re: Chase Sapphire Preferred sign up bonus

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What??

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When you redeem for cash back on a travel credit card, you don't get full value.

For example, Capital One is 2x points for travel. You can do a statement credit with them on travel that will net you 2x points, but if you were to do general cash back you would only get half of that.

This is true for every travel card I've encountered.

ETA: And it gets worse when you can redeem points for first class travel, where your points can be worth 3 or 4 cents per point. Whereas cash back value would be 1 cent per point at best.