{"id":13588,"date":"2026-04-24T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=13588"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:47:25","slug":"weekend-wisdom-exploring-the-limit-of-how-hard-should-i-hit-this-card-ish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/24\/weekend-wisdom-exploring-the-limit-of-how-hard-should-i-hit-this-card-ish\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Wisdom: Exploring the Limit of &#8220;How Hard Should I Hit this Card?&#8221; (Ish)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Different deals look differently, but those involving a credit or debit card usually involve a loop like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Buy a virtual or physical thing\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Earn rewards (probably)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pay fees (probably)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Liquidate the virtual or physical thing\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Earn on sale (rare)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pay commission or fees (probably)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use the money to pay your credit card\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Earn rewards (rare)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pay fees (rare)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Your profit is (probably) obvious: Add up all the rewards and sale price, then subtract all the fees or commissions and purchase price. Assuming the deal scales, you&#8217;ve probably got a nice play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, let&#8217;s get to the real point: what&#8217;s the limit of how hard you should abuse your card to complete this loop? Wander there with me friends by asking a roundabout question: How much would the issuer need to pay you to close your relationship with them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a small credit union, you&#8217;d probably severe a relationship with them for a few (tens of?) thousands. For someone who loves staying at Hyatts and routinely books points boost outsized value fares through Chase Travel, you might theoretically need six figures or more to close that relationship. And that brings us to the answer, sort of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Don&#8217;t push a card so hard that you&#8217;ll lose it, unless you&#8217;re going to make more than the issuer would have to pay you to terminate your relationship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>At least we got there. Have a nice weekend friends!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"553\" height=\"311\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-17.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13611\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-17.png 553w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-17-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Helpful tip: This excel formula can also help you answer a question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Different deals look differently, but those involving a credit or debit card usually involve a loop like: Your profit is (probably) obvious: Add up all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13612,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions\/13612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}