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WithoutTheFezOn posted:That’s a good point, yeah. If you use the bonus for the equivalent of $750, that covers the rest of the fee for 5 years. Except you don't have to keep it open for 5 years to use the bonus, so it doesn't make sense to count it toward 4 years of optional fees. If you are keeping it open longer than the first year, you should probably be doing some traveling to make it worth it. Priority Pass has real value for people traveling regularly. A free meal once or twice a month adds up to $150 pretty quickly. edit: At some level of travel you may have enough status that PP has no value to you, but there is a large space for low and intermediate travelers to get value from it.
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Jul 7, 2019 17:43
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Ok thanks guys. No business travel, but I also am kind of looking for “set it and forget it” situations and don’t really want to close/open cards every year or three. I’ll keep this one in mind.
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Jul 7, 2019 17:55
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I followed thru and canceled my Chase cards due to the forced arbitration changes. I've moved over to Capital One Venture Card as my primary card since they don't use forced arbitration (for now). 2% on all purchases with TSA/Global Access refund and $500 signup bonus is pretty strong. The $95 annual fee waiver for the first year makes it worth keeping at least for a year.
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Jul 7, 2019 18:00
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I like the 2% on everything rather than just dining and travel with the Chase Sapphire, but I'd miss the 1.25% or 1.5% points redemption bonus.
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Jul 7, 2019 18:28
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If the Chase Sapphire Reserve may seem like an iffy value by itself, remember that you should use it along with a Freedom and a Freedom Unlimited and transfer in the points from those cards. That definitely boosts up the value significantly as it turns the Freedom into a 7.5x card (for the quarterly categories) and the Unlimited into a 2.25x card. My company doesn't allow me to charge travel to my Sapphire, so the bulk of my points come from the Freedom Unlimited. I easily get over $1,000 a year in points alone.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:01
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ETB posted:I followed thru and canceled my Chase cards due to the forced arbitration changes. I've moved over to Capital One Venture Card as my primary card since they don't use forced arbitration (for now). I did the same, but got the Savor card instead. I got most of my points on the CSR from dining and transferring points from the Freedom card, it turns out.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:07
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:So tell me if I have this generally right. With a CSR, if you ignore the side perks (like lounge access and car rental insurance, which I understand definitely have value), and the initial signup bonus and TSA pre-check credit (since those are basically only the first year) , in order to break even on the annual fee you’d have to charge about $5300 in travel (if you redeem your points for extra travel through Chase) or $7800 if you book travel elsewhere. You missed that you also get $300 in straight up credits for a huge variety of travel related purchases, and you don't have to do anything to claim those, it just shows up as you spend. I usually get my full credit before January ends each year, but I travel a lot. It covers a bunch of stuff so as long as you aren't a house bound hermit you'll likely use it up each year. Also pre-check/Global Entry credit is $100 every 4 years, meaning you'll get them for free as long as you have the card (GE renewal is $100, pre-check alone is $85).
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Jul 7, 2019 19:13
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ETB posted:I followed thru and canceled my Chase cards due to the forced arbitration changes. I've moved over to Capital One Venture Card as my primary card since they don't use forced arbitration (for now). Why not just opt out of it? I know it is a lovely thing they are doing, and they've made the opt out process more complicated than it should be on purpose, but here's the thing - it is still one of the best cards for travel, and pretty much every bank is lovely in their own way. Also, Capitol One may not have forced arbitration now but you better believe they are looking to see what the fallout is for Chase before making their own decision. They are all one class-action away from saying "you know what, gently caress this" now that they can do it.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:16
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Ixian posted:You missed that you also get $300 in straight up credits for a huge variety of travel related purchases, But hold up a sec. Simpsons Reference posted:I like the 2% on everything rather than just dining and travel with the Chase Sapphire, but I'd miss the 1.25% or 1.5% points redemption bonus. Animal posted:If the Chase Sapphire Reserve may seem like an iffy value by itself, remember that you should use it along with a Freedom and a Freedom Unlimited and transfer in the points from those cards.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:19
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:
Yes to the first question - that's a pretty standard thing to use the 5% to rack up 7500 points a quarter and transfer them over to the CSR. To the second question, you can only do it on cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points. The Amazon card (and pretty much all the co-branded cards I can think of) is a different points system, so you can't convert points from it into UR.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:24
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Ixian posted:Why not just opt out of it? I know it is a lovely thing they are doing, and they've made the opt out process more complicated than it should be on purpose, but here's the thing - it is still one of the best cards for travel, and pretty much every bank is lovely in their own way. I think it makes a stronger statement to outright close the account, though they ultimately won't give a poo poo probably. It is one of the best travel cards out there, I agree with you there.
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Jul 7, 2019 21:15
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Ixian posted:Why not just opt out of it? I know it is a lovely thing they are doing, and they've made the opt out process more complicated than it should be on purpose, but here's the thing - it is still one of the best cards for travel, and pretty much every bank is lovely in their own way. If you're concerned about Chase doing sketchy things post-waiver, it doesn't really matter whether you opt in or out. The point of the class action waiver isn't to prevent you and a few buddies from getting together. It's there to make sure that it's not worth it for a law firm to take on any conceivable class action. That won't change on an individual level, and without some massive campaign that hasn't emerged, there won't be enough collective action to change that calculation.
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Jul 7, 2019 23:03
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Space Gopher posted:If you're concerned about Chase doing sketchy things post-waiver, it doesn't really matter whether you opt in or out. The point of the class action waiver isn't to prevent you and a few buddies from getting together. It's there to make sure that it's not worth it for a law firm to take on any conceivable class action. That won't change on an individual level, and without some massive campaign that hasn't emerged, there won't be enough collective action to change that calculation. I get that. This just isn't a hill I feel like dying on. Chase starts loving customers over left and right in forced arbitration, fine, Twitter can erupt and we'll all burn our cards maybe but absent that, cancelling them over this seems meaningless and so I'm going to keep racking up benefits. Not that I'm judging anyone for thinking otherwise.
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Jul 8, 2019 00:15
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It also happens to be approaching my annual renewal, so it's very convenient for me to start dying on this hill. 
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Jul 8, 2019 00:46
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I'm not even sure Chase has ever profited from me as I milk the poo poo out of their benefits, have made multiple insurance claims adding up to thousands, have churned them like there is no tomorrow, and have never ever paid a dime in interest. So if I want to stick it up to them all I have to do is continue doing business with them.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:24
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Animal posted:I'm not even sure Chase has ever profited from me as I milk the poo poo out of their benefits, have made multiple insurance claims adding up to thousands, have churned them like there is no tomorrow, and have never ever paid a dime in interest. So if I want to stick it up to them all I have to do is continue doing business with them. Honestly this is how I feel about it. I've gotten everything they've advertised about it and more. Reimbursed for a cancelled trip due to weather last year for an amount that covers the annual fee for years to come, just got my Global Entry renewal fee this year, I pay it off every month without fail and get thousands of dollars in hotel/flight rewards. Ironically, I'm technically the customer they don't want, because I use the travel rewards constantly and never wrack up interest charges. Cancelling the CSR would be doing them a favor in my case. Not really, because the real money they make is the higher fees they charge vendors to give them access to me, but a boy can dream. I feel the same about folks who, for legit enough reasons, want to boycott Uber - the best way you can punish Uber, the company, at the moment is by continuing to use them because they lose money on almost every ride. Use them and tip your drivers well.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:45
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Got it, that’s why I added 300 to each of the spending numbers. This is where I start to give up and decide that I can either treat this as a hobby and maximize my rewards at the cost of my time and brain power, or earn less money and do other things. More power to you if it's fun though.
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Jul 8, 2019 03:45
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Yeah me, too, not looking for another hobby, hence the “set it and forget it” line. The point transfer thing is just out of curiosity, but if the triple points counts for dining as well as travel, that kind of takes it from “eh I might have to pay attention to break even” to “probably net me a hundred or two per year with minimal hassle”.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:49
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Yeah me, too, not looking for another hobby, hence the “set it and forget it” line. The point transfer thing is just out of curiosity, but if the triple points counts for dining as well as travel, that kind of takes it from “eh I might have to pay attention to break even” to “probably net me a hundred or two per year with minimal hassle”. Yeah, 3% on dining. I find it's super easy to just deal with CSR+Freedom+Freedom Unlimited and make up more than the cost of the CSR annual fee.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:53
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I feel like I'm getting lazy with our credit cards, speaking of CSR. Currently our "fee cards" include: CSR for me: almost all of my spending goes on this, including most of our travel spending Amex gold for me: almost no spending goes on this Amex platinum for my wife: most of her spending goes on this, including her occasional solo trip. We spend a decent amount and make use of the Chase travel benefits, but have about 300k in Amex points we're not sure what to do with. We mostly fly American and it seems most of their redemption partners have poor redemption rates. Any way we can better use our cards?
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Jul 8, 2019 11:06
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Idk about the Amex points in the US, but I guess the question is why are you keeping the Amex gold card?
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Jul 8, 2019 12:10
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Recoome posted:Idk about the Amex points in the US, but I guess the question is why are you keeping the Amex gold card? Leftover from before we got married last year. I have about 100k points on that, the rest are on her card
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Jul 8, 2019 14:40
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Amex Gold is an excellent card for restaurants and groceries which are primary categories for us. The only + transfer partners right now are Aeroméxico and Hilton though so maybe go to Acapulco or Cabo?
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Jul 8, 2019 15:15
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Membership rewards points are nice for US-Japan flights on ANA as well. Flew their business class for 80k roundtrip after transferring. Think economy was around 50k.
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Jul 8, 2019 17:25
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Had a few rather large unexpected expenses the last month or so. It had been a while since I grabbed any sign up bonuses, but I just grabbed the Capital One Savor One and plan on turning around that $150 bonus after $500 spend pretty quickly to help heal my blown budget categories.
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Jul 9, 2019 03:02
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I just scored 160k mile (round trip per person) business class for my wife and I on UA from IAH-SYD and the return AKL-IAL (on Air New Zealand). For December-January of this year, which is high season for Australia and New Zealand. I'm United 1k so I get access to the occasional better deal but am I crazy or is this an incredible deal no matter what? 80k miles each way for business class to Anzac, during their summer season? And $50 each in fees.
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Jul 10, 2019 03:48
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I have a 7k credit limit, a 740 credit score and I make low six figures on a card with low utilization. I need a 10k credit limit to upgrade my CSP to CSR. How serious and what goes into that decision. do I qualify
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Jul 10, 2019 04:15
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Does anyone know anything about the HSBC Gold Mastercard? It seems to have mixed/bad reviews. I also can't see what kind of credit limit it has anywhere. I have fairly bad credit (600-670ish depending on the agency) and opened two secured cards earlier this year to raise my credit. It's gone up a little bit, but only having $400 in credit available between the two cards kinda sucks, and makes it occasionally hard to keep utilization nice and low (although I'm never maxing them out or anything.) I'm not worried about a card not having many perks, but I'd rather not open it if the customer service/online payment processing sucks.
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Jul 10, 2019 14:01
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Waroduce posted:I have a 7k credit limit, a 740 credit score and I make low six figures on a card with low utilization. I need a 10k credit limit to upgrade my CSP to CSR. How serious and what goes into that decision. do I qualify Yes, call them and tell them to raise it. Mention you make money. They really only have your credit score/report to go off of, so if yours really only has one card and no other issues it should be very easy to get 25-50 limit if you want it. They'll ask about rent and my ask for a paystub copy or access to your tax returns, but I've only ever had Amex get that interested.
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Jul 10, 2019 16:01
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garbage horse posted:Does anyone know anything about the HSBC Gold Mastercard? It seems to have mixed/bad reviews. I also can't see what kind of credit limit it has anywhere. I don't know what your previous history looks like, but if you're just working on increasing your credit score, don't worry about utilization right now. It only impacts your score for a given month (and maybe the next one?). So yes, your score will be "lower" if you're using more than 30% of your total limit but the second you get it back down it will shoot up to whatever your "real" score is. In my case, my jump from the 650 range to the 730 range came when my oldest credit card hit 2 years (I didn't have any derogatory marks or late payments so YMMV) and I was using a $500 limit secured card for most of that. Edit: also, you can pay off your card whenever you want and immediately your utilization drops. I did that for a while, I'd pay the card off weekly so it would never go over 30%, but I stopped once I realized there wasn't any real point to it. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 16:08
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I don't know what your previous history looks like, but if you're just working on increasing your credit score, don't worry about utilization right now. I should just stick with it then. I don't absolutely need more credit (more for emergencies would be nice... but I survived until very recently without a credit card.) Thanks for the input!
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Jul 10, 2019 22:56
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Is it worth it to get the Amazon Visa? I'm currently just using my Discover It that I've had for the past 3 or so years, and it looks like the Amazon one could potentially be better? Having 2% always on restaurants and gas stations us tempting and we do shop on Amazon a fair bit.
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Jul 11, 2019 04:07
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Is it worth it to get the Amazon Visa? I'm currently just using my Discover It that I've had for the past 3 or so years, and it looks like the Amazon one could potentially be better? Having 2% always on restaurants and gas stations us tempting and we do shop on Amazon a fair bit. I have the Amazon Visa, but only use it for Amazon. 5% off for a card you don't have to carry with no fee's p. cool
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Jul 11, 2019 17:41
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I do a lot of purchase through amazon, so 5% is really good. They even offer GC for the grocery store I use, so when I max out 6% on my Amex for the year, I can just get GC and keep getting 5%. I really like it.
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Jul 11, 2019 18:06
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Is it worth it to get the Amazon Visa? I'm currently just using my Discover It that I've had for the past 3 or so years, and it looks like the Amazon one could potentially be better? Having 2% always on restaurants and gas stations us tempting and we do shop on Amazon a fair bit. I keep it as my No Foreign Transaction Fee card for when I travel
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Jul 11, 2019 18:27
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I have the Store card and use it for the same 5% off as a no carry card. I've also used the 12 mo 0% APR promo on large purchases to make more than 5% by floating the cash in the stock market or in a safer high interest checking account and then using a 0% balance transfer APR/fee promotion near the expiration, but there's a very real danger in their deferred-interest method that makes this unattractive should there be a glitch in their auto-pay system, so just using another card's 0% APR period is a better option going forward.EugeneJ posted:I keep it as my No Foreign Transaction Fee card for when I travel Might consider a look into the Uber Visa. No Foreign Transaction Fees, 4% on Dining, 3% on Hotels. Girbot fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Jul 11, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 18:36
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quote:Is my Priority Pass lounge benefit changing? https://www.prioritypass.com/en/programchange Priority Pass lounges are kinda crap anyways and mostly full so having the $28 restaurant/bar credits was a nice perk with the CSR. If there were more Centurion lounges I'd change to a Amex Platinum.
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Jul 11, 2019 19:38
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I have the Amazon CC but don't shop enough on Amazon to justify a year round Prime membership (which basically makes it a $100ish annual fee), so I just sign up for Prime when I know I'm about to shop a lot at Amazon. Worst case scenario, it just means you get 3% which is still a good deal.
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Jul 11, 2019 23:01
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Diva Cupcake posted:https://www.prioritypass.com/en/programchange Wow this loving blows. I feel like half the places I end up in I have to use the restaurant credit cause there's no lounge. Not a huge loss though since I got an Amex Plat for my corporate card though. Just have to fly delta or wait for more centurion lounges to open up. There are a lot under construction iirc.
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Jul 12, 2019 03:13
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I have the Amazon CC but don't shop enough on Amazon to justify a year round Prime membership (which basically makes it a $100ish annual fee), so I just sign up for Prime when I know I'm about to shop a lot at Amazon. Worst case scenario, it just means you get 3% which is still a good deal. Huh, guess I never thought of the Prime membership as an annual fee analogue. What are some good rewards cards aside from this? I've had my Discover It for a while and have always wondered if I could do better
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Jul 12, 2019 06:29
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