re: Best credit card for me...

A CSP/Freedom combo is basically a no brainer, at least for the fee free first year on the CSP. After sign up bonuses, you'll have about 50,000 UR points, which is not too far away from a roundtrip ticket to pretty much any where in the world.

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However i am a chase customer, so i am not sure what that lends me.

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I will say this, my banking relationship with Chase started with credit cards, and when looking for a car loan and now a mortgage, they are coming in very competitively if not downright blasting other lender offers. I can't imagine that would happen if I didn't have my cards with them. Of course, YMMV, but I'm not sure you'd receive any extra credit card benefits from them from being a customer, beside maybe some better targeted offers down the line.

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eta: also thought the Marriot Rewards Premier looked good for hotel staying, which i also do a lot of.

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I hear these points are worth shite for spending after you earn the bonus, but I have no experience with them.

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then couple that with the Chase Sapphire or Barclays Arrival.

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Depending on how much you spend a month, having an Arrival can be very useful. You should at least get the CSP for year one, book a trip with it, then see if you want to keep it at the premium level for partner redemptions or not. You can always downgrade after the first year and never incur the fee and still get 2x dining with it. If you don't go overseas, you would be better off just blasting away with the Arrival.

I have a Chase Ink Plus, CSP, and Freedom. I will downgrade CSP to regular Sapphire, keeping Ink for partner redemptions. I also have an Arrival for covering the random travel expense and taxes on award flights.

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any thoughts on getting a Penfed for gas only?

for instance i commute 200+ miles a day. or would you simply use the freedom rotating 5%.

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Depends on what you value. You may have to run the math on that.

The PenFed is a cash back card (someone mentioned it not really 5x cash back any more due to a devaluation). There are cardholders who post here who could clear that up.

In any event, this may be difficult, but what you have to figure out is if you want straight cash back, or something like Chase Freedom, which is technically a "cash back" card but actually earns Chase UR points, which are great for travel redemptions (when you concurrently hold a Chase SP). You have to figure out if you value those Chase UR points more than PenFed cash back or not, because when you use one card over another there is an opportunity cost associated with that decision.

That determination is unique to the individual. I will say Chase UR points are at least worth 1.6 cents per point on Southwest and at least 2 cents or more when redeemed on other airline partners. If travel is not your thing, the PenFed may be the way to go for your gas.

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feel like i'm splitting hairs here.

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You kinda are.

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gotcha, i would like the travel points.

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IMO, if you can only have two now, I'd get CSP and Freedom so you can get that big CSP bonus. Those two together for the bonus are worth more than Arrival's.

Once you're done with CSP and if you don't see the value in keeping it, downgrade it when the fee is due(wait the whole year) and switch over to using an Arrival, which is great for non-big brand hotels, domestic airline tickets, B&Bs, etc.

If you are an international traveler(or wish to be) than CSP/Freedom > Arrival. However, there are are some pretty good domestic uses for Chase UR points.

Those two are Southwest at 1.6 cents per point, but my favorite is transferring to British Airways and booking a shorthaul domestic flight on US airways/American (via their oneworld alliance). You'll figure out how to do it, but for instance, by doing this I booked MSY to MIA for 15,000 points and $5 roundtrip. Knowing your airline alliances is key to unlocking Chase UR points.

Maybe you posted in the OP, but if you have high spend, using CSP/Freedom and Arrival concurrently could work out nicely. I do this when booking my Chase UR award flights. There are still taxes due that can be $5 like above or about $150. I'll pay that with my Arrival to negate it making my flight truly free. Diversity is nice, but too diverse and you'll never earn anything if you don't spend a fortune.

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Why is the chase Safire better than the Barclays for international flights?

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I'll do an example using Kayak.com.

Let's say a flight from MSY to Paris July 4 to July 15 is 1,583 dollars in economy.

When you use Barclay's Arrival points, you first purchase the ticket at the cost of $1,583. You then redeem your points to cover the cost. You earn 2 points per dollar spent. Points are worth 1 cent each. Therefore, you need to have 158,300 Arrival points which would require about $79,150 in spending.

Now, Chase Sapphire Preferred earns Chase UR points, which are worth at least 1.25 cents per point through their travel portal, but here's the deal, with a Chase SP you can transfer to select airlines and then redeem the points, which is a better deal. Chase UR points transfer to United at a 1:1 ratio.

Let's look at that same flight, assuming the same dates are available.

United award chart shows a one way saver award to Europe from North America is 30,000 points one way, so 60,000 total. Therefore, even if all my spending was in a 1x category, I would spend $60,000 to earn the same ticket. $20,000 less than Barclay's. If you take advantage of the award ticket booking features such as stopovers and open jaws (things that could add costs to your normal booked ticket), the separation gets bigger.

If you want to fly business class, this separation gets even bigger, where a business class ticket might require $140,000 in spending on the Chase card, but almost half a million dollars on the Arrival card.

This separation isn't as apparent when booking cheap coach domestic tickets because of the minimum point floor needed to book an airline award flight, and that is when the Arrival is very useful.

ETA: there could be a situation where you find some cheap international ticket, such as $500 flight deal out of IAD to Istanbul that they ran last year, in which case you could use Barclay's because that is essentially a "domestic coach flight." It pays to know how and have the option to book the best deal.

Also note: You may see $60,000 in spending and freak out, but signup bonuses quicken that pace. For example, Chase SP sign up bonus can be between 40 and 50,000 points. Freedom 10,000 to 20,000. Put those together, you only need about $6,500 in spending to reach your goal at worst.

You can also mix this with other offers. United offers 50,000 points for their credit card. Since I can transfer Chase UR points to United, boom, another boost to my next award ticket.

I think there are additional perks for a chase banker as well. With that in mind, think ill be doing the sapphire/freedom combo.

Don't you get discounts for using chases online features to redeem pernts?

Teddy, last question then ill let go.

Do you like any Amex?

Appreciate all your insight.

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Huckleberry Jesus

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uh oh Teddy... being called out.

i assume the SPG amex wouldn't be as good for every day purchase and flexible points though, right?

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i assume the SPG amex wouldn't be as good for every day purchase and flexible points though, right?

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I use it for everything that isn't a "bonus category" like gas, supermarkets, restaurants etc. on other cards.

Doctor bills, Wally world, random things on the internets.
Write up

And I've found some pretty good redemptions on SPG properties if you don't use them for air fare.(Manhattan, Hawaii)

It's widely considered the most valuable point in the CC game.

It's versatility is great. I just transferred 20k(received 25k) to AA because I was short 18k AA points for an international flight. It's nice to have that kind of flexibility on where you can transfer.