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silence_kit posted:How much are miles worth in terms of 'effective cash back percentages'? People get really into credit cards, and I'm sure people have calculated effective cash back percentage rates for miles cards. The airline/miles travel cards are competing with no annual fee cash back cards which can give as much as 3% for travel. The effective cash back rates had better be pretty high, since airline miles are less useful than cash. Short answer: The Points Guy is a shill, but he maintains a roughly accurate "cent value per point" chart that can help you figure this stuff out. Long answer: With miles, a lot depends on exactly how you redeem them. For instance, I had a personal emergency where I needed to get across the Pacific on a couple of days' notice. I used pretty much my entire mileage balance with Alaska to redeem a business class ticket, so I would be a functioning human being when I landed. In that specific case, 65,000 Alaska miles got me a one way plane ticket that would have been $3,500 or so cash. Buying flights on the Alaska credit card gets you 3 miles per dollar, which meant that I got an effective ~15% cash back rate. But, that's several weird edge cases adding up on top of each other. The same flight in economy wouldn't have seen a huge discount in miles (something like 45k vs 65k), and the cash price of the ticket was hugely inflated because I was flying last minute. I could have spent the same miles doing a few $200 domestic short hop round trips for 25,000 miles each, which would be a pathetic return.
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Nov 27, 2019 15:47
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Space Gopher posted:Short answer: The Points Guy is a shill, but he maintains a roughly accurate "cent value per point" chart that can help you figure this stuff out. Ok, so ThePointsGuy says the Alaska card is 1.8 cents/point. Since the Alaska card gives you 3 points/$ for Alaska flights, then that means the effective cash back is 5.5%? This is ignoring your point w.r.t. the 1.8 cent/point number being some kind of average or typical conversion rate which could fluctuate quite a bit depending on the flight purchases. edit: The Alaska card seems to be one of the better miles cards. The other ones don't look so good, and using the ThePointsGuy's conversion rates, are barely better than 3% travel cash back cards. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 16:09
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The best 'effective cash back' is to open a new card with a nice signup bonus. Ongoing spend gives you very little comparatively. That aside, I personally would not recommend maintaining an airline miles card as your primary credit card unless you are already using that airline regularly, otherwise you wouldn't get as much out of the benefits and would be somewhat locked in w.r.t. what you can redeem the miles for. Those high miles valuations tend to be based on you finding and making use of business class saver-type availability - something which is not always easy (and sometimes not even possible) and you don't always have the luxury of planning ahead or being flexible about the dates/times. Add into that how devaluations strike at a moment's notice, and the value of those miles you've been spending years accruing on your credit card through normal spend may not be the same as when you started. To that end, I'm more of a fan of flexible points systems (Chase's UR, Amex's MR, Citi's TY) since you can transfer those to one of several airlines and still get good returns. They also typically have a sort of synergy where different cards in the group have better earning rates on different things. For example, Chase's Sapphire Reserve gives you 3x on dining/travel, but only 1x UR on their 'everything else' - if you also had a Chase Freedom Unlimited and used it on that 'everything else' instead, you'd be getting 1.5x UR for it. Throw in a Chase Freedom with its rotating 5x categories such as groceries, paypal, or wholesale clubs, and you've got some pretty great returns.
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Nov 27, 2019 20:26
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Shear Modulus posted:People use the airline branded cards because they give you extra frequent flier points if you buy tickets on that airline with them, and for business travel where you get reimbursed the amount it is basically free points. If your company is buying the tickets and you don't get the big-ticket manufactured spending of plane tickets it may not be worth the hassle of getting frequent flier points with an airline card instead of cash from another card. Yeah if you live near a major airline hub, like Delta/Atlanta, American/Southwest/Dallas, United/SFO/Newark then banking airline miles makes sense as a non business traveler, otherwise you need a pretty specific use case for airline miles. I was in Dallas and used American miles, and now I'm in California using United miles If you live in Chicago and sign up for an Alaskan Airlines card you're gonna get screwed Every airline has a credit card because they're cheap to setup and basically cost nothing to maintain as an additional revenue stream, doesn't mean you should use it.
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Nov 27, 2019 20:59
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Yea I'm in Dallas and foresee most, if not all, flights being on American. I'll still probably being buying, at least partially, 1 or 2 flights a year (and one of those to Korea to visit family) along with some spending for the 2X categories. Just the signup bonus alone is a good chunk for a round trip flight to Korea using the Milesaaver flights and that's probably what'd I'd save up and use my miles for mostly.
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Nov 27, 2019 21:37
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As a credit card idiot/business owner, I was thinking about getting the Chase Ink Preferred card to get some reward point action going, but is there a way that if I were to also have a personal Chase card (I currently don't, but it seems like The Best Card for someone who doesn't travel A Lot), to pool the points? To even say such a thing seems like madness, but it seems inefficient to have two Chase cards otherwise? I'm usually around $3k/mo on my personal card and $2-3k/mo on the business one.
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Nov 27, 2019 22:39
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Deathlove posted:As a credit card idiot/business owner, I was thinking about getting the Chase Ink Preferred card to get some reward point action going, but is there a way that if I were to also have a personal Chase card (I currently don't, but it seems like The Best Card for someone who doesn't travel A Lot), to pool the points? To even say such a thing seems like madness, but it seems inefficient to have two Chase cards otherwise? I'm usually around $3k/mo on my personal card and $2-3k/mo on the business one. I don't know how business accounts are handled by Chase, but for small business Amex used to let me pool points. I have two chase cards and you can "move" points between them on the fly. So if they will put the business card on your personal/combined account like amex I'm sure it will work out fine for what you want to do.
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Nov 27, 2019 22:46
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You can add your personal Chase cards to your business Chase login so they're all together under one login. You can transfer points from one Chase UR card to another even without having them under the same login.
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Nov 27, 2019 23:28
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I have my Chase account with my Freedom, Unlimited, and Reserve on it. I had to open a new account for my Ink. I plan to just transfer the Ink points to my Reserve and then cancel the Ink at the end of the year.
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Nov 27, 2019 23:46
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Elysium posted:I have my Chase account with my Freedom, Unlimited, and Reserve on it. oh, that's good news - I do have a Chase card with my co-parent held over from when we married, to pay for joint kid charges, so I was worried that if I got a new card, the UR points would intermingle with those, and things would go Bad. If I can get a new account, though, more's the better!
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Nov 27, 2019 23:56
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I'm thinking of culling my current cards and getting a few more signup bonuses. Cards I'm canceling: Uber, Costco, Amazon Card I will eventually get: BoA 3-2-1 (with the 75% plat honors bonus) -- this will get me 5.25% on amazon and 3.5% at costco which is why the others are getting canceled Cards I already have: Saphire Reserve, Amex Plat, Chase Freedom, some random BoA card that is my oldest card (I may cancel this one too). I'd like to get some more sweet signup bonuses, so looking for recomendations here. I was thinking of getting a United Airlines branded card because I fly United a lot and have a whiff of status. I'm likely to want to do a two-person round-trip international buisness flight at some point next year, and so some more airline points is always nice. I also fly Alaska, Southwest, and Jetblue. Yeah, I fly around a lot in general. Are any of their cards worth getting? I don't tend to stay in hotels, so hotel cards don't seem like a good plan. I'm asking this now because I'm pretty sure I'm under the Chase 5/24 rule right now so I need to get any Chase cards in first. Also, at what point can I cancel and sign up for the Reserve and get a signup bonus again?
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Dec 4, 2019 00:36
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Why not keep the Amazon and Costco cards? Amazon runs occasional sales where you get 15-20% back if you use the Amazon card, and the Citi Costco card still has Citi's nice 2-year extended warranty, which stacks especially nicely with Costco's own 2-year warranty. e: Costco one also has a decent rate on gas stations
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Dec 4, 2019 00:45
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I just don't like tracking that many cards even if it mostly just takes care if itself in mint. I don't think I've ever used the extra off stuff with the Amazon card or the warrantees at Costco. And lol I've bought... 4 tanks of gas in the last 18 months. It's a plug-in hybrid and most of my life is in the electric range.
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Dec 4, 2019 01:18
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FunOne posted:It'll still say "Member Since" on your card though. It’ll say “member since” but the date will be for that new specific card. Most of my Amex accounts go way back but my gold says 19 on it.
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Dec 4, 2019 04:12
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Amara posted:I'm thinking of culling my current cards and The Southwest companion pass is probably the best deal around if you've got a buddy that can take advantage of the free ticket (+taxes). You'd most likely have to sign up for the personal and business Southwest cards to hit the 125k pt threshold though.
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Dec 4, 2019 04:44
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MrBond posted:It’ll say “member since” but the date will be for that new specific card. I wonder why that is. My gold has the date of my original account.
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Dec 4, 2019 05:22
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Deathlove posted:oh, that's good news - I do have a Chase card with my co-parent held over from when we married, to pay for joint kid charges, so I was worried that if I got a new card, the UR points would intermingle with those, and things would go Bad. If I can get a new account, though, more's the better! To follow up on this, I applied for a new Chase card and got rejected as a business owner with an 820 credit score?? Anxiously awaiting the explanation why?
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Dec 4, 2019 05:22
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Chase is weird. I have a CSR and an 835 score, good income, and can’t get approved for even a $1,000 CLI. However, I can get approved for a new Chase Sapphire, Freedom, or Ink with an $8k+ limit with no problem. Then call them up a week later and merge that credit limit into my CSR, and close the new card. I did this about 8 times over the past couple of years, continually opening->merging->closing and juicing up my CSR limit until I realized this was absolutely killing my AAoC. But actually just get a slight increase on the CSR? Not possible.
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Dec 4, 2019 05:40
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saintonan posted:I wonder why that is. My gold has the date of my original account.
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Dec 4, 2019 17:28
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Diva Cupcake posted:My gold retained the date from my original as well. I upgraded in 2018 and it still says 01. I think the issue is that although the “member since” date gets backdated, Amex is no longer backdating the start date of the line of credit itself (which gets reported to credit bureaus). My new everyday card has a member since date of 2007. I guess I’ll see what my actual credit date is at some point.
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Dec 4, 2019 17:43
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Residency Evil posted:I think the issue is that although the “member since” date gets backdated, Amex is no longer backdating the start date of the line of credit itself (which gets reported to credit bureaus).
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Dec 4, 2019 18:13
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Diva Cupcake posted:I wonder when that change was made. I remember specially asking Amex support in 2018 whether upgrading to the "new" gold would change my account age and they said no. My TransUnion report shows the account open date as 9/2001.
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Dec 4, 2019 18:31
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Residency Evil posted:I think the issue is that although the “member since” date gets backdated, Amex is no longer backdating the start date of the line of credit itself (which gets reported to credit bureaus). Interesting. I wonder if I fell into some hole with the card. I’d have guessed maybe something changed in early 2019 when I got the new gold but if you just got the everyday, perhaps not. I could probably ask Amex about it but since the actual credit reporting is definitively “new” I don’t think I care about the date on the card.
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Dec 4, 2019 19:20
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GTJustin posted:The Southwest companion pass is probably the best deal around if you've got a buddy that can take advantage of the free ticket (+taxes). You'd most likely have to sign up for the personal and business Southwest cards to hit the 125k pt threshold though. Huh good point I forgot about those. I guess I'll be aiming for a companion pass early next year. Thanks dude!
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Dec 4, 2019 19:38
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I have an ancient capital one secured credit card (whatever this thread suggested back then) and it has a limit of $1014 which is about 1/3 my rent, no bonuses. I've called them and they have no interest in moving the card around. Also I have probably $800 cash tied up in it and I'm probably paying some annual fee on it. Looking at buying a house early next year. Is there any way I can merge this into something else without impacting my credit score? Capital one won't let me increase the limit no matter what. I probably qualify for most cards with a mid 700s score
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Dec 5, 2019 09:28
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It’s been over two years since I obtained the 50,000 point offer from a Chase Southwest card. But it’s been less than 2 years since I closed that account. If I apply for a new Chase Southwest card, I’d be eligible for the reward?
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Dec 5, 2019 17:41
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I got an offer in the mail for the amex gold Delta card 60k point bonus but I had that card and got the bonus about 4-5 years ago. It was my understanding that American Express only gives out one bonus per card per person ever. Does amex promo department not track what bonuses I'm actually eligible for or can I get this bonus again?
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Dec 7, 2019 16:03
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Check to see if the offer has the "lifetime language". Amex does occasionally send out card offers without once lifetime bonus language, and people have had success getting the bonuses a second time. It's usually recommended to keep a copy of the fine print in case you have to dispute it later. Or it's just a generic mailer.
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Dec 7, 2019 17:21
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It used to be that "ever" / "lifetime" was 7 years, not sure if this still the case
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Dec 7, 2019 18:22
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Untagged posted:Check to see if the offer has the "lifetime language". Amex does occasionally send out card offers without once lifetime bonus language, and people have had success getting the bonuses a second time. It's usually recommended to keep a copy of the fine print in case you have to dispute it later. Or it's just a generic mailer. Offer was probably generated on the Delta side, anyway.
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Dec 7, 2019 20:13
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Well that rumored $100 annual fee increase certainly puts a kink on the CSR. Hopefully they don't gently caress around with the travel credit since that's the only reason I have been keeping the card.
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Dec 9, 2019 14:18
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halokiller posted:Well that rumored $100 annual fee increase certainly puts a kink on the CSR. Hopefully they don't gently caress around with the travel credit since that's the only reason I have been keeping the card. what's this now?
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Dec 9, 2019 15:06
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[Rumor] Chase To Add Dining/Delivery Credit To Chase Sapphire Reserve, Increase Annual Fee To $550
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Dec 9, 2019 15:12
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So, with the premium cards, are they just sitting around a table and asking the marketing department to gently caress their customers incrementally to see how many care/at what point they’ll get rid of the card?
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Dec 9, 2019 15:23
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Cacafuego posted:So, with the premium cards, are they just sitting around a table and asking the marketing department to gently caress their customers incrementally to see how many care/at what point they’ll get rid of the card?  (which seems kind of incongruent in a thread about credit cards but hey)
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Dec 9, 2019 15:39
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halokiller posted:[Rumor] Chase To Add Dining/Delivery Credit To Chase Sapphire Reserve, Increase Annual Fee To $550 Well, that would suck. Right now the card hits a sweet spot. If the fee goes up $100 or $200 for something I don't use I'd almost surely cash out my points and drop it.
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Dec 11, 2019 15:55
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Deathlove posted:
This is a thread about maximizing the amount of money you can get banks to give you for free though so it works.
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Dec 11, 2019 15:56
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Bumping the annual fee to $550 definitely turns it into an actual travel card instead of merely a points churning machine. I'm ok with that. We got our card late summer this year and only did a handful of trips but between hotel/rental car upgrades + lounges we definitely got our money's worth. I think just for our last trip, due to status gymnastics we got $292 worth of free food + appetizers at the hotel restaurant alone, plus they waived $120 worth of parking due to... I guess they were being nice on the parking, but whatever. That's about $400 retail value. For one trip. We were doing Airbnb up until we got the card and the free breakfast + free executive level upgrade + all the cool stuff that comes with an executive level room number makes it a better value than Airbnb. Plus the 5x points. Plus the wife is very happy at the hotel, and Airbnb in Texas gets super sketch once you leave the metro areas. $200 rewards in airline incidentals is pretty cool, we were really working hard to drink our way through $200 worth of in flight booze before eoy.
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Dec 13, 2019 11:26
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I currently have the CSP and CFU (got the CFU during the 3x points on all purchases for 12 months/up to 60,000 UR points earlier this year). After this bonus is fulfilled I plan on opening an Ink Business Preferred, just need to time it right so I hit the minimum spend. Now I'm planning my next card after the Ink. I upgraded from the original Sapphire to the Sapphire Preferred in spring 2016. How much time needs to pass before I can claim the sign up bonus for the Reserve? My CSP is still open. Do I need to use/transfer all of my UR points off of that card and close it out before opening a Reserve to get the sign up bonus?
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Dec 13, 2019 14:48
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Sock The Great posted:I upgraded from the original Sapphire to the Sapphire Preferred in spring 2016. How much time needs to pass before I can claim the sign up bonus for the Reserve? My CSP is still open. Do I need to use/transfer all of my UR points off of that card and close it out before opening a Reserve to get the sign up bonus? It's 48 months from the time you received your CSP bonus, assuming you received a bonus when you product changed in 2016. If you didn't get a bonus, you can do it now. You do need to get rid of the CSP since you can only have one Sapphire at a time, but you don't have to close the account, you can just PC it into a CFU and hold the points there until you get the CSR.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:43
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