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How do I tell if a straight up cash back vs airline points is the better card for me?
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Nov 14, 2014 21:04
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Blinkman987 posted:I just opened the Southwest Rapid Rewards card for the 50k bonus. Aside from being a cattle car airline, their frequent flier program is probably the friendliest in the business for the average flier just trying to book a domestic award flight. Based on the routes I fly, it's actually worth a little more than Chase Sapphire Preferred's 40K miles (even with the $99 fee vs waived fee for Sapphire). Southwest also has a 2k spend over 3 months where Sapphire asks for 3k. Is there a good Delta card opening bonus going on right now? Colleague just got a 50k miles 1000$ minimum amex card but I can't find that one anymore. Delta is the major/only airline at the airport here.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:13
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Blinkman987 posted:Shoutout again to Amex savings who has a modern interface (if you dig the tablet/mint look) and easy and gives 0.89! Except that they do this really lovely godawful burn it to the ground seriously wtf were they thinking side-scrolling rewards offers thing. Like gently caress I don't even bother checking anymore if they have some kind of cash back reward for a store I was going to go to anyway because it's so terrible.
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Mar 31, 2015 12:54
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I want to do this and get 100k miles because that's awesome:SuperSpiff posted:So I'm trying to get into is whole miles thing (always had rewards cards before) and I'm getting confused with all these weird names and different flavored cards. Is there like a go-to For Dummies thing you guys use? $89 for 50k is fine because I think I'll be flying transatlantic, and $3000 over 3 months should be doable even without gaming th system. Credit Karma says my score is 730, is that going to be an issue? And do I apply to both at the same time? Also, right now I use a cash back card. I live in the Midwest, and I'd like to fly to the Pacific Northwest more often, so maybe I should look into a miles card. Is there a general guideline on when it's worth it to get cash back vs miles?
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Apr 1, 2015 23:37
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SuperSpiff posted:FlyerTalk says that you can still get the US Airways through a referral link and has a whole bunch listed: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cred...-links-162.html OK, the referral links said there was a 50k signup bonus on that US Airways card and I was approved so I should get it I hope. I haven't gotten any emails or confirmation though. I also didn't have a Dividends account so I couldn't put something into that field when I signed up. I'm assuming it'll let me link it with my airline account later on? I also applied for the Citi AAVantage card and got approved as well. Again it said 50k signup bonus but I didn't get any email confirmations either so I dunno. Am I going to get any warnings or notifications that my 1 year is coming up so that I can cancel before I get hit with another year's worth of dues, or should I just set a calendar event for 1 year on my phone right now?
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Apr 2, 2015 05:06
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I'm asking for both. It's 2015, everything should be emailed to me. e: Both cards gave me instant approval and asked me to create logins for the websites. I did this and didn't receive emails from either website about making my account either. This is just really loving strange. And I'm not going to spend $90/$3000 on either of these cards unless I see somewhere that I /am/ going to get my signup bonus so is there seriously no way to confirm 1) what my signup bonus was and 2) whether or not it's "active"? Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Apr 2, 2015 |
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Apr 2, 2015 11:12
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becoming posted:They get hundreds or thousands of applications every day. If this were a big problem, you'd hear about it. Instead, there are a few people here and there bitching that they did not get their sign-up bonus, and my guess is that these people did not actually go through their referral links. Looks like US Airways Dividends MasterCard got expressed mailed to me and it did come with a piece of paper saying I should receive 50k miles after paying the dues and making a purchase. Still waiting on the other card to come in. OK so next question, and I probably should have asked this before, but I only have an American Airlines account. When I get my 50k miles on this US Airways card, how do I link it to my AA account? I don't see any options on the barclaycard website for this. e: Also when do I have to pay the annual fee? I've never had a card with one before so I don't know if it's averaged out, or if it comes in the first statement of the year or whatever. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 14:07
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Got my AA Citi card today and it feels really weird, like it was made of cardboard. Not complaining just saying.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:40
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I paid my first statement for the US Airways Barclaycard so they have my annual fee and a purchase now. When can I expect to see my 50k miles and where does ti show up? Will it show up in that "miles earned" thing on the Barclaycard website? e: I also have a few hundred reward dollars in my Amex Blue card. I guess I completely forgot about them so is there anything I can use them for that gets me more than just using it to pay my statements?
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May 9, 2015 18:05
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nickutz posted:You'll see the miles before your second statement. I don't see any direct deposit/check option and all the gift cards are a 1:1 ratio so I don't see a point in that either… so I guess it's just use the rewards dollars on future balance statements. I was hoping there might be some kind of 0.9:1.0 or something ratio if I spent it on airline points or anything else.
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May 10, 2015 22:35
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Why did both citibank (platinum select aadvantage mc) and barclaycard (red aviator mc?) send me new cards all of a sudden? I signed up for both for the 50k x2 promotion and just checked my actual mail. The citibank card is literally the same card, same 3 digit code, same expiration date. I guess the design on the back looks different but thats literally it. I'm guessing the one from barclaybank is just the same card as before but rebranded. Also, I logged onto my aa.com account which I created before i ever signed up for either of these cards, like years ago. How does the system know these two cards belong to me because my 100k bonus miles are shown here. I thought I was gonna have to call customer service for both cards and get them to manually transfer them to my AA account. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 13:57
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becoming posted:Depends on what you're buying/where you're buying it, and sometimes when. Do you just want straight cash back, or are you interested in travel? You really haven't told us enough to make a good recommendation, but I'm going to go ahead and recommend the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card. The annual fee is waived for the first year, there's no pre-set spending limit, and if you check out Card Match (google it) you might get a targeted offer for 50k points on sign up, which is basically $500 or, if you are traveling, can be turned into much more. MR points are pretty versatile and American Express customer service is very good. What's the difference between World Elite and World? I saw that difference too, I figured it's just more pointless buzzwords? e: found a link explaining by searching "world elite vs world". It looks like it just has a few extra benefits, like airline upgrades with a few carriers and car rental discounts but otherwise pretty meh. I did just notice that the standard MC gives you a 60 day price protection in case prices drop within that time period. That's actually pretty nifty, has anyone used it and what's the catch? Any restrictions like no Amazon etc? Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 17:39
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Well I just tried to book a flight to Germany with my AA miles. 40k round trip which is great, but it's still gonna cost me $416 in taxes or some bullshit. e: Cause DUS is expensive. Total price for CDG 88$. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 14:19
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app posted:likely due to the YQ surcharge, airlines call it 'taxes' but its just another fee. What's that? I changed airports to CDG (Paris) and it dropped down to $88 for the round trip so that's more what I was thinking of by "free."
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Aug 7, 2015 12:34
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I completely dropped the ball and forgot I was going on vacation to Europe on the 15th. I was planning on just withdrawing cash at the ATMs for daily poo poo but I guess it wouldn't be bad to have a no foreign translation card. Is it possible to apply for one today and have the card delivered by the 14th I don't remember what the usual delivery times are. Also CK says my score is 756 so which card do I want? As far as I understand that shouldn't really restrict me from too much right. e: it's looking like the chase sapphire preferred is what I want? Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 13:16
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I did a little more research and it actually looks like my Barclay AAdvantage Aviator Red card has no foreign transaction fee. I can't find this on the Barclay website but the AA page showing the card says it so I'll just give them a call later to ask I guess. Related question: I have both that Barclay card and the citi AAdvantage Platinum Select. I've looked through both benefits now and it looks like they both give the same flight benefits (1 bag, 10% mile return, group 1 boarding, 25% inflight food), the same mile collection (2x for AA purchases, 1x for other). The citi card is $95 and the Barclay card is $89. The Citi card specifically says there's a 3% foreign transaction fee. I wasn't planning on keeping both (or one even) of those cards after getting my signup bonuses so is it a no brained to just close the Citi card? If Citi has another offer with a nice sign up bonus, is it possible for me to get that bonus and then get my current credit limit transferred over to the new card (assuming I just hold onto this card before my year is up)?
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Oct 1, 2015 14:40
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So what you're saying is that I can apply for that Gold card to get the signup bonus even though I've had the current Platinum Select card for less than 18 months? Say I do this and now have a eg 10k limit gold card now. Can I call Citi she tell them I want to cancel the platinum card because reasons, and get my current eg 10k limit transferred over to the gold card so in the end I have a gold card with a 20k limit?
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Oct 2, 2015 15:27
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Duckman2008 posted:So am I seeing it right that the Discover card doubles your cash back for the first 12 months? Came to post about this too. What discover card should I sign up for to take advantage of this? e: yeah it looks like what you wrote is correct. It's 1% normally, but Apple Pay gives you an extra 10% on top of your 1%. I just read that they've also tweeted that the new signup promotion (double cash back at the end of 12 months) _will_ include the 10% from Apple Pay. Which is just really loving crazy cause this is a 22% off MSRP on everything. There's no sign up bonus for the Discover It card right now though. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 19:11
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edit not quite
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Oct 5, 2015 21:01
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Shadowhand00 posted:Citi Prestige (40k points - could be 50k) /Amex Platinum (100k points offer) would be good if you get access to their lounges. Everyone and their mother has a Sapphire Preferred - its a good card, especially if you can get a high signup offer. Why is the sapphire preferred card so highly recommended? I see it recommended everywhere but never really see why.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:51
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Well drat, I just looked into non cashback cards today like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and those are actually better deals for me since I don't shop at grocery stores (often) and most of my spending is definitely restaurants and bars. Apparently bars count as restaurants. I'm not really seeing a difference between the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Citi ThankYou Premier cards, awards wise. I plugged in the Amex Rewards too but the other 2 programs seem to be better for me since the Amex program doesn't cover public transit and the occasional Uber/taxi (I don't have a car, so I don't have gas expenses).
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Oct 6, 2015 22:31
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Kinda I meant I don't shop at grocery stores because I do nearly all my grocery shopping at the farmers market where they take cards through Square for the most part. I don't think these vendors are classified as a grocery store but I also didn't think bars that don't serve food are classified as "dining" so who knows. The highest category of my spending is literally booze.
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Oct 6, 2015 23:50
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but you'll probably do way better than any rewards program if you shift more of your spending to grocery stores/cooking for yourself than eating out.
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Cool, just got instantly approved for both the CSP and Freedom just now. Gave me a combined 23k limit which like doubles the 24k I had before. Time to buy a boat! (Nah, no boat.)
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Oct 8, 2015 19:36
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Baddog posted:You are in the window now to get the points in early 2016. Get approved today, complete the spend for the 100k between jan 1 and jan 5 (90 days from today). Points post sometime in Jan, and you have the pass all of 2016 and 2017. Man that SW deal sounds like a steal to be honest. I hope it's still around come January cause I can't make those minimum spends until I'm done with the minimum spends I just opened until then without buying gift cards or whatever.
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Oct 9, 2015 14:21
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Got the CSP in the mail today which was surprisingly fast and nice since I'm leaving tomorrow. Turns out it's not a real chip and pin card though. I understand this won't be an issue with paying for things from a human where they can take my signature, but I won't be able to use the kiosks in metro stations to purchase metro passes since they have no way of verifying signatures. Meh.
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Oct 15, 2015 00:41
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mishaq posted:This is not a problem in 99.9% of situations and I dont know why so many people sperg about it on the internet So the train and metro machines in Paris CDG, Paris North, and Brussels Central stations all declined my CSP today. I was able to use it just fine at a restaurant so I dunno man. It's not some tiny one off problem like you're making it.
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Oct 16, 2015 16:54
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How do I confirm that my Chase Freedom gives me 10% at Amazon before I make my purchases cause I don't see the 10% offer anywhere, just the 5%.
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Nov 27, 2015 04:48
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So this morning I checked rewards flight at AA.com on a whim and found a nice round-trip from Europe to the west coast US for only 30k a trip in July and wanted to book it but I thought I'd think about it first. I just thought about it all day while at work and now I checked again and it's 60k/30k now. So the first question is does anyone with more experience with AA flights know if it's possible/likely that it might get reduced back to 30k? I'm sure it's just some kind of algorithm that changes dynamically right? Second, assuming it does go back down and I want to book it, what's the best way to get the most out of my rewards? I have 66k in my CSP card and 17k in my AA account. I've never actually used my CSP rewards before so I'm not sure how that works, but don't I use them to "buy" AA miles? So I'd just use it to buy enough miles to book my flight?
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May 22, 2017 18:12
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Algorithmically, flights are cheapest on Tuesday afternoons through Thursday mornings. The "fare" you'll see increases with increased marginal demand of the flight, including when you've searched that flight a couple of times. Airlines use cookies and other opaque pricing strategies to ensure they suck every marginal dollar out of you, so clear your cache, wait til Tuesday afternoon and the lower fare you saw might be back. Okay so I just checked again at work and it's dropped back down to 30k/30k. So it seems like that's fine except, asur posted:Chase can't transfer to AA regardless so you'd need to do something else. Well this is a problem. I thought CSP was so good because it let you transfer the points to anything? I just checked flights from within the CSP Ultimate Rewards page and yeah all the flights are either full price ($1500+) or costs 120k+ points. Plus it's a bit slow and doesn't let me do flexible dates which makes the site really unusable. So there's no way for me to buy cheap/free tickets for this then? e: this award hacker site is neat Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 12:33 on May 23, 2017 |
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May 23, 2017 12:29
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I've made some bad purchase and budgeting choices and have about 10k outstanding in credit card debt. I'd like to open a 0% APR balance transfer card to consolidate this debt onto to have everything in one place and to avoid interest charges. Citi says my FICO score is 726 while Barclaycard says it's 724. What is my best option here? Nerdwallet lists the Discover It (0% for 18 months, doesn't mention transfer fees), Citi Simplicity (0% for 21 months, 3% transfer fee), and Chase Slate (0% for 15 months, no transfer fee). The only problem I forsee is that the cards I want to consolidate from are a Citi AAdvantage card and a Chase CSP, so I'm not sure if I would be able to transfer from eg Citi to Citi or not.
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Nov 9, 2017 23:22
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Cacafuego posted:BofA has one with no transfer fee and up to 15 months I think. That would allow you to get your Chase and citi transferred. Does that mean I'm right to think that I wouldn't be able to balance transfer from eg my Chase CSP onto that Chase Slate card and so on?
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Nov 9, 2017 23:26
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Cacafuego posted:Correct Is the BofA card the BankAmericard one?
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Nov 9, 2017 23:29
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I just bought an iPad with my Chase CSP card. Does this card automatically insure me with accidental protection etc through Chase, or should I still buy AppleCare?
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Apr 9, 2018 07:15
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I have good reason to believe that someone I know might try to steal my identity. Nothing has happened yet and I could be totally wrong about this, but I’d like to protect myself just in case. What’s the easiest way to freeze my credit report in 2018? And is there anything else I should preemptively do?
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Nov 29, 2018 22:02
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astral posted:Set a fraud alert/warning with one bureau and it'll go all three. Thanks. The fraud warning is something I do on top of the credit freezing then?
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Nov 30, 2018 05:47
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Has anyone here dealt with Apple Card/Goldman Sachs support? I just had a chat with them through iMessage to get help with two fraudulent transactions and the guy wants me to text him back a code which sounds sus as hell. I haven’t done so by the way.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:15
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So because I told the support that this all sounded suspicious and that I would rather call them myself later on they decided to disable my account, which I didn’t find out about until I tried to pay for something. I tried calling and they told me to talk to iMessage chat support, who told me to call them. An hour of waiting listening to the same hold song over and over again got me to an agent who could not help me because my account is “under review” which they said is handled by another department that they can’t transfer me to, and that it will take at least a few days for them to review my account. I mean the problem was someone had my virtual Apple Card number and tried to use it twice. I already got a new virtual card number so there was no issue of ongoing fraud there. Literally only contacted chat support this morning to ask if there was anything else I needed to do.
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Dec 17, 2021 21:09
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Girbot posted:You and the support rep were working on an issue involving possible fraud, you failed/refused to verify you're in possession of the phone number tied to your account (a method anyone who's dealt with customer support in the age of ubiquotous smart phones and fee-free unlimited text messaging is familiar with). There is now a greater than 0% chance in the mind of the support rep that someone tried contacting them impersonating you. They flagged your account. It is an incredibly common scam where you think you’re talking to an official support rep but it’s just some scammer, and they gain control of your account by having you tell them a 2FA code that they request on your behalf. Prudent or not, being locked out of my account for days is the real bullshit. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 12:42
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Ok so I haven’t lived in the US for a long while but I was aware of the fact that the US was moving towards cards with chips in them. For a card with a chip in it I’m used to having to stick it into a terminal and then type in a pin for it to authorize. So how come when I go out to some bars now they take my card up front and swipe it, and then give me the card back? My card’s app will usually push a notification saying I’ve been charged $10 or something and then when I close my tab the $10 charge disappears and I’m charged the actual amount. The other weekend I actually forgot to close my bar tab and the next day I saw they charged me for the full amount + tips anyway. I mean it saved me a trip back down to the bar to pay them so that’s cool and all but it’s still weird that they can just charge me an unspecific amount that they can change without my authorization. I guess I’m asking how is this allowed? I thought the whole point of moving to chip and pin was for extra safety which seems to get bypassed and ignored when the POS system has a way to just scan the card and keep its details to authorize a bigger charge later on. It honestly makes me uncomfortable that this poo poo is allowed. E: wasn’t trying to bail on a bar tab or anything. I just remember pulling my wallet out and seeing I had my card so I thought i was good. The last time I lived in the US it was “give me a card to hold onto to start a tab” and now some places are “give me a card and let me swipe it and you can have it back” which I’m not used to Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 15:44
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I think I’m just realizing how insanely unsafe the US banking apparatus is, all in the name of convenience, after spending most of my adult years in Europe. My first shock was finding out that I could go on Bank 1’s website and connect Bank 2 to it, all without going to Bank 2’s website. Then, still on Bank 1’s website, I could initiate a transfer to move money from Bank 2 into Bank 1. Again, all without leaving Bank 1’s website or having Bank 2 ask me for explicit permission. This is crazy to me because in Europe where I’ve banked you get a small-ish device with a chip reader that gives you an authorization code to sign transactions with. To make any bank transfers or payments with your card you must stick your card into the reader and enter your PIN, and if it’s correct you get a code to input into the website or whatever. Sure it’s a bit of a hassle but the alternative of being allowed to pull money out without authorization like I described above is crazy. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 18:23
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