I agree wholeheartedly with the article. Airline credit cards do not tempt me. I have the Southwest cards and don't even use those, and it doesn't take much spend to get an award seat with those. I don't cancel the SW cards because they give me free miles every year for the annual fee.
I feel the same way about hotel credit cards, but they do give that one hotel night each year, which I use.
Our daughter just loves the British Airways cards, she and her husband each have them, and they go to Europe EOY using the travel companion pass they get for $30K spend each year (or whatever it is). I could put $30K spend to great use with my other cards. I have yet to book Europe for us, but when I do, I will watch for a great airfare deal with my Chase Sapphire Reserve points. Transferring the points from CSR to an airline with an available seat seems logical. But those are few and far between.
My luck with Alaska-Hawaii first class plum wore out. I used to book a seat for 40K miles, but there was always only one seat, not two, so I would pay cash for the other one. They don't offer that anymore in first class for the entire trip. No more 40K first class seats means no award seats for me. I am not paying 80K points for a seat, unless it's totally free.
Case in point:
Book a flight to Maui with CSR for 40K points $600 seat is 40K points). That seat cost me a spend of about $13,333 in MF's at 3X points.
I get Alaska miles for the purchase because it goes down as a cash purchase through Expedia, and booking first gives me bonus points. So I average about 4,300 miles per leg to or from Maui (from the coast). RT that is 8600 miles. It takes 80,000 miles to get the first class seat, so in less than 10 trips, I get a free seat one way. But I have not paid anything for my seats because I build around 800K miles per year using credit cards.