[ghaff]

A lot depends on your travel habits. Credit on my usual airline (United) is pretty much a no-brainer within the year--I'll use it barring circumstances where losing some airline dollars are the least of my problems. Less so than it used to be but still.

For hotels, I still tend to pay the premium. I don't expect to cancel but, especially for an extended city stay, it can be a fair amount of money and the premium usually isn't that huge.