preferred $58 (cancelled this card)
Chase Freedom $40.60
Target $40 (from 5% savings)
Discover $28.49
I can't complain. That is decent savings! And we paid zero interest on our cards by paying balances in full each month!
Credit Card Rewards 2016
December 22nd, 2016 at 09:31 pm
December 23rd, 2016 at 12:36 am 1482453404
I finally got around to cashing out 50k Thank you points for a $500 check (student loans) and the balance of points with our last statement got back to the $150 level. Once I cash those in, I'll be asking them to convert the card (before we come up to the annual fee date!)
December 23rd, 2016 at 08:54 pm 1482526463