Angst in the Late Death Throes of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy
Lots of understandable angst here about the nerfing of the CSR and then further nerfing of points bonuses and the DD credit (who new everyone loved free 7-11 junk food so much?). Today I read that CSP is ending the 10% anniversary bonus. Over at Venture X, there's some pique about the end of free guests with their Priority Pass. Over at the AMEX Platinum thread (as of this moment) the top two posts are "I hate AMEX Platinum" and "AMEX Platinum is not worth it to me anymore." And everyone everywhere has concluded that travel portal prices are "a scam."
Many of you have probably heard of the Millennium Lifestyle Subsidy (there are articles, you can Google them). It's a period of time (2012-2020) when start-ups like Airbnb and Uber were super cheap. Not anymore. Credit cards points also got wild in that time. Now their time to pull back has come as well.
Enshittification is when the consumer is locked into a product (or concept of product use) and can thus be abused - changing terms, value and prices, crap customer service, you know the drill.
I myself have bent over backwards and spent umpteen hours analyzing if CSR still works for me and building a stack to get 3x+ on everything I buy and then maximize that via transfers. I'm locked in to this "need" or expectation that anything less is unacceptable.
In a quiet moment, I remembered how back in 2013 or so I got the Venture X and discovering the 2x back on travel statement credits and being amazed. Like thrilled.
I'm looking for straight value again, and CSR gives it, in a sense- if I cash my points to cover the AF via Pay Yourself Back (~63,600 pts, as a modest spender, that's about all I get annually), I'll get all the benefits free. No out of pocket. No time spent strategizing. The value I estimate using is equal to about 3.5-4% of my non-grocery spending. Not shabby.
Maybe the best we can do is settle into the travel lane and enjoy the ride. Maybe the party's over.
