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Waroduce posted:Well I've never had a credit card and I figure it's time to build my credit. I travel alot for work and will clear 4k easily. I travel primarily domestically and have expensed roughly 5k so far this year. I buy alot of airline tickets, but not one airline and I stay in alot of hotels but always what's easiest for me in relation to client location. I'd like to maximize my returns/rewards. Do you have leeway to consolidate your travel to a single hotel chain/airline? Or at least most of it?
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Jan 29, 2017 17:39
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Waroduce posted:Well I've never had a credit card and I figure it's time to build my credit. I travel alot for work and will clear 4k easily. I travel primarily domestically and have expensed roughly 5k so far this year. I buy alot of airline tickets, but not one airline and I stay in alot of hotels but always what's easiest for me in relation to client location. I'd like to maximize my returns/rewards. A CSP is a good choice. The Chase Sapphire reserve would be even better, if you can get it.
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Jan 29, 2017 20:10
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Thoguh posted:Do you have leeway to consolidate your travel to a single hotel chain/airline? Or at least most of it? If I wanted to yes. They don't care what I do as long as prices are same ballpark E: I'm dumb what's is csp
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Jan 29, 2017 21:31
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Waroduce posted:If I wanted to yes. They don't care what I do as long as prices are same ballpark CSP is Chase Sapphire Preferred. Chase's lower tier premium travel card. You can Google up some comparisons, but if you can swing it get the Reserve it's worth the $450 annual fee if you are traveling a lot. The Wirecutter has a travel card comparison article that is pretty good
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Jan 29, 2017 22:18
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I'm pretty chuffed with my own guile. I got a CSP just before tuition was due, figuring I might as well get a new credit card to reap the bonuses of a mandatory big spend. Looked at the Reserve card, decided it was a little rich with the annual fee... but then a few days later I gave Sallie Mae a call and asked about making payments on loans with a credit card. Not a problem, they said. So I got the CSR (in a building, so $1000 points bonus) and paid off a third of my 12k loan. I'm going to end up making a net profit on my student loan at this rate.
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Jan 29, 2017 22:36
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ma i married a tuna posted:I'm pretty chuffed with my own guile. I got a CSP just before tuition was due, figuring I might as well get a new credit card to reap the bonuses of a mandatory big spend. Looked at the Reserve card, decided it was a little rich with the annual fee... but then a few days later I gave Sallie Mae a call and asked about making payments on loans with a credit card. Not a problem, they said. So I got the CSR (in a building, so $1000 points bonus) and paid off a third of my 12k loan. I'm going to end up making a net profit on my student loan at this rate. Doesn't Sallie Mae/Navient add a surcharge if you pay with a credit card edit: welp https://www.navient.com/loan-customers/ quote:Effective 1/1/17, federal student loan servicers such as Navient will no longer be able to accept credit card payments. We will continue to accept payments using your debit card over the phone. EugeneJ fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 05:00
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I think there was some change in the law such that you can't pay student loans with credit cards at all anymore. Which kind of annoys me because I didn't know that I could even do that before. It was never an option online, but I guess I could have always done it by phone.
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Jan 30, 2017 12:44
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I got the CSP cause I'm not sure if I'd qualify for reserve. This is my first CC. So yay business expenses wooooooo Umm...any handy guide you guys recommend or best practices or tips? I really don't know what I'm doing or how to use rewards....
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Jan 30, 2017 16:58
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Waroduce posted:I got the CSP cause I'm not sure if I'd qualify for reserve. This is my first CC. Find an award flight or hotel that you want from a transfer partner and then transfer the points. It's pretty straightforward though trying to find awards can be difficult if your schedule isn't flexible.
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Jan 30, 2017 17:35
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Waroduce posted:If I wanted to yes. They don't care what I do as long as prices are same ballpark Unless there's a marked difference in convenience it is probably worth your time to consolidate your travel to one airline (or one airline alliance) and one hotel megachain, and get that airline/hotel CC. Your travel will become more comfortable and you'll rack up worthwhile amounts of points much more quickly.
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Jan 30, 2017 17:37
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BAE OF PIGS posted:I think there was some change in the law such that you can't pay student loans with credit cards at all anymore. Many moons ago you were able to buy treasury bonds with a credit card.
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Jan 30, 2017 20:00
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Trying to decide about the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I have two cards - old Discover and a Citi Double Cash that I use for almost everything. Neither has an annual fee. I hate the idea of an annual fee. But I love the idea of free money and we do some traveling throughout the year. $300 in travel credit is cool but that's still $150 Anyone know where I can find a realistic chart or whatever of what the 100k points can get me? (I'm under the impression this is still available if I sign up in a branch).
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Jan 30, 2017 20:02
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AndrewP posted:Trying to decide about the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I have two cards - old Discover and a Citi Double Cash that I use for almost everything. Neither has an annual fee. I hate the idea of an annual fee. But I love the idea of free money and we do some traveling throughout the year. $300 in travel credit is cool but that's still $150 100k points=5 nights at the Maui Hyatt, or similar class. That ends up at $478 or so a night for $2390 total. It also ends up waiving resort fees for Maui, dunno if that's standard everywhere that has resort fees or not. E: If you're willing to deal with it, you can also do flights to Hawaii for 25k roundtrip in economy, or 45k roundtrip in first-class via Korean Air. This does require a few days of phone calls and points transfers though. Nur_Neerg fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 20:08
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You can do Korean Air skypass bookings online now. I just did it, 2 round trips to Hawaii from New York for 50k total points, booked easily online (although you have to do separate booking instances for companions unless you can prove they are family or married). They were around $800 in cash price at the time... so if you did that twice that's $3200 value. Just booking anything (without messing around with transferring points and award flight availability) through the Chase portal will be a minimum value of $1500 (100k points, 1.5c per point redemption). Just because you mentioned the Maui Hyatt, there is a Chase Hyatt card where the sign up is 2 free nights in ANY Hyatt with no restrictions, so that's a really good way to go if you're looking to book a few nights vacation somewhere amazing (any of the tier 7 Hyatts).
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Jan 30, 2017 20:17
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BAE OF PIGS posted:I think there was some change in the law such that you can't pay student loans with credit cards at all anymore.
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Jan 30, 2017 20:18
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drat. That is legit. Looks like I'm getting this card. Edit: lol okay nevermind, I don't seem to have a Chase branch anywhere even close to me. Not even in DC? Oh well. AndrewP fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 20:30
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Apparently Chase just doesn't do retail banking at all in DC, Virginia or Maryland at all. Who knew? I don't think you really need a branch for the card but I could be wrong.
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Jan 30, 2017 22:11
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The bonus for the Reserve is down to 50k if you apply online, but it is still 100k if you apply for it in a Chase branch until 3/12.
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Jan 30, 2017 22:18
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Yeah, not sure if I still feel like loving around with (and paying the fee) for half the points. I prefer cash back cards to points and my Citi is the best one I've seen, so I don't want to make a wholesale change.
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Jan 30, 2017 22:31
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AndrewP posted:Yeah, not sure if I still feel like loving around with (and paying the fee) for half the points. I prefer cash back cards to points and my Citi is the best one I've seen, so I don't want to make a wholesale change. What's the cash-back profile you're working with?
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Jan 30, 2017 22:39
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:What's the cash-back profile you're working with? 2% everything, no limit. (And no fee)
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Jan 30, 2017 22:42
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Elysium posted:
If you like to ski, I can recommend the park hyatt beavercreek for those 2 nights (4 with a partner). The rooms aren't super amazing or anything (I was kinda like wtf people pay $800/night for this?), but its ridiculously nice to be literally right off the main lift. You step out of the hotel in the morning, a dude hands you your skis, and you step into the gondola. And beavercreek is pretty drat good skiing. People try to book the Andaz Maui with those nights as well, but I guess its super restricted availability and they give you poo poo rooms.
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Jan 31, 2017 03:18
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I really need to get off my butt to get this Chase Reserve card. Are there blackout dates for all of these hotel reservations? Would Italy in the summer work?
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Jan 31, 2017 03:49
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I have had the Citi Dividend World Elite MasterCard for 14 years (it was my first credit card). In the last 3 years or so, I've started opening cards that actually give me good return, and this thing just sort of sits there. I do the "make a $10 charge and autopay" thing, but it kinda bothers my OCD that the card is even still open. How much of a negative hit on my credit can I expect to get by closing it?
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Jan 31, 2017 15:20
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Residency Evil posted:I really need to get off my butt to get this Chase Reserve card. Are there blackout dates for all of these hotel reservations? Would Italy in the summer work? It's exactly like booking hotels/flights on a booking site. Everything is priced in $ and Points. Generally the price for flights is the exact same as what shows up on google.com/flights and prices for hotels are similar to what shows up on any of the major hotel booking sites (although I have seen some differences in prices of hotels when compared to booking sites). I just booked a 9 day trip for my wife and I in Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Stockholm for 140,000 points. 65,000 (~$1000) for flights and the rest on hotels. I had some points saved up from my chase freedom card that I consolidated to the CSR card.
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Jan 31, 2017 15:23
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dexter6 posted:I have had the Citi Dividend World Elite MasterCard for 14 years (it was my first credit card). Almost none. The average age of accounts includes closed accounts, so it'll stop increasing, but it won't drop off for a few years. If it has a significant limit, utilization will go up, but if you're running reasonable non-maxed-out-balances everywhere else then the increase won't be significant. (obligatory reminder: unless you're going to be buying a house or car in the very near future, or churning signup bonuses, you don't need to worry about gaming your credit score. A few years of good history across a couple of credit cards, low utilization, and no significant red flags, is almost always enough to hit the "excellent credit" cutoff in the mid-700 FICO range)
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Jan 31, 2017 15:45
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AndrewP posted:I hate the idea of an annual fee. But I love the idea of free money and we do some traveling throughout the year. $300 in travel credit is cool but that's still $150 FWIW the travel credit is for calendar year, not billing year, so you could get $600 and then cancel before paying the annual fee again.
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Jan 31, 2017 17:20
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How do you figure out the best way to use these chase rewards points? For example I want to use the 100k points towards buying or upgrading to a business/first class flight to Europe. Is there a guide that tells you what airline program to transfer points to? I poked around on thepointsguy for a bit but got super confused regarding all the different fare classes and such.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:59
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potatoducks posted:How do you figure out the best way to use these chase rewards points? For example I want to use the 100k points towards buying or upgrading to a business/first class flight to Europe. Is there a guide that tells you what airline program to transfer points to? I poked around on thepointsguy for a bit but got super confused regarding all the different fare classes and such. If you want to fly first class, best bet is going to be transferring points to an airline. Which airline to transfer to will heavily depend on where you are flying to/from and when. You will probably need to compare rates on each website.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:40
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There are aggregators like Award Ace that allow you to put in a source, destination, and cabin class and will tell you how many miles you need on various airlines and what type(s) of transferable points you can use for each airline.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:55
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extravadanza posted:If you want to fly first class, best bet is going to be transferring points to an airline. Which airline to transfer to will heavily depend on where you are flying to/from and when. You will probably need to compare rates on each website. What if you're just going economy? Is there any bonus to transferring points to a partner airline versus just booking through the UR portal? What about for Hyatt properties? I'm thinking of blowing my points on airfare and a badass Aria suite (or equivalent) in Vegas.
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Feb 1, 2017 00:24
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Mourne posted:What if you're just going economy? Is there any bonus to transferring points to a partner airline versus just booking through the UR portal? What about for Hyatt properties? I'm thinking of blowing my points on airfare and a badass Aria suite (or equivalent) in Vegas. Award travel (I.e. Airline miles and hotel points) is huuuge topic versus booking through the portal. Hyatt is far and away your best option for points transfers in terms of value for hotel rooms but their footprint is limited relative to Marriott or Hilton. Still, you can get some pretty great rooms for 5k or 10k points/night with Hyatt. Domestic economy you'll probably do better paying through the portal; first or business class probably transferring to united, Air France, or Korean air. Really though it depends on when and where you are flying and there isn't necessarily a single answer that is always going to be right. People pay money to get someone to figure out first or business class airline award tickets.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:04
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opposable thumbs.db posted:There are aggregators like Award Ace that allow you to put in a source, destination, and cabin class and will tell you how many miles you need on various airlines and what type(s) of transferable points you can use for each airline. This site is super useful. Thanks.
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Feb 1, 2017 06:54
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Edit wrong thread!
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Feb 1, 2017 15:09
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Mourne posted:What if you're just going economy? Is there any bonus to transferring points to a partner airline versus just booking through the UR portal? What about for Hyatt properties? I'm thinking of blowing my points on airfare and a badass Aria suite (or equivalent) in Vegas. With CSR, you are probably better off going through the Chase portal, but as mentioned above, there's no one answer. Example: A week ago, I booked $500 tickets from ORD -> HEL 4/9/17 ARN -> ORD 4/19/17 on British Airways thru the CSR Portal. this cost me like 34,000 pts each ticket for economy. Similar, but worse tickets (layovers) were available for around 35,000 points + Taxes from the airline's miles. In that instance, going thru the portal was better.. but if I didn't have CSR I might have been better off transferring points to the airline.
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Feb 1, 2017 15:27
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DeceasedHorse posted:Award travel (I.e. Airline miles and hotel points) is huuuge topic versus booking through the portal. Hyatt is far and away your best option for points transfers in terms of value for hotel rooms but their footprint is limited relative to Marriott or Hilton. Still, you can get some pretty great rooms for 5k or 10k points/night with Hyatt. extravadanza posted:With CSR, you are probably better off going through the Chase portal, but as mentioned above, there's no one answer. Thanks guys, very helpful. I made a Hyatt passport account and didn't see anything comparable to UR rates. Thanks for the info 
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Feb 2, 2017 02:44
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this may be a dumb question but would there be an issue if I drove out of state to apply for this credit card at a Chase branch? I mean based on what I've read here we're talking about literally thousands of dollars in signup bonus, seems like an 1.5 hour drive would would it be worth it.
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Feb 2, 2017 03:18
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Can you apply online instead?
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Feb 2, 2017 07:41
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AndrewP posted:this may be a dumb question but would there be an issue if I drove out of state to apply for this credit card at a Chase branch? I don't see why not. Surely plenty of people live near a state border and do banking in a different state than where they live. Maybe call them to make sure? Can't apply online, the offer is only for applications at Chase branches.
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Feb 2, 2017 14:08
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Crossposting from the newbie finance thread. So quick question about credit cards. I'm 21 now, located in Ontario, and a student, and I figure it's long past time that I stop using a supplementary credit card from my father and start building up my own credit. I graduate this year, my last job I was earning the equivalent of 33 a year. Not working now, but I have a job offer in NYC for after I graduate and a backup plan if that falls through. Um, current financial situation is 7 thousand in my scotiabank checking account (needs to last until April), and $4800 in my Tax Free Savings account (mostly in Mutual Funds, I don't want to touch this). No debt, no student loans. What should I be looking for? I don't exactly have any credit history, but I figure that it's kinda useless if I'm just putting all my purchases on my debit card. Any starter tips, for lack of a better word? I want to start building up a good credit rating. Most of my monthly purchases are Rogers phone/TV/internet, grocery bills, the occasional fun thing off Amazon. I travel to the United States regularly since I'm a dual citizen, but figure it's not worth getting a card with no international use fees since I can just get a card from my US bank. Never stay at hotels and rarely pay for taxis, not significant enough to look at a travel focused card. So, generally speaking, what are best practices about both using my new credit card, and what should I look for when obtaining one?
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Feb 2, 2017 14:40
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Cat Army 