I guess I go exactly the opposite. Theoretically, you can get more value out of carefully playing a narrow rewards program, but a simple cash incentive has its own benefits. Notably, you're not stuck within the confines of the available rewards, and it's hard to devalue a dollar balance as easily as announcing that a free flight is now twice as many miles.

I cashed out a cash-rewards card recently, and bought a work chair with the proceeds; I don't think most miles/points plans would have let me get that.

Hence my point about people anticipating better deals than they end up with. Averaged over the entire customer base, the value of the rewards received is strictly bounded by the amount the credit card issuer is willing to spend on said rewards.

...but... you can use the money to buy a first class ticket!

A first-class ticket on Emirates bought in cash is a whole lot more than $1,500. But it'd be about about the points equivalent of that.

How do you figure? As far as I know, you can't buy points with money, so it's $XX,XXX worth of flights.

Take the Chase Freedom Unlimited card, for example. It ears 1.5% cash-back in the form of points. Those same points can also be transferred to airlines (as long as you have their premium card)

If you have 115,000 points, you can use them towards a $1,150 cash credit. On the other hand, those points can also be used to book a Singapore to Zürich flight in their brand new first class, which would ordinarily cost $6,000+. one-way

An even more pronounced example: with just 30,000 points (or what would be $300 in cash-back), transferred to United, you can book HKG-SYD (a 13h trip) in business class, which would ordinarily cost $3,000+ one-way.

Oh, I see, you mean credit cards. I was thinking miles accrued from flights and was confused, thanks.

THIS +1000000000000

Don't care about cashback cards under 5%. Earning miles and points is much more meaningful and attractive.