Help with picking Credit card

[Tigger2ntinkerbell]

Trying to decided which one is better. To collect miles or reward points. Do you have any of these cards. What do you like most about it. Using it for Flights, travel, dinning, Disney trips. TIA

Credit Cards:
SouthWest - Visa Card
Spirit - Master Card
Disney Visa

 

[calypso726]

Trying to decided which one is better. To collect miles or reward points. Do you have any of these cards. What do you like most about it. Using it for Flights, travel, dinning, Disney trips. TIA

Credit Cards:
SouthWest - Visa Card
Spirit - Master Card
Disney Visa

You might want to check out this thread before making a choice. https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-love-credit-cards-so-much.3528202

It's a long thread but there is a lot of great information and helpful posters there.

There are a lot of us there that have turned collecting miles and points in different programs in order to get free or nearly free vacations. Most of us don't collect just miles or just rewards points and focus on utilizing both to cover most of our vacation costs. Many on the thread are experts at maximizing SouthWest applications and bonuses to get a companion pass out of it. The Disney Visa doesn't give you much bang for your buck and you'd be better off with a no fee Citi Double Cash card. Personally, my recommendations for those starting out on this road are the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, combined with a Chase Freedom card since you can use your points to transfer directly to airlines, like SW or can use them to pay for your vacations through the travel portal.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Loaded question...as Calypso mentioned, come join us on the cc thread...lots of info and helpful folks over there.

Personally, I have a Disney visa I use for nothing except an occasional discount. We also do SW Visas for the companion passes.

 

[Tigger2ntinkerbell]

My DH applied for the Disney visa(Got it). I went to apply for the SW card and it told me thank you on what looked like to Disney visa page.
I know that JP Morgan Chase Bank owns both cards, but I couldn't apply even get to fill out the application for SW. Odd. Just said thank you.

 

[brownhaired_girl]

My DH applied for the Disney visa(Got it). I went to apply for the SW card and it told me thank you on what looked like to Disney visa page.
I know that JP Morgan Chase Bank owns both cards, but I couldn't apply even get to fill out the application for SW. Odd. Just said thank you.

I would also suggest checking out the credit card thread. The posters there are incredibly helpful. Right now the Southwest card is only a 40,000 point sign up bonus. You might want to wait until it is has a higher sign up bonus (to work towards the Companion Pass) and choose a different card.

 

[miztressuz]

Trying to decided which one is better. To collect miles or reward points. Do you have any of these cards. What do you like most about it. Using it for Flights, travel, dinning, Disney trips. TIA

Credit Cards:
SouthWest - Visa Card
Spirit - Master Card
Disney Visa

The Disney Visa is good for the Disney perks but otherwise you get more bang for the buck using almost any other card. I'd check out the section for Year Round perks here https://disneyrewards.com/ and see if any of that appeals to you. If you generally book packages then the 0% interest might be useful. We earn just enough on it to use for dining as the Redemption card gives the same discounts as using the Visa card in the parks. Most of the restaurants we'd dine at are part of the discount, so we use the Redemption card to get the discount to stretch the free meals paid with the rewards dollars.

Since the no fee card only earns 1% on everything (unless they run a promo), which is the same as most of our cashback cards, we realized it made more sense to just put the Disney charge on the regular card, earn the 1% on the purchase, and then use our cashback on the statement to cover the charge. So we net a little more than just using the rewards dollars. (if that makes sense)

Another thing to use the Redemption card is Disney movies, AMC just updated their app so you can pay for Disney movies with your redemption card directly. But it's not something I'd rush out to get the CC for

 

[miztressuz]

My DH applied for the Disney visa(Got it). I went to apply for the SW card and it told me thank you on what looked like to Disney visa page.
I know that JP Morgan Chase Bank owns both cards, but I couldn't apply even get to fill out the application for SW. Odd. Just said thank you.

Somehow totally skipped over this post when I made my previous reply. Congrats on deciding and getting the Disney card
That is totally weird but since it is the same company there could be a caching issue. Can try clearing history/cookies/cache or incognito/private browsing mode when you try for the SW application again.

 

[MillauFr]

I would just get one of the credit cards that pays you 2% cash back. Cash back is always more flexible than points.

 

[calypso726]

I would just get one of the credit cards that pays you 2% cash back. Cash back is always more flexible than points.

While this statement is perfectly true, and if the goals are for domestic economy travel then for purposes of ease, 2% cash back is great. But many of us can get better value from our point redemption by using multiple cards with bonus categories that earn 3 - 5 points per dollar and earn points faster. Those who are willing to put in the effort can get a better bang for their buck by transferring to airlines. If I have 100,000 points from a cash back card, they would be worth $1,000. However, if I take the same 100,000 points on a card that allows me to transfer to an airline I can get a round trip flight in first class to Europe that would cost over $10,000. On a cash back card I would need one million points to pay for the same flight. Just another viewpoint from a travel hacker ;-)

 

[MillauFr]

While this statement is perfectly true, and if the goals are for domestic economy travel then for purposes of ease, 2% cash back is great. But many of us can get better value from our point redemption by using multiple cards with bonus categories that earn 3 - 5 points per dollar and earn points faster. Those who are willing to put in the effort can get a better bang for their buck by transferring to airlines. If I have 100,000 points from a cash back card, they would be worth $1,000. However, if I take the same 100,000 points on a card that allows me to transfer to an airline I can get a round trip flight in first class to Europe that would cost over $10,000. On a cash back card I would need one million points to pay for the same flight. Just another viewpoint from a travel hacker ;-)

Agree 100%. The absolute best value I have seen is for international first class tickets. Emirates first class used to be 120k Alaska miles. An incredible deal considering those tickets are upwards of $40k. That is 33 cents per point. Even though they increased the miles to 200k for a round trip it is still a good deal. Emirates first class also blows just about every other airline's first class offering out of the water.