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Pryor on Fire posted:Having 11 accounts is too many, you want two or three tops with as high a limit as you can possibly find but closing accounts triggers a drop too so just go back in time and don't open so many. That's nonsense. As long as utilization (how much you use the cards divided by the total amount of credit across all cards) is kept reasonable, the actual number of accounts doesn't matter.
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Dec 11, 2014 05:03
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drainpipe posted:Is there a card that's good for getting hotel deals? I'm about to get Southwest Companion Pass, so I won't need airline miles, but I would like to churn to cover hotel costs. I know Marriott and SPG seem to be the big players, but I don't care too much about luxury hotels, more just maximizing the number of days I can get. Should I still go with them or should I just do CSP and use the UR points to book? Are hotel stays even worth the points? The min-max way is to find a chain that you like and get the card associated with it. The general travel cards are good for the bottom feeder chains like Motel 6/Choice Hotels/etc., so if those are your speed then you're good with the CSP. If you find yourself gravitating toward Marriott/Hilton/IHG properties, you get much higher rewards using the card specifically for that chain, over and above the signup bonuses.
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Mar 2, 2018 15:42
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Untagged posted:Can you "churn" MileagePlus Explorer cards? I previously had a Explorer Card that's been cancelled for a while, and the bonus was over 24 months ago. That's a Chase product so you should be able to churn the bonus every 24 months.
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Mar 2, 2018 16:45
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BAE OF PIGS posted:Does spending by an authorized user count towards spend bonuses? If it does, can someone be an authorized user on that account if they already have one of those cards? Yes to both. You'd be an AU on her account, which is different from your account, even though it's the same card.
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Mar 15, 2018 20:45
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dy. posted:Looking for recommendations here. Chase has a "one Sapphire" rule, meaning she can't have a CSR and a CSP at the same time. She'll have to PC the CSP, wait a few days, then apply for a CSR. Also, you can only get one sapphire bonus every 24 months, so if its been less than 24 months since she got the CSP bonus (not when the account was opened, but when the bonus posted to her account), you'll have to wait for that as well.
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May 21, 2018 22:44
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dy. posted:Thanks for the feedback! PC is product change. You don't want to close her CSP account completely, you just want to turn it into some sort of Freedom card (you can have more than one Freedom if you like chasing the 5% quarterly categories). With the bonus from the CSR, that's more like 7.5% through the travel portal. What you're describing (PC to CF or CFU) is very common. Residency Evil posted:Same situation, but my fiancee has an Amex Platinum and I have a CSR. Is it worth doing the same thing? Does Amex still do those 100k point offers? Yes. Amex will only give you a bonus once per lifetime for any specific card (exact card, other cards in a card group are ok), otherwise it's roughly the same process.
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May 22, 2018 02:13
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The SPG card used to be insanely valuable because of the large number of partners you could transfer points to. Starwood has been bought out by Marriott, and the SPG program has been merged into Marriott's, which is significantly less valuable. There's no real reason to get an SPG rewards card now.
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Nov 30, 2018 00:19
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laxbro posted:How is the Fidelity Visa Signature Card? I'm transitioning from Bank of America to Fidelity, and would like to ditch the BoA cards because the autopay is terrible. Also considering the Citi Double Cash, but I'm looking to simplify all my finances so having the Fidelity card is appealing mostly since Fidelity can then be my one stop shop for everything. Fidelity contracts Elan to manage its Visa. Elan is not good - customer service sucks, the website is not well laid out and doing rather simple things like modifying autopay setups is confusing and error-prone. You have a minimum threshold of $50 in rewards before it's kicked over to your Fidelity cash account. Citibank's customer service is famously inconsistent, but their website is better and redemptions are easier. Take redemptions straight to your checking account in order to get the full 2% - taking rewards as statement credits means you're not sending a payment for that amount, and so you don't get the 1% cash back for that part. Citibank's minimum redemption is $25. Fidelity's card can work for you as long as you never need customer service or never need to change anything after the account is set up, and as long as you're fine with slightly higher minimum redemption requirements.
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Dec 16, 2018 23:56
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Animal posted:Alliant is generally considered the best one that’s not very difficult to get into. I really like them. I strongly recommend finding a local credit union and not using one of the national virtual banks (Alliant, Ally, Discover, Amex Personal, etc.) as your main financial institution. You'll get far, far better service face to face with live human beings, and you'll be able to do things that virtual banks can't (deposit cash, get services on very short notice, things like that). The other places are fine to park short-term money and get marginally higher interest rates, but it's valuable to establish a local banking relationship.
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Feb 17, 2019 21:13
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CSRs no longer have referral bonuses.
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Feb 22, 2019 19:13
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The way I read it is that it's possible to charge multiple things to the card, so at the time that the special financing is coming due, your payments will go to that special financing before it goes to anything else you may have charged in the meantime (and not paid off, as expensive as that would be).
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Feb 28, 2019 05:06
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Jerk McJerkface posted:When are the March Freedom categories coming out? The next quarter is usually announced on the 15th of the last month of the previous quarter, so should be March 15 for Q2.
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Mar 13, 2019 12:26
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Cacafuego posted:Can you explain, as one would to an idiot, what that means? If you have a dispute involving the card, you cannot sue them in court, since acceptance of the terms waives that right. Instead, you must submit your dispute to binding arbitration. The "binding" part means you have to follow what an arbitrator decides. An arbitrator is not a judge. Arbitrators are theoretically unbiased, but since corporations do hundreds or thousands of these and you do only one, outcomes tend to be biased toward corporations. They're also far cheaper to the corporations that actual court cases would be. Additionally, you are prohibited from combining your grievance with others that may have similar grievances, so each has to go through the expense individually, rather than joining together. All in all, it's a significant erosion of consumer rights, which is why it was the subject of a lawsuit a decade ago. I suspect this change will end up in court as well.
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May 31, 2019 21:34
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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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Sub Rosa posted:Yes, the metric is average age of accounts, not average age of open accounts. Closed accounts still are included in that average until they age off, which takes ~ten years after they are closed. This isn't completely correct. The answer depends on whether they're trying to improve credit in general or specifically looking at credit for mortgage purposes. FICO specifically does include closed accounts in its credit age calculation, but there are relatively few mortgage lenders that only use raw FICO scores in their lending process. Many individual lenders, especially mortgage lenders, only look at open accounts in their own credit analysis, especially if the closed account has been closed for several years. Also, the act of closing an account "freezes" its length, since closed accounts don't continue to accumulate age. Since open credit accounts naturally age as the borrower ages, closed accounts, especially if it was open less than five years, could be a net negative to an account length calculation. Account credit age isn't nearly as important as payment history and utililization, though, so if you're looking to repair a credit score, that's where you want to start. If your credit history and utilization are pristine, many lenders will overlook a moderate credit length.
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Jul 30, 2019 14:42
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EconOutlines posted:I don't mind paying an AF of $450, I just want to see if it'll be worth my while? If I'm going to get at least $450 in benefits that I'd spend anyways, then hell yeah. Especially for lounges/traveling perks. The next question for frequent or semi-frequent travelers is what economic ecosystem you're in. Do you always fly the same airline? Stay at one brand or umbrella brand of hotel? If so, it may be worth it to use that brand's card or cards as your primary. If not, you're almost certainly better off using CSR/Amex Plat or similar universal card and just transferring points or using their travel portal to book travel.
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Aug 16, 2019 13:11
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It was Amex Plat, but most of the ones I see for that now are 60k MR.
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Aug 16, 2019 16:15
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astral posted:Alliant has a 2% visa for members of their credit union, too. It has a 2% FTF and it also has secondary CDW. Couldn't find a convenient benefits PDF with a quick search there either; if anyone has this card and can snag the current benefits link that'd be helpful! Alliant actually has two cards, a 2% no annual fee card and a 2.5%, $99 annual fee card.
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Sep 1, 2019 02:44
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OldSenileGuy posted:Assuming this is the right thread - does anyone have any insight on cash back cards vs. travel points cards? Travel cards are generally speaking more lucrative than cash back cards. They tend to have extremely good bonuses, and most have annual fees, which means if you want to min/max rewards, you'll want to "churn" cards rapidly (sign-up, make some minimum spend to get a bonus, then optionally close the card to avoid subsequent annual fees) to get as many signup bonuses as possible. Along those lines, the churning subreddit has a lot of background information, and daily question threads filled with people who min/max this more than you'd ever thought possible. You might also want to check out the FlyerTalk forums, as they're populated by people who travel for a living, and can give qualified advice on what travel rewards programs are good or bad relative to each other. Sites like ThePointsGuy, DoctorofCredit, nerdwallet, etc. do get income from referrals, but their advice overall seems sound. Like anything else, getting and confirming information from multiple sources will increase your confidence in the advice you get.
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Sep 4, 2019 20:04
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One other thing to work into your calculations is that you can get PP access from a number of different cards. I have mine through my Amex Hilton Surpass, for example. In general, if you see a perk that's valuable to you, there may be ways to get that on an ongoing basis with a lower annual fee.
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Sep 5, 2019 12:41
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I guess that's just another thing to factor in. I never felt like the restaurants were a very good value anyway, so that wasn't a factor for me, but others may put (much) more value on that part. Having a relatively quiet space to just relax away from the chaos of boarding gates is what makes PP worthwhile to me.
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Sep 5, 2019 17:19
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If you've ever sold anything on Ebay, you're a business owner.
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Sep 10, 2019 02:33
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Motronic posted:Is that new? Because I was specifically told by Chase (2 years ago) that if I PC'd my CSP into a CSR there would be no bonus. So I applied for the CSR and had them PC the CSP into a Freedom Unlimited (which is actually a pretty good setup if you remember to use the Freedom for the quarterly categories). You can only get one Sapphire bonus (so either CSP or CSR) every 48 months.
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Sep 21, 2019 16:54
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Boxman posted:More of a generic credit maintenance question than about rewards, but I figure ya'll would know. I won't second guess your choices, though I suspect there's some math that's off there. Being an authorized user is not the same as having a card in her own name. Getting her something like a Discover IT, Chase Freedom, or Citi Double Cash would be a good way to maintain or improve her credit.
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Oct 6, 2019 18:00
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Boxman posted:I don't have a problem with high fees, if i think I can make it worth it, but my understanding is that a lot of extra value is locked behind booking through the cards' travel portals, which (I'm pretty sure?) never include SWA. EDIT: lol I posted years ago making sure you can't book SWA through the Chase Rewards portal. You can't, but you can transfer UR into RR. I'll back up and say that the Companion Pass is by leagues the best tool for SWA travel, so I'd recommend getting that (many couples alternate getting them so that you'd get it for 2020/2021, then your spouse would get it for 2022/2023, then you'd get it for 2024/2025, etc.). After that it's just a matter of mathing out which card gives you the best benefit, and as you pointed out, balance that against the convenience of having to assign specific spend to specific cards. Your reasoning is perfectly fine and there's lots of people that don't want to go to the effort of min-maxing rewards.
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Oct 7, 2019 17:18
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MrBond posted:Chase UR on any sapphire lets you transfer to southwest at 1:1 right? It’s not amazing but IIRC southwest points redeem for about 1.5c/pt which comes out the same as the UR portal on a CSR. Yes, 1:1 in 1000 point increments.
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Oct 7, 2019 17:25
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No problem. My only reason for commenting is that lots of people read this thread and, being goons, are more focused on the min max part. The combination of CSR, CF, and CFU will in most redemption cases be better than BoA but there is added effort needed to manage travel on one card, quarterly bonuses on another card, etc. The vast majority of credit card users never use rewards or use them improperly, so just having a plan puts you way ahead of the game.
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Oct 7, 2019 19:41
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Waroduce posted:Any opinions? The Amex Plat seems to be your best bet, especially if you Uber at all. You still get PP lounges, just not restaurants anymore, and Plat also gets you Centurion lounges. Your major expenses sound like hotels and airfare, and if you value MR at 2 cents each, that means an effective 10% back on those expenses. $200 in Uber credits and $200 in misc airline credits means the effective AF is just $150. Do the math but I'd give the Amex Plat strong consideration.
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Oct 8, 2019 03:14
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https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/ https://onemileatatime.com/value-miles-points/ Everyone's values will be slightly different because people redeem points for different things. Those two articles will help you find your own number.
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Oct 8, 2019 04:00
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Small White Dragon posted:The 5x on hotels for the Amex Plat is limited to bookings through Amex, which is considered an OTA and not eligible for elite benefits and point accrual. So I'd ignore that unless you stay at a lot of off-brand hotels. This is true but OP says he already has max status, so OTAs would save him a bunch of money at least through the end of 2020. My experience with IHG (though I'm plat, not Spire) is that they honor status at checkin even when I bought through an OTA (either Hotels.com or Chase's travel portal). I didn't get points but got the other benefits of status. This probably varies from hotel to hotel. OP can also put hotels on his CSP to get full IHG points if needed.
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Oct 8, 2019 13:31
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Sock The Great posted:A co-worked just asked me, "I am booking a flight to Germany for me and my family for the holidays, what's the best rewards card?". It will be 5 plane tickets, so he will come close to any $5,000 spend on that one purchase. He'll want to use that purchase to meet a min spend requirement, so he should pick the best signup bonus that he qualifies for. A lot depends on credit score, what cards he has open, etc., as well as what his ongoing spending patterns are and what he wants to use the rewards for. CSR and Amex Plat are two cards to recommend, but may or may not be the best specifically for him.
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Oct 8, 2019 19:19
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Unless you've had a large number of hard pulls recently already, 2 hard pulls isn't much of an issue.
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Oct 9, 2019 05:01
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Cacafuego posted:Who do you call to see if you’re eligible for a bonus on a product change from CSP —> CSR? We might do that since the CSP is our major usage card and we (mostly I) can take advantage of the PP benefits. There are no bonuses for product changes. If you want the bonus, you need to apply for a new card. Specifically in CSR/CSP's case, you also need to not have gotten a Sapphire bonus in the last 48 months.
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Oct 9, 2019 13:51
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Also specifically in CSR/CSP's case, you can't hold CSP and apply for a CSR (except for a specific technical loophole that involves applying for one the exact day after you're approved for the other), so when you apply and presumably are approved for the CSR, you'll need to product change your CSP into another card (CF or CFU are recommended for this). It's not a big deal, just something you should be aware of.
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Oct 9, 2019 13:59
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Got an email saying the Double Cash can now convert to Thank You points. Any way to turn those points into something more valuable that the cashback value? You need to have one of the Citibank premium cards to be able to transfer them to travel partners - that's the only redemption for TY points that's better than the cashback rate. If you don't have one of those cards, there's no reason to transfer DC rewards into TY points.
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Oct 12, 2019 01:32
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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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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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Sock The Great posted:Thanks for the feedback! I actually did not get a bonus when I upgraded from CS to CSP since it was a product move or something. Likely a mistake on my part, but water under the bridge. Once you PC your CSP into a CFU, you no longer have any Sapphire card.
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Dec 13, 2019 17:12
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Jerk McJerkface posted:48 months now? That sticks. I wonder if I my wife can sign up for the CSR, she's only has a couple CC in her name and she's only an authorized user on my Chase ones. They changed it from 24 to 48 months right about at the 2 year anniversary of the CSR. Will they change this again at the 4 year anniversary of the CSR? Who knows.
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Dec 13, 2019 17:15
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skipdogg posted:100% value. It's cash, not points. I've been saving my double cash rewards for a couple years and redeemed 1300 dollars 2 months ago. I just requested it be deposited to my bank account and it was there in a couple days. Used the cash to pay for xmas presents. I don't redeem as a statement credit, as I can take the 1300 cash back I got, spend that on the card and earn another 26 bucks in rewards. I agree with this, especially the last part. Don't ever claim Double Cash rewards as a statement credit, because then you won't get the 1% on that part since it wasn't an actual payment.
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Jan 2, 2020 17:26
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