Applied Theology

Several times a year I write an update about a credit card I keep in my wallet and how much I've earned from it. It's part of my practice of credit card churning. I open new credit cards for their lucrative sign-up bonuses, quickly charge thousands of dollars to them to secure the bonus points, then throw them in my desk drawer for the remainder of the year while I repeat the process with another credit card. These reviews are my check-ups on how well churning is working for me— as well as my decision point on whether to keep the card or cancel it and repeat the process. Usually I cancel churn cards after a year. Usually. Today I'm writing about a card that I've now had for 8 years— the longest of any travel affinity card— and will keep for at least a ninth: the Chase IHG One Rewards Select Credit Card.

I have kept this card for many years not because it pays any high-flying benefits but because it does the opposite. This lowly card pays a not-generous 5x points/dollar on IHG hotel spend; 2x on restaurant, gas, and grocery spend; and 1x on everything else. At a value of 0.6 cents per IHG point* that's only 3% value on hotels and less than 2% on everything else. I already own two credit cards that pay 2%, cash, on everything... plus my spouse has a card that pays 3% on all travel. So using this card for spending is generally a losing proposition. 😧

Most of the benefits I derive from this card are not from charging on it. One big one is that every year I get a free-night award. I've found I can redeem these for about $150 value. The certs don't buy a night at a top tier hotel (anymore), generally just a roadside motel along the way between hither and yon, but $150 is nothing to sneeze at; this one benefit alone is 3x the $49 annual fee.

Another nice benefit I get from this card is a 10% rebate on award points redeemed. How much that's worth depends on how many points I manage to spend in a year. This year I redeemed 71k on a few awards stays, so my rebate was 7,100 points. At the rate of $0.006 that's $42.

As for charging purchases to this card generally being a losing proposition... well, I did spend some on this card. If you don't use cards enough anymore the banks may shut down your account! I waited until there was a promo for "Charge $1,000 of purchases to earn 3,000 bonus points" and then spend just a smidge over $1,000 to earn the bonus. That's all I charged during the year. Those 4,000 total points from spending are worth $24.

Adding these all together, the card delivered $216 of value in exchange for its $49 annual fee. That's a little less than I attributed to the card last year but still enough to make it a keeper— especially because once I cancel this card, it's gone forever. Chase and IHG stopped offering this card several years ago. Apparently it wasn't making them enough money— which is corporate-speak for the benefits were too good for consumers. They've replaced it with a card that charges a higher annual fee. I plan to hold on to this lowly old card for as long as they let me.

"Where's the beef?" actress Clara Peller famously barked in a series of Wendy's TV commercials back in the 1980s. The commercials were such a success that the line became part of the cultural lexicon for years after. Kids would repeat it to each other and laugh, sort of like kids today do with "6-7", except that "Where's the beef?" had an actual, clear source— one that adults could understand, too. Well, I've been repeating the phrase again this past week, though with a bittersweet chuckle this time. The Wendy's restaurants in Sunnyvale are now gone!

It was in the news a few weeks ago that Wendy's is closing approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across the US. This comes after closing about 150 restaurants in 2024. (Example news coverage: CBS News article, 17 Nov 2025)

The last remaining Wendy's in Sunnyvale seems to have been part of this wave. The restaurant shut down sometime in the past week or two, I think. It's a few miles away and in a part of town I rarely traverse.

For a long time we had a Wendy's restaurant closer to home, just 1 mile away, on a street I regularly drive. In fact it used to be just around the corner from a spot where I worked for a few years!

That shop closed up during Covid, presumably a casualty of reduced business. The property changed hands, and they bulldozed the restaurant and put a bright, new Taco Bell in its spot. I've eat there once since then, just to remind myself Yeah, Taco Bell is kind of gross. 🤣

So anyway, now when I'm in the mood for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, I've got to travel miles to get one. A quick check on Google Maps shows there are four Wendy's still standing in San Jose, a couple in Fremont, and one up in Redwood City.

I'm not going to go that far for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, though. The main reason is they're just not that good anymore.

Oh, I used to love me a ¼-pound single combo years ago. Back in college, for example, a new Wendy's opened on a busy corner near where I lived the last 3 semesters there. It was right on my walk to/from classes. I ate there easily a few times a week. And it was good. Other Wendy's since then just haven't been as good. Even when that other Wendy's in Sunnyvale was right around the corner from my office, I ate there maybe once a month at most. And the one that just closed? I ate there back in March and was disappointed. The food was expensive, employees blocked off the cash register with a self-ordering kiosk, then they made my food wrong, and they barely cared.

Sometimes there's a reason businesses fail. I mean, there's always a reason, but a lot of the time it's not the macro trends that business owners routinely cite— things like the economy, Covid-19, inflation, minimum wage being raised, the skyrocketing divorce rate, or my favorite stupid excuse, "Millennials Are Killing the XYZ Industry". Sometimes, probably much of the time, the call is coming from inside the house!

Oh, you might still be wondering about that Where's the Beef? meme I mentioned at the start. Here's the infamous Wendy's TV commercial from 1984:



Enjoy!