The bourgeois pastime of credit card rewards points

If you do the Fidelity card, it makes much more sense to do it into a Roth IRA than a regular IRA, because you don't get the tax advantage of a regular IRA for using cash back rewards from a credit card (i.e. the rewards are already tax free so you're not reducing your tax load).

Marriott have bought Starwood so if you have a credit card that gives you either Marriott or Starwood status, you can status match with the other for free.

Idk if this will have an impact on whether Starwood sticks with Amex in the future but it's a nice bonus to have Marriott gold status (free breakfast, lounge access, etc) for now.

I did a round of travelling earlier this month (London to Dubai to Dhaka to Singapore to Dubai to London) and the AmEx Platinum bonus of free entry to airport lounges makes a huge difference. Jade status at the Shangri-La in Singapore was also great - i got about $70 worth of drinks (so four beers), fresh fruit, etc, thrown in, plus a box of chocolates on my birthday. Add travel insurance and the bonus points i redeemed for a business class flight to Moscow in December and the initial fee has paid for itself about four times over already.

That Hilton HHonors Visa turned out to be way shittier than I thought because the points are nowhere near as valuable as I got the impression they were. Obviously it varies depending on the prices of the room you want at the time, and there are better deals and worse deals, but 80K+ points turns out to only be enough for a few nights in a mid-range, non-urban hotel (Hampton Inn, Doubletree).

Also we decided our CC spending was getting a little out of hand, so we're switching to only paying fixed expenses on CC and doing everything discretionary from a separate checking/debit account from our main account. Making sure we only spend what we have etc.

I realized the "rewards" thing really does give me this dangerous little adrenaline hit that makes me spend more.

Something worth considering for anyone who has to renew their transport season ticket soon is that you get 25000 Avios points for spending £3000 in the first three months of having a BA AmEx credit card. It is a terrible APR so only good if you have cash in the bank or a season ticket loan coming in from work.

If I buy my fiancee's season ticket for £4000, I will get 6000 air miles and trigger the £3000 target, meaning 31000 Avios in total. Enough for a business class return to Moscow nominally worth £1200.

There is a £195 fee but if is refunded pro rata so if you cancel next month, in theory, you can get a £1200 flight for about £20 of outlay.

I will keep mine to trigger the two for one flight redemption voucher you get at £10,000.