I'm a "rebate ranger." In 2019, I received $1443 in credit card rebates, and that's after deducting annual fees on two of my eight credit cards, and not including the $500 I earned toward my next GM car. One of those card with fees, BMW FS, and now eliminated their annual fee.

I have a lot of cards with elevated rebate rates on certain purchases, and a paltry 1% on everything else. So, I only charge things on those cards that get me the elevated rebates, and charge everything else to a card that pays me 1.5% on everything.

My FICO 9 score fluctuates between about 830 and 845. I gamed it one month and got a perfect 850. It seems to drive credit card issuers crazy when their low-risk customers don't use their cards. So, they send those customers promotional rebate offers. BMW FS Visa once gave me 10% on everything, but only for six days. I managed to charge $6k in those six days. Citi runs the Sears MasterCard. I only keep a Sears card for a $3/month life insurance polity and Craftsman tools. But, the local Sears store was destroyed by the hurricane. Citi started sending me crazy offers, up to a 15% rebate. I figured out the exact meaning of their offers, and hit them as hard as I could, and got $375 in rebates from them.