If I pay 50$ a year for AAdvantage card and earn enough in 2 years to get at least one flight, wouldn't that still be worth me paying the annual fee because I could use these points for a ticket that is say an emergency ticktet with only like 3 or 4 days advanced notice, as long as they will let me use my awards for a flight with that short of notice, since it would cost me 100$ in annual fees but the price of a ticket that short in advance could cost up to 700$ or more? Or if you figure that the place I usually fly to costs 287 dollars but I get enough in 2 years (100$) to fly there wouldn't that still be worht it? The people in FT are telling me that with my amount of spending a year 15,000-18,000 a FF credit card is worthless, but above is my thinking, tell me if I am worng in my thinking, please.
I don't think you should think of it as "emergency flight insurance," although that is a valid use. Instead, see how many points you will rack up in a year on that card. If it's more than the annual fee of the card, then it's a good deal. A good way to think of this is to divide your total number of points by 100 and see if it tops your annual fee + any finance charges you'll accumulate. If it does, you're probably golden. However, note that this calculation above assumes that you get one free domestic round trip for every 25K points and that you get one point per every dollar spent. That is, since the average price of a flight is estimated to be around $250 So, if your card has an annual fee of $50 you'd have to put more than $5000 on it for it to pay off, which isn't difficult at all. Just use your card to pay wherever it's accepted and pay it off at the end of the month. Hope this helps.
Pesonally, I use the AMEX BlueCashback -- I only put about 12K on it per year but I can get about $250 back that way, with no annual fee. That comes out to a rebate of about 2% per purchase, which ain't bad at all. However, I hardly ever fly anywhere truly expensive so cash is a better option for me. I guess that's another consideration -- do you take vacations to places w/ expensive plane tickets, like international flights?
that's what I am saying, it is like getting a ticket to tenessee which would usually cost me 3-400(to see the parents), for the annual fee cost of 100 for the 2 years it would cost me to accrue the points, so it does make sense, and my logic is not faulted?
yes I will be taking around 1 interntaional flight a year for while too, which costs 50,000 pts I believe. It would take me about 4 years (200 in annual fees) to get a free internationaly ticket but if you buy one to rome italy (where I am going) it costs at least 750 at bare minimum, so once again worth the cost.
