Best Credit Card for big expense

Any airline card pretty much or annual fee waived card that gives quite a bit of money back.

Don't cancel the card right after, hurts average length of credit history.

To to a Chase branch and apply and you only need to spend $2000 w/in the first 3 months.

Don't look at just sign-up bonuses. There are numerous cards out there that give you bumps for threshold spending in a calendar year. Find the balance that works for you

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I'd agree, but for him that kind of card would have to be part of a long term strategy, since he wouldn't have enough time to earn the calendar year bonus by his March trip I assume.

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Let's say he is going to spend 10K... He's halfway to 20k threshold if he finds the right card... But it's hard to beat the $400 CSP sign-up bonus.

Chase may have lured me away from Amex with that card. We will see what Amex has to offer when my renewal comes around

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Let's say he is going to spend 10K... He's halfway to 20k threshold if he finds the right card... But it's hard to beat the $400 CSP sign-up bonus.

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Good point, I didn't think about he large expense itself. I assume the "calendar year" ends in December for everybody no matter when you get the card, so it would be possible then. I put at least $3,000 on my credit cards a month since I pay my student loans and rent with it.

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I am not going through the hassle of bluebird

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That's what I do. It takes about 20 seconds at the Walmart customer service line. Luckily, the Walmart isn't too far from one of the places I go to for work, so I just do it when I'm near it...or when I'm just really bored.

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If that's it I am interested

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Unfortunately, no.

Its Credit Card to buy a gift card/Vanilla Reload card, Visa Gift Card then load to Blue Bird.

As of right now, my easy route is buying Chase Gift Cards since they are free to have shipped temporarily (usually $4.95). So, I buy the Chase gift card online and then they mail them to me, then I load them onto Bluebird then have bluebird send a check. The whole process takes 10 minutes if you count buying the gift card.

The activation fees on the gift cards are what "kill" most of the bonus. So people usually buy the cards at places that have 5x bonus categories like CVS when Freedom had 5x drug stores, or Office Depot with Chase Ink.

Its pretty easy once you figure out where to buy what you need. I think its worth it if you live/work near a convenient drug store/office supply store. You might have to do some initial leg work to figure where to buy, which stores let you load the cards with your CC (some only take cash). But once you have willing partners, its a breeze.

Note: Some people create infinite loops, where they just pay off the credit card then purchase gift cards again, and around and around. I don't do that, but its possible. I wouldn't recommend doing that with your Amex card and Bluebird, since theoretically, Amex could see all the transactions.

I just can't pass up the 18,000 (possibly 90,000 if I can nail a 5x bonus every time) points more a year. I'm a sucker. These points blogs and sites have me sucked in. This will be my hobby until some new flashy thing emerges to take my attention away.