re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

For those with the Sapphire Reserve...is there a way to upgrade from Preferred then before the $450 fee, downgrade back to the preferred card?

I just got my outbound on Cathay in Biz

Ya it's pretty broad too.

My bus tickets up Machu Picchu were deducted from that for example.

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I wonder if I upgrade would it just bring over the authorized user without the $75 fee.

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First off, do NOT upgrade to Reserve. Apply for it separately. You won't get the sign up bonus points if you upgrade.

You will have to pay the AU fee. They aren't going to let you get around that.

Lastly, Chase no longer allows you to hold both Preferred and Reserve, so you can't be accepted for Reserve unless you cancel your Preferred or product change. Make sure if you cancel your Preferred that the points are moved to another UR card such as Freedom if you have one. Keep in mind that if you product change to Freedom you'll keep whatever points the Preferred owned, but like above, you won't be able to earn the Freedom sign up bonus.

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First off, do NOT upgrade to Reserve. Apply for it separately.

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This is what I was wondering also. The extra 50,000 is extremely valuable. Thanks.

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Lastly, Chase no longer allows you to hold both Preferred and Reserve, so you can't be accepted for Reserve unless you cancel your Preferred or product change. Make sure if you cancel your Preferred that the points are moved to another UR card such as Freedom if you have one

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Ok cool. Yeah I have the Freedom. Thanks for the tip.

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Remember - you can also use AS website to search CX and JL space. They dont show any phantom space either. I think AS is much easier to use than QF or BA.

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Ah, thanks for the tip.

I'll be checking that out for the return. Pretty pumped that I think the hardest part US->HK is done. I also found the mid night departure which is clutch as it saves us a whole half day. Other departure times would have made us miss connections to some options we were looking at and staying overnight in HK.

Ya, I would have looked into Korean but I'm trying to jettison these American miles that haven't been too useful til now. But it is good to know what my UR options are in the event I get "stuck" on the inbound.

If you're talking biz then the easiest is to fly Turkish and connect in IST. They have plenty of availability and fly from many US airports. If you are in LA, then IAH or ATL might be the best places to look at flights from.

If you have MR, then it is only 88K MR for RT on TK for Biz through ANA (with high YQ) or 110K with very little YQ through Aeroplan.

In econ you just wanna keep an eye out for fare sales to Europe. ATH is often sub $700.

Just put my return on hold.

So right now I have:

Outobound: AUS - SFO - HKG - BKK Biz class Cathay except domestic flight is Econ on Alaska

Inbound: RGN - HKG - ORD Biz class on Cathay/Cathay Dragon

Hopefully ORD - AUS comes up to tack on before I confirm but if not I chose it since those flights are only about $120.

For one, don't "switch". You won't earn the Reserve bonus. Also, Chase won't let you hold both so you have to cancel Preferred and open Reserve after. Lastly, when you cancel Preferred make sure you have something like Freedom to park your Preferred UR points with until your Reserve opens.

As for "worth it". You get $300 back a year against travel related purchases, so the fee is only $150.

After that you need to determine if you'd get more than $150 of value from the card each year between Global Entry credit, priority pass, and bonus spending / redemptions.