we close feb 1st so i'll probably wait until afterwards to sign up so nobody pulls my credit. and we're in that age range where a bunch of friends are getting married, so just looking to use points on domestic flights here and there
The chase ultimate rewards suite. UR points are worth more than capital one points. The reserve is the best card around for the normal folk
I was actually looking at this card earlier today because I was curious about its travel perks. Ark said it best and very simply in that there are better options. Most of us in here are huge Chase card fans. You could even go for a specific airline card, Chase has both Southwest and United, if you have a specific airline you like to fly
Chase sapphire reserve is the best card. To go with that you also eventually want the freedom and unlimited. If you want to really max out the bonuses then you'd apply for the reserve and preferred on the same day if you can hit both bonuses.
Yes. For instance I have the Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, and Sapphire Reserve and all of them earn Ultimate Rewards points. The points can all be combined onto my Reserve for the travel benefits
my cousin is currently in Australia using his 100,000 points. my girlfriend is booking Iceland with hers. My mom went to Europe with hers. It works. I'll refer you to the other card Ark doesn't :D
Flight tonight got cancelled due to weather. I booked it with CSR. They’ll cover a hotel due to weather, right? Southwest won’t.
I am a little bit of a Chase convert as I've been pretty loyal to AMEX for almost 10 years, but the reward points just transfer better and more often than Amex. Whats the benefit of doing both at the same time over one at a time? The spend requirements aren't an issue
Are you referring to the Sapphire cards? Chase changed the rules where you're only supposed to be able to get the bonus points for one Sapphire product, so you can't get the Reserve then a few months later get the Preferred to get 100k points. But if you have neither then in theory you should be able to get the bonus if you get both at once since you don't have a Sapphire product already, and as others have said, this has worked for a lot of people
The benefits are you can mix-and-match based on category and benefits. You can hit up amex offers and wait for a MR spend bonus email. You can spend with your AMEX SPG card when you stay at SPG hotels for work and then go use your 5x Freedom for dinner. More cards means better utilization of benefits
Need to research non reserve Chase cards. Intend to downgrade my reserve and get Amex plat but need secondary cards as Amex is 5x for travel and hotels but 1x everything else.
I was looking at the AmEx SPG quite a bit today too; I don't have any AmEx cards and that one seems the most appealing, I like the benefit of transferring to airlines if I wanted to, just wish United was 1:1 instead of 2:1
AMEX SPG is a fantastic card. As you can see on the previous page I get outrageous value for the points. Plus the AMEX offers on it have already saved me more than the annual fee. There are some really easy ones on there. I'm going to refer your ass to it whether you like it or not, but it's definitely my favorite AMEX and one of my top 5 favorite cards overall (RIP Merrill+ )
Yeah my redemptions so far have been insane. $469 room for 7,000 points (6.7 cpp) and this weekend I'm staying in a $94 Marriott that I only need to transfer 2,500 SPG points for (3.8 cpp). Insane in the hotel world where Hiltons are rarely even 1.0 cpp. I'm on pace to get like $2300+ out of that signup bonus
Yeah I know spg points are pretty valuable, I actually saw a post not long ago that you stayed at a Sheraton in Zagreb and I checked and it was only like 3k a night or something way cheap, I tried to go there instead of Italy for our next trip
Might take a referral for it, I don’t usually stay at hotels so I haven’t gotten around to getting that card
Awesome, no promises that I'll pull the trigger soon since I just got the United card but I'm definitely leanings towards going for it
Yeah I believe that Sheraton was 4k points. I used 6 spg nights this past year for like 36k points. Was nice
Cool, no worries if you go another route. I just like that this thread is getting busier and people are giving good advice even if it isn't a card they can get a bonus for. But Ark and I have paid for a vacation for each other at this point so referrals are nice
Adding on to your comment about this thread getting busy: I've gotten some sick, genuine interest in learning about all this and reading all things points/travel related so I enjoy hearing from others that have been at it longer than me. I also enjoy trying to help people out and show them the light of the good side of credit cards
more I read the benefit of doing the rotating 5x is mitigated by the quarterly cap, guess getting both is the move?
probably end up with Amex Plat, then both Chase Freedoms the 5x Hotels/Flights no cap is going to get hit hard next few years, plus lounge access among other things that will make it the amex plat a better option I think short term over Chase Reserve, when traveling a ton ends in a few years probably swap back to Reserve like half my posts in here are trying to get validation for decisions before I make them
I think the reserve would give you a better advantage combined with your other chase cards once you factor in transferring of points to the CSR and percentage levels of the different categories across the cards but idk
The reserve + freedom is great. 5x rotating categories then transfer those to reserve and they're now worth 7.5 on travel.
yeah it'll be close to a wash, definitely once travel slows down the Reserve will be better, but living at a Delta hub + flying almost exclusively Delta, and flying a lot, the sky club lounge access + centurion lounge access + 5x flights/hotels when i intend to spend a lot on those is the big draw not making moves for a few months still so will likely spend way too much time researching
7,500 points. the offer for the new signup doesn't change whether you use a referral or you don't so it's just a good way for us to pad each others' pockets it's addicting. and it comes up so frequently now since "how do you afford to go to...." is such a common conversation. between here and reddit people are immensely helpful too my wallet right now is: CSR - restaurants/travel - most importantly 1.5x UR points when I redeem Freedom - 5x which becomes 7.5x with my CSR transfer Freedom Unlimited/Doublecash/SPG - I vary this one. Do I want 2.25% back in UR, 2.0% back in cash or ~2.5% in SPG? Whatever mood I'm in, that's what I use. Leaning more doublecash now but since I've been getting way more than 2.25 CPP on SPG spending, I have been using SPG card more Basically, what I'm saying is Freedom is a good card with no annual fee and the Freedom Unlimited is a bad card if you don't have a Sapphire
Ive been on a year long Discover Cash Back Match focus, using only that card to maximize the match. That will end in March and I’ll finally jump in on the Chase program and a few others. Is there a specific time of year that any of the popular cards in here offer their best signup bonuses?
Most think the CSR/CSP is at its peak now at 50,000. Now is the time for Southwest (so you can get almost 2 full years of companion pass). The rest tend to vary, but there have been some good ones in the fall of late
I’ve got the CSR and freedom unlimited. I don’t spend enough at places the rotating categories hit for the freedom. Also have a BJ’s card I only use for gas that saves me 10¢/gal. And lastly an amazon store card for 5% back.
I think people just have such a bad misconception of credit scores and what constitutes good credit so they assume that racking up cards will tank your score
definitely. I actually made a powerpoint for my girlfriend to get her into credit cards and the very first slide was "everything you know about credit scores is wrong" and I go into great detail about how it actually helps in most cases then I made her sign a contract that she wouldn't blame me if she fucked it up
Will someone explain to me like I’m an idiot how I use this quarter’s category? I’ve never really used Apple Pay before. Are there just certain stores where you can use it?
Yeah, you load your cards into apple pay on your phone. Then when it's time to pay you just select the card and put your phone up against the card swiping machines that accept them. They're pretty common if you're looking for them.
I had never carried a balance on a credit card until the last 18 months. Long story short, both my wife and I ended getting into some debt. It should be paid off by June. How long after that should I see an increase in my credit score and how significant should it be?
carrying a balance itself doesn't really hurt your score if you're making payments every month. might see a slight bump. a little more of a bump if you're utilizing a high percentage of your credit