re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

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And finally, should I keep using CSP for the rest of the year, then cancel it so I don't have to pay the fee?

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Where are you in your credit history? Recent college grad right? Personally I'd eat the fee or downgrade to a no fee card before the annual fee hits. AAoA (Average Age of Accounts) is a factor in credit score and someone relatively new to credit doesn't want a bunch of churned and dumped cards. It will influence your credit score and it will influence lenders willingness to continue to extend credit. You can burn the bridge.

You can check your account online. It has all the information you need to track spending.

GO BUCKS!!

It doesn't say have a tally of how much you've spent but you can look at the spending and statements and tally it up.

As Teddy said it's a premium card which means it has transfer benefits that regular Chase cards do not. If you have a Freedom you can transfer those points to the CSP bucket and get the transfer partner benefits. It's a good idea to keep a premium card for those benefits.

You have to do a tail gate this year. I'm going to bring my smoker up for a night game and do ribs.

Has anyone had any luck getting the Citi prestige 100,000 point offer? I would definitely get the card with that offer.

Also, the AMEX --> AVIOS transfer bonus killed it for me.

It costs me around $5 to get the flights scheduled but I have been flying back and forth from DEN - LAX for only 5k AVIOS.

I have a question for the MT points gurus.

Last year I explained my situation and you guys recommended the Barclays World Arrival card, 2x on every purchase. I've had it for about 1.5 years now, and it works well overall, have about $2K in reimbursements, so I figure that is a pretty good return.

However, I don't see that card getting a lot of play in these discussions and I wonder why? I'm sort of guessing it has to do with the fact that your redemption on airline miles is based on the cost of the ticket, and that is rarely close to the mileage redemption with the airline itself.
For example, a flight from LEX to FLL this spring would have cost me $1300 on Delta in dollars, but I likely could have gotten it for 80K skymiles, and 80K skymiles does not equal 130,000 BAC points.
Is that part of the thinking? If you could get your flights for the same cost as the # of skymiles to redeem, then it would be a wash? Am I saying that right?

With that said, my wife is retiring this year, and we will have more flexibility in our travels, so I think we will likely be traveling at off peak times for most folks, so I expect airline costs to be down, and we have more low cost carriers flying to locations we typically go, so should I look at other cards now, or would you think the Barclays is still my best bet?

I'm really not a cardorama guy, but I will switch cards, or get another one or two, if it makes more sense to use targeted cards for targeted purchases.

Thanks for any advice!

I prefer to use cards that are attached to miles or points that I can convert to miles. My belief is that I get a much better bang for the buck that way. However, I am limited to available awards space. It sounds like you are in a similar situation to mine and you are flexible on the days you can travel. This makes it much easier to use award miles.

As an example my flight back from Italy to Dulles in September is in BA First Class. The tickets are nearly $8k each if purchased. I got them for 100000 AA miles and a fuel surcharge of $460 each. That's a huge value for those tickets even though I had to pay the BA surcharge.

Thanks.

I should have added that I have the Delta AMEX Gold, mainly for the baggage fees and Costco, but if their prices remain high for flights I want, it might be of less value as I travel a bit more.
I do fly Delta for work since I'm not paying for it, and pick up the miles, but I don't fly enough to accumulate status or a significant amount of miles.

Is the CHase Saphire anywhere near as good if you don't have the Freedom?


I'm looking for something that can give me a solid amount of value for about 2-3 plane tickets per year with the wife to visit my parents. I just don't know what would be the smart play for that.


Right now I have

Amex Blue Preferred: 6% Grocery/3% Gas
Discover: 5% rotating
2x DoubleCash Citi: 2x (Honestly, not a huge fan)

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You have to spend a lot to get 2-3 plane tickets a year.

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Don't expect to get that type of value. I just am mad I have $1000-$1500 of air travel and hotels a year that doesn't fit in any category but isn't worth getting a new card for



*** I'm not at a point where I can start playing the churn and burn point game either. When I get there, this won't be a problem but I got another 3-5 years