Going to cat ba tomorrow for New Years, after that my visa will be running out so going to Angkor wat from there then Chiang Mai to meet a girl I met last night in hanoi
Cashed in 130k Amex points from my Amex Plat. Covering a would-be $6400 hotel bill for 5 night stay in a water front villa in the Maldives through the current Amex>HH points promo that expires 12/31. Fiance is happy. I think her understanding of how this all works and benefits us will be the gateway to get her into CC's (or have me guide her) as well. There are other things my cards will cover (property credit, possible other credits, free weekend night reward cert, etc) that I have not told her about, the biggest being a possible suite upgrade upon arrival. 15% chance I cancel to rebook something in Tahiti, but the value is just not there, from what I can see.
My fiancée is too hung up on the “average age of credit” portion of her score to continue to churn. It’s 100% mental, which she understands. She just can’t handle seeing it drop at all, even though she’s north of 800. Maybe I don’t know the free fucking 10d Greece honeymoon in four and five star resorts will sway her opinion. Spoiler it won’t
world of hyatt card bonus dropping to 50k starting jan 10th so if you've been waiting to get it might pop for it and use my hyatt referral
Would love to have some inputs from the experts this. I currently have the Chase Sapphire Preferred and was wanting to upgrade the to Reserve, but was told I wouldn't get the bonus. Now i'm looking into the Amex Platinum, but concerned that cancelling the Sapphire Preferred will impact my credit score. I currently have 3 cards. Oldest: Chase Freedom - Opened in 2013 Chase Sapphire Preferred - Opened in 2014 Alaska Airlines - Opened in 2018
https://www.wsj.com/articles/reward...e-pulling-back-11546365926?mod=trending_now_2 if you don't have WSJ: https://outline.com/GHqr4t
I just got my private practice set up and trying to get a card (or several) to put all business expenses on. Biggest regular expense will probably be gas. What should I get?
Bonuses are always bigger than spend but if you need one card I'd probably just do double cash and keep it simple. Maybe sign up for AA then downgrade after a year Or open a card a month
Sorry, man. I hit up a friend after that a couple hours of no replies. Don’t fret, there will be more opportunities soon enough.
I don't think I have seen this specifically mentioned in here but what does everyone view as the best CC for everyday purchases (gas, grocery stores, drug stores, etc...)? Currently I use my SPG AmEx for this and then the CSR for travel and dining but what about for the other items?
Usually my Citi Double Cash if I’m not working on hitting a minimum spend, except I’ll put gas on my Citi Costco card because it’s a higher % back on that one.
Minimum spend card is always most valuable Then doublecash/CFU depending on how I'm feeling about money v points at the time Spg Amex was the best but now it's bad imo. They devalued it 33% overnight. Unless you value marriott points at 1.2 cpp, which is very aggressive, there are better options to me
Minimum spend (CSP currently) 5% cash back category, if applicable (Discover) 4% cash back category, if applicable (Amex) 1.5% cash back (Chase Freedom Unlimited)
almost all my discretionary spending is dining/travel so it all goes on minimum spend then default to CSR
1. Minimum spend 2. Freedom 5% category 3. CSR/Amex Gold dining/travel 4. Blue cash preferred for groceries/gas 5. Doublecash/CFU everything else Thinking this will probably be my endgame setup when bonuses slowdown. Though right now the vast majority of my spending goes to minimum spends. The only time it doesn't is the 2 to 3 weeks I have between cards.
I just don't see the value of carrying five cards and thinking about which to use for each transaction anymore
Agree - I used to just carry 2 (Citi Double Cash & Citi Costco) - now it’s 3 since I carry my CSR all the time as well.
You're probably right. I'm not even in the amex ecosystem yet, so that was mostly a mental excersize.
I'm at 2: CSR and either minimum spend or doublecash/cfu The only time I add a third is if I'm staying at a hotel and I bring aspire or lux
you went way deeper down the rabbit hole than me but the min/max'ing of it all has started to slip away, which i'm sure the companies are happy when we get a little lazy
Just for an example, sorry to single out Uncle Tupelo, but if you spend $50 a week on gas, which is a lot: Blue Cash Preferred: $78 in cash back CFU: $65 in travel Maybe leave that card in the car and it's not a big deal, but I don't want to carry that card around 24/7 and spend the mental energy to, on the high side, make $1/month
Yeah I like the blue cash preferred for that 6% grocery category, but trying to maximize every single spending category would be pretty annoying for sure. I've seen setups that are basically 1. Gold for dining and eating out 2. Blue business plus for everything else. 3. Schwab plat just for cash out abilities Not optimized but alot easier to track.
Yup. It's like the 80/20 principle. Doing 20% of the work in this shit (bonuses) is 80% of the benefit
Good lord. Priority Pass lounge at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport was spectacular. Free food and drinks at an airport? I’ll never get rid of my Hilton Amex.
As long as consumer confidence stays solid this will just be a temporary lull in the bonus/perks battle. If bonuses keep lowering, someone will get competitive and jump over the top of CSR/Amex.
lounge life is hard to give up, Amex Plat giving Delta Sky Club (when on Delta) and their own lounge access is maybe the only thing keeping me from dumping the card centurion lounges are insanely nice, supposedly outside the US lounges get even better. being able to sit in the relatively quiet lounge in LGA and have a few bourbons before flying home the other week was clutch. will be hitting Hong Kongs centurion lounge here in a few months, supposedly their best one
Yeah, I was pleased, other than not being able to take advantage of the bar because of our flight being so early.
Yeah, it is quite nice, but I normally fly out of the A gates. My wife has the American Executive card so I get the Admirals Club access. Win, win.
For those of you that carry Citi Double Cash for your everyday spend, if you also happen to bank at Bank of America and/or have a brokerage account at Merrill Edge, you may want to consider replacing it with the BofA Premium Rewards card as your cash back card. It's a sliding scale of tiers based on your bank account balance and/or your brokerage account balance, but if you meet the top tier requirements for Platinum Honors (requires avg of $100k combined balance), all travel and dining charges return 3.5% and all other charges 2.625%. If you have a $50k balance it drops to 3% and 2.25%...$20k balance it drops to 2.5% and 1.875%...with no balance it's 2% and 1.5%.
The bonuses will come and go, the perks will continue to get more and more scarce and more and more difficult to use.
Yeah, I brought a few family members along from the SW gate and they had not been to a lounge before so the busted my balls the whole way because it was a bit of a walk, but they clammed up and enjoyed themselves once we got there ha
I read his question as needing to sign up for the Priority Pass, not the CSR. When I got my CSR and called to activate it, the rep also activated my PP so a quick call should take care of it