I can't speak directly for the person you replied to, but it's almost certainly worth their while. We're not talking about $100-200 in potential benefits. We're

I can't speak directly for the person you replied to, but it's almost certainly worth their while. We're not talking about $100-200 in potential benefits. We're talking about thousands of dollars (in the case of international business class seats). The reason is because on the legacy airlines, international business class seats usually cost 4+ times more than the economy class seat on the same flight but you can redeem just 2-3 times more miles for a business class seat rather than a economy class seat. One of the issues with this hobby is that the reward redemption flights are typically not as good as the non-redemption flights (i.e. you might have a layover as opposed to a direct flight). --- For instance, the United/Lufthansa/Swiss alliance has flights from NYC to Paris departing May 27 and returning June 5. Economy seats are ~$650 or (60k United miles + $105). For economy, those miles would have a valuation of ~$0.0091/mile (($650 - $105) / 60k miles). Chase somewhat regularly offers signup bonuses on their United credit cards of 70k United miles if you spend $3k within 3 months (you are charged a $95 annual fee in this case). So the ROI is ~$450 ($650 - $105 - $95) in exchange for spending $3k on that new credit card. Business seats are ~$2900 or (140k United miles + $161). For business, those miles would have a valuation of ~$0.0196/mile (($2900 - $161) / 140k miles). The same Chase offer as before applies. But you have to open the card, meet the spending requirement, get the bonus, close the account, and reopen the account and repeat once more. The ROI in this case would be ~$2549 ($2900 - $161 - $95 - $95) if you spend $6k on those two new credit cards. In either case, it shouldn't take you more than a ~10 hours of active work to get those kinds of returns. You do need to occasionally check the banks' websites to see if they're offering any special deals, occasionally check the airlines to see if there's any favorable redemptions available, etc. In the case of economy, the ROI is ~$45/hr. For business it's ~$255/hr.