Opening new personal credit card for rewards purposes. Which one’s right for me?

I always fly out of IAH. Not a ton but prob 7-9 times a year for work then a couple of times for fun. Company pays the annual fee for a United rewards Chase card. Got 60,000 bonus miles for signing up. Can’t remember what miles I get for purchases are but they seem to add up quick.

For reference, your average flight is free for about 15k miles. Plus other perks include priority boarding, free checked bag, and passes to United Club at the airport (free booze/food).

I’ve been happy with it. Note, IAH is a hub for United and flies pretty much anywhere direct. Not sure if it’s worth it if you’re not near a hub airport of some airline.

For personal expenses I mostly juggle between Chase Freedom, Chase Freedom Unlimited and Chase Sapphire Reserve. Whichever card offers the best point earnings on a purchase is the one I will use. I end up rolling all the points to Chase Sapphire Reserve for travel redemption. There are some circumstances where I'll deviate from this, but it's a pretty simple strategy overall. The Chase Sapphire Reserve has an annual fee, but the other cards do not.

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Note that the Ink Business Premier card is the only Ink card that you can not transfer points to your other cards.

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dang that’s unfortunate for this guy

Does the $300 credit for the reserve have to be booked through the Chase portal to get it? I hate how you only get the $50 Preferred credit if you book through Chase which I almost never do

It sucks that the $50 credit has to be booked through the portal. Pretty sure I never even used my credit last year

Honestly, when people ask me in real life what to do when they find out what I do with CCs, I tell them the truth.

If you aren't willing to do hours of research on the various programs, having logins to possibly 10-15 airlines, comfortable figuring out what time of day to call a Japanese airline to get an English speaking representative, spending hours of time researching availability and seeing what time seats release for booking (usually in the wee hours of the night), so that you can have a chance at booking two business class seats, on days you actually prefer, then I tell them get the best cash back card each bank offers and rotate among them.

Otherwise you're going to kill so much value as to make it not work out. The amount of effort I put in if
honestly valued probably eats a lot of the gain, but I approach it as a hobby.

ETA: As for that $300 credit. Credit where credit is due by Chase just making that a simple reimbursement from making purchases. Now, if they had the choice to do it now they'd probably force you to their travel portal (like the $50 credit) but they didn't have a strong operation there when they launched that card. Of course Amex has taken the coupon book to incredible heights.

I have the AMEX Platinum and the Chase Freedom Unlimited. The AMEX doesn't have great cash back (5x points per dollar spent on travel, 1x for everything else) but it has a ridiculous amount of statement credits. $240/year for streaming services, $200 hotel credit, $200 airline credit, $200 Uber credit and complimentary gold/elite status at Mariott, Hilton, AVIS, and Hertz. Also gives you lounge access. It's a steep annual fee of $695 but it's pretty dang easy to break even at a minimum just based on the things above. Main reason for signing up with them was they had 150,000 point sign up bonus.

They also have great transfer partners but you have to really study up on that (like the poster said above) to get real value out of that.

I put everyday purchases on the Chase card and big purchases on the AMEX.

You would transfer points from your various Chase cards to your Preferred/Reserve. Those are the cards that allow transfers to travel partners. For the business card, you would need to look at the three Ink cards that allow transfers and see which one compliments your spending the best. Getting all three is also an option and they typically have pretty nice sign up bonuses. Once the points are with your Preferred/Reserve, you would transfer them to your Hyatt account and make a points booking. If I can’t get more then $0.02/pt, I pay the cash rate.

If you value breakfast, I would recommend looking into the Hyatt business card too so you can spend your way to Globalist status. For every $10k you spend, you get 5 qualifying nights. Once you get 60 QNs through stays at Hyatt and credit card spend, you get Globalists. You can also get the personal Hyatt card which gets you 5 QNs every year plus a free category 4 night for only $95. My family of 6 has gotten free breakfast including gratuities, which has been as much as $150/day, every time we stay at one of the nicer Hyatts. This includes the Regency. On top of that, you get free upgrades frequently along with other awards as you make your way to sixty nights.

If you like Hilton, look into the AMEX Hilton Aspire. You get 3x points for all spending on that card. Both my wife and I have this card even though the annual fee is $550 year. It comes with a free night certificate that can be used at just about any Hilton worldwide if they have a standard points room available. The certificate alone could be worth $1,000+. On top of that, you get a biannual $200 resort credit, and a quarterly $50 flight credit, as well as Hilton diamond status, and some other stuff. We spent two nights in Key West Easter weekend and each used a FNC. The room would have been about $850 a night and we split our room charges at the end on the two cards and each got credited back $200 of our room charges. $2,100 in value with $1,100 in annual fees and that’s only taking advantage of a portion of the card’s benefits. You can also get additional FNCs with spend on this card. One thing with Hilton points though as that they are best saved for trips of 5+ nights. This is because when you book 4 nights on points, you get a fifth night free.