I am saying that in my first 2 years of getting lots of cards with high spends , I had to scramble , prepay bills, wind up with close to $3000 of VISA and Amex GC s , take advantage of friends that gave
me cash to pay our large dinner checks ,use Williampaid to pay my rent and MC with a fee to pay con edison , and have not really learned anything helpful here, that might not be an AA or FR risk . And yes I live in NYC .
I here ya. NYC is an MSW: Manufactured Spending Wasteland. No VR. No WM. Not a single bastard (at least I haven't found one) will take a CC for a GC. And like paying 2.9% for rent is not enough, WP has screwed me with rent recently (yes, the lost-in-the-mail kinda screw-up). It used to be easy and fun, but it's become like a second job, lately.
Then again...
A (mostly) free trip to Europe 2 months ago. A free trip to Europe in a week. A free trip to Bermuda in July. A free trip to the West Coast and the Mexican Wine country in October. A free trip to SE Asia next January. A free trip to Cancun and Riviera Maya next Spring. And I'm sure I'll squeze in a couple more free trips between those, as well.
Just keep the eyes on the prize. It helps to deal with the aggravation.