> If you think $200 is a “measly” amount, why do you care about statement credit clawbacks?

Well, we are veering off the original topic, which was whether the $20 credits will be clawed back all at once or not. This matters because the original train of thought is:

  • You are getting 150k from the card
  • The card costs $295 but they have a $240 credit that is super easy to use, which brings the real fee down to $55. That’s a very good bargain.
  • If the post-cost-benefit-analysis annual fee was not $55, but rather $295, then it puts into question the priority of this card versus the Amex Business Platinum, which has a higher fee, but its annual fee after guaranteed credits is closer to $200. But the Platinum had a higher SUB back then.
  • Based on this quick back-of-napkin analysis, people jumped on the 150k bandwagon
  • People reported getting the credits from buying gift cards
  • So after seeing that I jumped on as well.
  • Then it hit me: wait Amex hates gift card purchases to meet MSR. Are they okay with gift card purchases for monthly credits? Because they have clawed back Personal Platinum Saks Fifth in-person gift cards in a few instances.

If the $20 gift card path is not guaranteed, then it shifts the assessment of the Biz Gold vs Biz Plat. The advice of “just make a ton of money so that $200 doesn’t matter to you” does not actually contribute to the analysis.

You do however, possibly inadvertently, bring up an interesting point of tension and confluence between churning and wealth building.

We engage in churning to save money. (Hopefully) So that means, since a major expense category has been significantly reduced, we would build our wealth in the long term. (Probably not but that’s the idea) This hypothetical wealth could lead on self-investment like pursuing a more lucrative degree in your down time and achieve what you advised or higher wealth building opportunities. However, as recent polls on the topic on the daily discussion thread and also previous conversations stretching back as far as 9 years suggest, once people make a couple million a year they are ready to stop churning. What’s the point of running complicated spreadsheets etc when you just can’t stop spending?

But then comes the backslash. As u/stevvc put it beautifully:

How do you stay rich? By paying for first class international flights with cash? I think not

Hence the perpetual tension of churning and wealth. There is a fine balance between not having enough money pushing people to churn in their own ways, and having so much money that it doesn’t matter, and the needle wavers between the two hypotheticals like a vibrating lepton. Like the ouroborous eating its own tail. The Ying and Yang of travels, if you will. In fact ancient Chinese confucian wisemen came up with the 故事成語 of 鷄肋, said to have been uttered by 曹操 during a particularly thorny battle against 劉備 seeking dominion over the 漢中 province. 曹操 looked at the chicken soup dinner and realized his situation was similar to that of the chicken rib. A situation where he was not in defeat, but the situation demanded that he retreat from 漢中 to save national capacity to battle it out in the future under more favorable conditions.

The human greed demanded he pursue the chicken rib meat, but there are too many bones that get in the way. Too valuable to ignore, yet too expensive to pursue. Is it worth the effort? Only if you make under 3 mililion per year and the Ink train is alive and well.