Best travel credit card initial offer?

[Dakota731]

Other then SW? We will probably travel United, though I wondered if any of the generic travel cards would be a better deal.

 

[DLgal]

Would you qualify for the Chase Sapphire Reserve? That's the best one, hands down.

 

[Dakota731]

Would you qualify for the Chase Sapphire Reserve? That's the best one, hands down.

I’m sure I would with my 800 credit rating and no loans or credit card openings in years. How does it work to get flights through them? Does it justify the high annual fee?

 

[DizneyLizzy]

I’m sure I would with my 800 credit rating and no loans or credit card openings in years. How does it work to get flights through them? Does it justify the high annual fee?

I have a chase sapphire preferred and it only has a $99 annual fee. It also comes with some perks like free Instacart express. United is one of the airline transfer partners.

 

[DLgal]

I’m sure I would with my 800 credit rating and no loans or credit card openings in years. How does it work to get flights through them? Does it justify the high annual fee?

You earn points which you can then redeem for any type of travel through the travel booking portal. Points are worth 1.5X when using for travel. Each point is worth 1 cent. So, if you have 10,000 points, you have $150 worth of travel credits.

The sign up bonus for this card is currently 60,000 points which is worth $900 when redeem for travel.

You also get an annual $300 travel credit which is automatically applied towards any purchases that code as travel. They will pay for Global Entry or TSA pre check fees once per 5 years. There are a whole host of other benefits (extended warranty protection, travel insurance, car rental insurance, airport lounge access, Instacart+ membership and monthly credits, etc).

So, it has a high annual fee, but the $300 travel credit offsets it.

When you go to book travel, it will show you how much your points are worth towards the trip. You can book any airline, any hotel, etc.

It also has high earning rates on several categories, up to 10 points per dollar in some cases. We make BANK on this card every year.

 

[EACarlson]

I’m sure I would with my 800 credit rating and no loans or credit card openings in years. How does it work to get flights through them? Does it justify the high annual fee?

For most people, Sapphire Preferred is a better choice than the Sapphire Reserve. Both have the same sign up bonus, 60,000 points for $4,000 in spend in the first three months. The way you get flights on United and/or Southwest is you transfer points in multiples of 1,000 from Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to United Mileage Plus or Southwest Rapid Rewards. Then book using the frequent flyer programs. If you really want to play the game you can add a Freedom Flex and/or Freedom Unlimited and get more points you can transfer to United.

 

[DLgal]

For most people, Sapphire Preferred is a better choice than the Sapphire Reserve. Both have the same sign up bonus, 60,000 points for $4,000 in spend in the first three months. The way you get flights on United and/or Southwest is you transfer points in multiples of 1,000 from Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to United Mileage Plus or Southwest Rapid Rewards. Then book using the frequent flyer programs. If you really want to play the game you can add a Freedom Flex and/or Freedom Unlimited and get more points you can transfer to United.

I have all three cards. I never use the Preferred. I like the Freedom Unlimited for the 1.5 points everywhere that the Reserve is only 1%. Then I transfer the points to the Reserve and redeem at 1.5X, so it increases the value of my points considerably.

I never transfer points to frequent flyer programs even though I belong to several. The airlines keep devaluing their FF programs so much. I'd rather just use the points as cash towards airfare of my choosing.

 

[EACarlson]

I have all three cards. I never use the Preferred. I like the Freedom Unlimited for the 1.5 points everywhere that the Reserve is only 1%. Then I transfer the points to the Reserve and redeem at 1.5X, so it increases the value of my points considerably.

I never transfer points to frequent flyer programs even though I belong to several. The airlines keep devaluing their FF programs so much. I'd rather just use the points as cash towards airfare of my choosing.

That's actually not supposed to happen, although we both know the ways around it. The Preferred and Reserve are mutually exclusive cards. But let's look at the differences. Even after the $300 travel credit, the AF on the Reserve is $250 compared to the Preferred's $95.
If you are using the 1.5x multiplier of the Reserve over the 1.25x on the Preferred as the biggest reason to have the Reserve, you'd need to redeem 65,000 points through the travel portal in order to make up the difference, another 30,000 if you have an AU. I find that I can get 1.6 cpp regularly with Southwest and up to 2.5 cpp transferring to United. I always seem to get around 3 cpp transferring to Hyatt. All of those I can do with my Preferred at the same rate as I could a Reserve. Where the Reserve makes sense is if you travel a lot and can make use of the GE and Priority Pass benefit, although I believe that's been nerfed recently to not include restaurants anymore. I probably would have benefited from it given my travel patterns the last few months but most people would not.

 

[DLgal]

That's actually not supposed to happen, although we both know the ways around it. The Preferred and Reserve are mutually exclusive cards. But let's look at the differences. Even after the $300 travel credit, the AF on the Reserve is $250 compared to the Preferred's $95.
If you are using the 1.5x multiplier of the Reserve over the 1.25x on the Preferred as the biggest reason to have the Reserve, you'd need to redeem 65,000 points through the travel portal in order to make up the difference, another 30,000 if you have an AU. I find that I can get 1.6 cpp regularly with Southwest and up to 2.5 cpp transferring to United. I always seem to get around 3 cpp transferring to Hyatt. All of those I can do with my Preferred at the same rate as I could a Reserve. Where the Reserve makes sense is if you travel a lot and can make use of the GE and Priority Pass benefit, although I believe that's been nerfed recently to not include restaurants anymore. I probably would have benefited from it given my travel patterns the last few months but most people would not.

My husband also has a Reserve so I transfer the points to his Reserve from my Chase Freedom. We get all cards fee free, for now. They waive all fees for active duty military. In addition, up until like 2 months ago, Chase was allowing you to get the 1.5X redemption rate as cash back so I just did that every month. We cashed on about $1400, last year.

Once my husband is no longer active duty, we will still keep his Reserve because we use ALL the benefits. Just in the last year, I used the extended warranty protection twice, on purchases that totaled over $600 in replacement costs. They covered them both with zero hassle.

We have had the Reserve since 2016 and have made several thousands of dollars from it. We signed up during the 100,000 point offers and each got a card in our name. That was $3000 right there.