How much travel value can I expect per year from credit cards? This is a question I get asked a lot and in this post we will breakdown what you can expect from credit card sign up bonuses.
Spend
The biggest constraint on how much value you can get per year is how much you can spend per year. See this post on ways to increase your spending without actually spending more. In general, you can expect 10-20% back from sign up bonuses with ways to often double that value through transfer partners. This equates to the follow value per year for various spend
| Annual Spend | Cards estimate | 10% | 20% | 2 x 20% |
| $4,000 | 1 card | $400 | $800 | $1,600 |
| $8,000 | 2 cards | $800 | $1,600 | $3,200 |
| $16,000 | 3 cards | $1,600 | $3,200 | $6,400 |
| $24,000 | 4 cards | $2,400 | $4,800 | $9,600 |
| $50,000 | 8+ cards | $5,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 |
5/24
Another major restriction is the Chase 5/24 rule that Chase won’t approve you for another card if you’ve gotten 5 or more personal cards in the last 24 months. This effectively limits you to 2.5 personal cards per year. However, this is not an issue if you can get business cards (see this post on how to get our favorite business card). With personal cards only, you should be able to get ~$1000 in value per card which would equate to $2500 in value per year with personal cards alone.
Conclusion
Beyond the above two limits you are only limited by specific bank and card restrictions. If you strategize correctly you can definitely get tens of thousands of dollars worth of value toward traveling per year.
