Totally agree with you that the credit card points was disingenuous. If nothing else than because not everyone has access to credit cards, rewards points, or rewards incentives (bad credit, no credit), so even making the assumption that others could do that is a little... well, I hate to use the word, but "privileged."
However, flights to Thailand are about $600 round trip from NYC, if you're not too picky about the day of the week, time, and having a layover in China. So, over three months, that's an extra $200/month, for a total of $1200/month. Still not bad!
My husband and I went to Kenya for $800 each, round trip, with 10 hour layovers in Amsterdam and Paris. If you fly to a dirt-cheap country, you can have some pretty amazing vacations and save more than the few hundred extra dollars you have to spend on airfare to fly somewhere more distant.
