Why wouldn’t you travel hack? – A case study

I’m a big proponent of travel hacking and can go into great detail on the subject. But here, I’ll keep it simple and give a quick illustration showing why it makes so much sense.

A high school buddy called me yesterday and said he was about to pay off his truck. He owes $11,000 and is allowed to make payments by credit card. He hasn’t travel hacked before, and wanted to know whether it would be worth his time to sign up for a couple cards to earn bonuses.

“LET’S RUN THE NUMBERS!” I said. I get excited about these things. I told him there are three options for paying off the truck.

Option 1: Pay cash, write a check, or use a debit card.
Rewards earned: $0, but you’ve made Dave Ramsey happy (whatever that's worth to you).

Option 2: Use a good 2% cashback credit card to pay the whole $11,000 balance.
Rewards earned: $220 ($11,000 x .02)

Option 3: Full-on travel hack. Use a variety of credit cards to pay off the truck and earn big signup bonuses.
Rewards earned: $3,746 minimum (see detail below)

• Pay $4,000 with Chase Sapphire Preferred. 50,000 point bonus + 5,000 for adding authorized user + 4,000 for the $4k spending = 59,000 Chase UR points valued at 2.2 cents each. Total value $1298. No fee for year 1.

• Pay $2,000 with Southwest Plus Card. 60,000 point bonus + 2,000 for the $2k spending = 62,000 Southwest points valued at 1.5 cents each. Total value $930, less $69 fee = $861

• Pay $2,000 with Southwest Premier Card. 60,000 point bonus + 2,000 for the $2k spending = 62,000 Southwest points valued at 1.5 cents each. Total value $930, less $99 fee = $831

• Pay $3,000 with Delta Skymiles American Express. 60,000 point bonus + 3,000 for the $3k spending = 63,000 Delta Skymiles valued at 1.2 cents each. Total value $756. No fee for year 1.

To top things off, I've ignored the fact that earning this many Southwest points will qualify him for a Companion Pass, which carries a value anywhere between $0 and $priceless, depending on how often he uses it.

A lot of people ask me what the best “everyday” cashback or rewards card is. In truth, I don’t really care. Why fuss over cards earning 1% and 2%? Go for the next bonus. In the example above, my friend will earn an effective rebate of 34% on the $11,000 that he’s going to spend anyway.

So, why wouldn't YOU travel hack?

I'm new to Steemit and haven't even made an intro post yet. Be easy on me - I'll have killer media and great etiquette in future posts. If you have any questions about the above scenario, I'm happy to help.

Thanks for reading! I'm excited to be a Jet!

![Tim Tebow Is Really, Really, Really Excited To Be A Jet]("Timmy Tebow")

Point valuations are from The Points Guy.