I love credit cards so much! v2.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[hsmamato2]

Is the Biz Green your first MR-earning card?

yes....

 

[miztressuz]

LOL guys... I swear for some reason I defy all sense of Chase logic...

Just got instant approval for the World of Hyatt card! I'm 4/12 with them, plus two more personal cards before that in 2017, and haven't lowered any of my credit lines... they approved me for $24k, the highest of ANY of my cards



ETA: Thanks @WVMomof3!!

Yea! Congratulations! Chase just wants to keep you guessing. Or they heard about the AmEx snub and want to lure you back

 

[Lain]

Without an extra deal both BJ's and Sam's are just below Target at a 4% discount. Only the $150 multipack at Sam's Club online gets close at 4.7% discount so when you add on any other rewards from a CC on top, it edges out Target. But then you factor in that it's a 3pk of $50's so there's extra time involved consolidating and using them. I guess technically if you have a 1.5% card (or better) even the 4% comes out to 5.4% off. Very much a shame that I don't see any warehouse categories yet this year. If you had a 5% category even the 4% discount would come out ahead then.

Thank you! Yeah, for $4-$7 max additional savings on $1,000 I would probably take the 2 digital $500 codes from Target vs waiting for shipping and scratching/peeling up to 20 gift cards. It looks like it may be Target for the last resort chunk! ChasePay and Staples helped me bunch. If only I had another eligible card for the 10x ShopRite promo.

@PolyRob, just to add to @miztressuz's post and what @Albort already mentioned -- assuming you have membership to Sam's Club, you can use your new CIP (and spend towards MSR) to buy Walmart gift cards from the Gyft app / Gyft .com, then use the Walmart GCs on SamsClub .com to buy the 4.7% discounted $150 Disney GCs pack(s). Gyft purchases earn 3x UR when paying with the CIP through PayPal checkout (so add the CIP to your PayPal wallet), and 5x UR on the CIC/CI+. Like I mentioned to you last week, when you first start using Gyft, start out small and slow to establish some purchase history for your account, because big purchases early on tend to get held up or canceled because of overly sensitive fraud prevention. This may be frustrating if you have to buy a lot of Disney GCs, but maybe you can use this method to buy some of what you need, work on your CIP's MSR, and start building some history on Gyft.

If you don't have a Sam's Club membership, just keep this tucked away for some future use. There are frequently stackable promotions that bring down the cost of a Sam's Club membership to almost nothing.

As for stackable promotions, Sam's Club often shows up on Amex Offers and Chase Offers, giving you an opportunity to get statement credit for buying discounted Disney GCs. What I love about Sam's Club is their checkout has a split tender function that allows you to pay with a mix of Walmart/Sam's Club GCs and credit cards, thus letting you maximize discount from various avenues. Before RMN banned me, I was able to shop through the app and got cash back on a pack of Disney GCs, even though GCs were excluded.

So I do swagbucks. Right now they have a Best Buy deal that gets you 11.5% back. That doesn’t include the cc points and bb rewards. BUT you can only get one card daily and you in turn need to cash the Swagbucks out (PayPal or vgc). I got some fee free visas with the last Amex offer (10% at staples) and took those to BB for 21.5% back.

I did the same with Staples. Plus, BBY has been increased to 4% recently which makes it even better!

This is another avenue for discounted Disney GCs when you have the right cards. Take the above for example, @kidsfirsttrip and @DisneyMandC used an Amex Offer for 10% back at Staples to buy VGCs and/or MCGCs when Staples ran a no-fee deal on these cards recently. Even if there are no Amex Offers or Chase Offers going on, if you had the CIC then that card earns you 5x UR at office supply stores like Staples/Office Depot/Office Max all the time, and no-fee or discounted VGC/MCGC deals happen often enough. They'll then use the VGC/MCGC at Best Buy to purchase a $100 Disney GC each day and scanning the Swagbucks QR code each time at checkout (deal is limited to one per day). Swagbucks has a deal where if you spend $100+ in one trip in store, you'll receive a 750 SB points bonus (worth at least $7.50 cashed out), and you get usually 2x SB (currently 4x SB) for every dollar of your purchase. On a $100 Disney GC, you typically earn about $9.50 in SBs. GCs aren't supposed to count, but they do. And since you're paying cash for the Disney GCs, you're earning 1-2.5% in Best Buy Rewards, which count towards a reward certificate. So while a little tedious, because you have to hit two stores, and can only do $100/day at Best Buy, you're looking at a 15-20%+ savings on Disney GCs.

Target is the low hanging fruit. The 5% off is not bad, and very easy to save. But with a little bit of work, jumping on deals when they happen, you can pretty easily save 15% or better on Disney GCs. I try to shoot for over 20% off, so I'm buying Disney GCs throughout the year whenever I see a good deal/stack. The Disney Gift Cards Deal thread is excellent at reporting and discussing these opportunities.

Good luck!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Yea! Congratulations! Chase just wants to keep you guessing. Or they heard about the AmEx snub and want to lure you back

Lol no kidding... at this rate I'll just keep myself under 5/24 and keep applying with them haha. By the time I do the 6 month spend on the Hyatt card, I'll be about to have my original CSP fall off the 5/24 list.

I think this is actually the first time I've ever gotten instant approval with Chase too.

 

[hsmamato2]

ahh nice, yeah, it was dead at the app page for me. :\

mine is live...... still wondering if I can go for this idea...... I think the only issue might be the 6/24 rule....which with the hyatt app he's 5/24..... from what I understand- the Hyatt cc is a great card to hold,right?

 

[wendow]

Yes, yes and YES! I told her all these things. BUT she said she's never flown Southwest in the past 10 years (we're about 45 min north of CVG). Said she'd look into it as a maybe in a few months.

She doesn't like complicated and there's only about a 50% chance she'll ever dip into cc churning. She loves her Capital One Venture because its super easy and redeeming is so easy. So for her I think it will be an ok move.

Long story but a few years back she invited all the women in her extended family on a vacation because she realized she had all these rewards points. She was sooo excited to treat everyone until she realized the rewards weren't worth as much as she thought. We still joke about that. She was SOOO excited!

I understand! I have family like this. Hitting Chase up isn't always everyone's cup of tea and I am big fan of the Arrival+ card (just got my 2nd and dh his 1st) and both of us have used precious 5/24 spots for this card cause it is easy to use and works so well for us. I just wanted to make sure that is she did want to go after Chase, she understood the 'order of operations'

 

[Lain]

yes....

The bonus on your first MR-earning card takes about 2 months to post. You should see the bonus after the close of your second statement.

 

[Psychodisney]

Well good news bad news. Good news.....Amex took $3k off my Delta Gold (which I rarely used) and moved it to my new everyday. Bad news, I can only transfer $5k. DOH! I wish she told me that as I wouldn't have moved $3k over. I would have moved over $2k. Oh well. I doubt I'm putting $2k+ on the delta gold anytime soon. Honestly I'm just waiting for a good offer to do the biz version and drop this one, LOL.

So I can transfer $5k, which leaves me $3400 to give a new home, or suck it up and just pay it off. UGH!

I vote for paying it off!

 

[Albort]

mine is live...... still wondering if I can go for this idea...... I think the only issue might be the 6/24 rule....which with the hyatt app he's 5/24..... from what I understand- the Hyatt cc is a great card to hold,right?

yeah, discoverist status right away, free annual nights... other than that, its a good card to sockdraw lol.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I just told the one coworker I chat about credit cards with that I was approved for another card. She told me she used my CFU link and was approved so more URs for me!

 

[Albort]

@PolyRob, just to add to @miztressuz's post and what @Albort already mentioned -- assuming you have membership to Sam's Club, you can use your new CIP (and spend towards MSR) to buy Walmart gift cards from the Gyft app / Gyft .com, then use the Walmart GCs on SamsClub .com to buy the 4.7% discounted $150 Disney GCs pack(s). Gyft purchases earn 3x UR when paying with the CIP through PayPal checkout (so add the CIP to your PayPal wallet), and 5x UR on the CIC/CI+. Like I mentioned to you last week, when you first start using Gyft, start out small and slow to establish some purchase history for your account, because big purchases early on tend to get held up or canceled because of overly sensitive fraud prevention. This may be frustrating if you have to buy a lot of Disney GCs, but maybe you can use this method to buy some of what you need, work on your CIP's MSR, and start building some history on Gyft.

i also want to add to @Lain comment on gyft.com. ive heard of a few tips to help improve relations with gyft.com. I was able to get verified with them which i guess they no longer do.
- login via Facebook or Google. For some reason, they feel more comfortable if coming through them as most of the time, google/facebook has verification.
- Use a legit email from a legit place. if you have a biz email or a school email, i think it works better than a standard gmail/yahoo email. dont use some random email with a randon ending that no one has heard of. that seems to scare a lot of companies away.

i believe CIP doesnt require u to checkout through paypal though. it works both ways. CIC is a different story, must u paypal.

 

[amalone1013]

Money is in my Paypal account from selling my Dooney on Ebay

Now if only I could pass Barclay's review...

 

[Lain]

In light of the AmEx pop-ups and bonus denials, I've come up with a plan for me and P2. Would like to get some thoughts?

Me: at 4/24 (will drop to 3/24 in August)
very old EveryDay
01/19 BGR
01/19 Hilton Biz
Planned:
02/19 Marriott Biz (when elevated bonus comes out)

? Somewhere in here maybe the personal Plat, which will make me temporarily 5/24 (AmEx seems to take a long time to report new cards? So maybe this won't matter). I can't get the 100k offer to come up though, have tried some of the tricks like drop letter in name, use old address. I may just give up and take the 75k before my AmEx spending drops off.

P2: at 2/24
3 year old BCE
01/19 Rose Gold
01/19 Hilton Biz
Planned:
02/19 Marriott Biz (when elevated bonus comes out)
04/19 Lux (once out of 2/90 and before elevated bonus ends)
05/19 Hilton Aspire (once out of 2/90 again) - this will put P2 at 4/24

My sense is that AmEx is probably not looking at the old cards. Hope that's true since spending is sporadic on those. All the other cards I'm working on MSR and spreading it out. If I keep spending on all the cards until the last SUB posts, think I can keep the pop-up and denials away??

ETA: edited for error, only P2 will get Lux.

Oh, I wish I had better advice for you! But who knows with the RATs running Amex nowadays?

I'm assuming by "Marriott Biz" you're referring to the SPG Biz (or "Bonvoy Biz"), because Chase's Marriott Biz will be discontinued to new applications after 2/12/19.

I'm wondering what your rationale is for choosing the SPG Biz over the Marriott Biz? (I'm not judging, just trying to think this through. And I'm not even sure if you're eligible for Chase's Marriott cards under the new restrictions: Navigating Marriott’s Byzantine Credit Card Rules.)

I feel like a lot of folks are taking a hard look at the Chase Marriott Biz before it's discontinued because it is essentially the same card as the SPG Biz. Both currently have 75k Marriott points SUBs after $3k MSR, both earn 35k FN certs after one year (Chase's posts promptly on your anniversary vs. Amex posts 6-8 weeks after your AF posts, forcing you to pay the AF if you want the FN). The big difference is in the AF. The SPG Biz has a $95 AF, waived in the first year if you apply by 2/12/19; but the SPG Biz AF is going up to $125 effective 2/13/19. It's unclear if you apply for the SPG Biz before the AF goes up, whether you'll be grandfathered into the old $95 AF for at least another year or you'll be paying a $125 AF in year 2 -- but again, Amex effectively forces you to pay the AF in year 2 to get the FN. The Marriott Biz has a $99 AF, not waived in the first year, but also not slated to increase. I'd also note that while the SPG Biz/Bonvoy Business SUB is scheduled to go up on 2/13/19 (through 4/24) to 100k Marriott points, the MSR will also increase from $3k to $5k/3 months, and of course the AF from $95 waived in the first year to $125 (unclear if waived first year or not). So I guess you need to decide Chase Marriott or Amex SPG? And if you go the Amex SPG route, then apply for the SPG Biz offer by 2/12/19, or do the elevated after 2/13/19?

Do you already have the SPG Personal or SPG Lux?

I see the plan for P2 is to get the SPG Biz/Bonvoy Biz, then SPG Lux/Bonvoy Brilliant. So yes, getting the Marriott Biz now will disqualify P2 from getting the bonus on the Lux/Brilliant. However, if the Chase Marriott route is an option, remember that P2 can apply for the Marriott Biz by 2/12/19, then apply for the Marriott Premier Plus (Bonvoy Boundless) when the elevated 100k/$5k MSR/3 months offer becomes available on 2/28/19 (I don't recall an end date, but maybe until 4/24/19?). If you want the perks of the SPG Lux/Bonvoy Brilliant, note that you can eventually upgrade the Brilliant to the Ritz-Carlton Card, which shares a lot of the benefits as the Lux but is arguably better. Also note that if you decide to get the AMEX Platinum card, it comes with Marriott/SPG Gold Elite status, making the Gold status benefit on the Lux/Brilliant/RC redundant.

I was a big proponent of going the Amex SPG route because they had 3 cards (and SUBs) vs. Chase's 2. But the SPG Personal is being discontinued after 2/12/19. The Marriott Biz is being discontinued after 2/12/19. If you're not going to be able to get all 3, and realistically looking at just 2 of Amex's SPG cards (the Biz and the Lux, which are sticking around for the indefinite future), then why not just get Chase's 2 Marriotts (the Biz and the Premier Plus) now and worry about maybe getting Amex's cards 2+ years from now? I also wonder at this point, if focusing on Chase for Marriott cards might take off some pressure to spend on Amex. Chase doesn't really care about ongoing spend (so drop the CL on the Marriott Biz down to $1k eventually if you want to open up room for more Chase biz cards); Amex does. If you get 2 Amex SPG cards, those are two more cards Amex wants to see you put spend on. The SPG cards aren't terrible -- the Biz earns 4x Marriott points at gas stations and restaurants -- but you'd only really maximize the category bonuses by staying (and paying) at Marriott hotels for the 6x Marriott points. Otherwise, Amex's other cards (e.g., BBP for 2x MR everywhere, Biz Gold for 3x or 4x MR for gas, Gold for 4x MR at supermarkets and restaurants, Plat for 5x MR on flights and Amex Travel), not to mention Chase's lineup, beats the SPG cards in most other categories.

As for spending on your Hilton Biz cards, I like @speedyfishy's suggestion to put at least $15k of organic or manufactured spend on them for the Free Weekend Night award. If you eventually get the Ascend, that card earns 6x Hilton points at supermarkets (which should make buying VGCs/MCGCs rewarding enough), and earns another Free Weekend Night award after $15k of spend/yr. If you can push your Aspire app out to mid-November or December, you can triple dip the $250 airline fee credit.

Phewww.... hope some of that made sense.

 

[mamathompson]

Hey all, just popping in here for a minute. I've had some pretty intense personal stuff going on the last few weeks making it impossible to try to follow along for now. Nearly making it impossible for me to get excited about our trip next week! I decided to have P2 apply for the CIP last night and he was approved this morning. Ready for that 100,000 points!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Hey all, just popping in here for a minute. I've had some pretty intense personal stuff going on the last few weeks making it impossible to try to follow along for now. Nearly making it impossible for me to get excited about our trip next week! I decided to have P2 apply for the CIP last night and he was approved this morning. Ready for that 100,000 points!

Congrats and enjoy your trip

 

[wendow]

Hey all, just popping in here for a minute. I've had some pretty intense personal stuff going on the last few weeks making it impossible to try to follow along for now. Nearly making it impossible for me to get excited about our trip next week! I decided to have P2 apply for the CIP last night and he was approved this morning. Ready for that 100,000 points!

Hope things settle down for you so you can enjoy your trip! Congrats on your dh's CIP!!

 

[platamama]

Hi,
First time posting on this thread.
I've done the CC reward between my husband and I with the Southwest Visa a few times over the last 10 years, but I want to branch out since we are going on our first Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska in June of 2020.

I was googling their reward card and from what I see they occasionally have a 60,000 bonus point sign up. Right now they only have a 10000 point sign up. Does this offer come around often? Trying to decide if I want to wait and see if it pops up.

Also we have never flown American Airlines, but are considering it for this trip. (we are flying from San Antonio to Seattle) Is there point reward system like Southwest? Do they have the larger sign up bonus a few times a year?

Welcome to the thread! It looks like you've gotten a few responses with regards to AA miles. With the recent talk about Gyft, I went to go look and was surprised to see that you can buy Royal Caribbean gift cards through there (which made me remember someone on this thread asked about RCCL), so that could be an option for you to consider.

If either you or your husband are under 5/24 (see glossary on Pg 1), then the advantageous cards for this avenue are the CIP (earning 3xUR) or the CIC (earning 5xUR if paid through Paypal) as mentioned in the past couple pages. With the CIP, you'd get 85,000URs (worth $850 in cash or $1062 through the UR portal) from the sign up bonus and MSR. With the CIC, you'd get 53,000URs (worth $530 in cash). You could use the RCCL gift cards through Gyft toward meeting your MSR too, building your UR balance even faster.

Since the Royal Caribbean card only offers 10K pts right now (and is only good for $100 on RCCL), for me that would be a hard pass. Even if you got the 60K offer, that's $600 that you can only spend on RCCL. If you got the CIP, you may even find you can pay for the cruise booked through the CIP UR portal and get an extra 25% value out of each UR. With the CIC, you can still book through the UR portal but don't get the 25% bonus.

 

[PolyRob]

@PolyRob, just to add to @miztressuz's post and what @Albort already mentioned -- assuming you have membership to Sam's Club, you can use your new CIP (and spend towards MSR) to buy Walmart gift cards from the Gyft app / Gyft .com, then use the Walmart GCs on SamsClub .com to buy the 4.7% discounted $150 Disney GCs pack(s). Gyft purchases earn 3x UR when paying with the CIP through PayPal checkout (so add the CIP to your PayPal wallet), and 5x UR on the CIC/CI+. Like I mentioned to you last week, when you first start using Gyft, start out small and slow to establish some purchase history for your account, because big purchases early on tend to get held up or canceled because of overly sensitive fraud prevention. This may be frustrating if you have to buy a lot of Disney GCs, but maybe you can use this method to buy some of what you need, work on your CIP's MSR, and start building some history on Gyft.

If you don't have a Sam's Club membership, just keep this tucked away for some future use. There are frequently stackable promotions that bring down the cost of a Sam's Club membership to almost nothing.

As for stackable promotions, Sam's Club often shows up on Amex Offers and Chase Offers, giving you an opportunity to get statement credit for buying discounted Disney GCs. What I love about Sam's Club is their checkout has a split tender function that allows you to pay with a mix of Walmart/Sam's Club GCs and credit cards, thus letting you maximize discount from various avenues. Before RMN banned me, I was able to shop through the app and got cash back on a pack of Disney GCs, even though GCs were excluded.

This is another avenue for discounted Disney GCs when you have the right cards. Take the above for example, @kidsfirsttrip and @DisneyMandC used an Amex Offer for 10% back at Staples to buy VGCs and/or MCGCs when Staples ran a no-fee deal on these cards recently. Even if there are no Amex Offers or Chase Offers going on, if you had the CIC then that card earns you 5x UR at office supply stores like Staples/Office Depot/Office Max all the time, and no-fee or discounted VGC/MCGC deals happen often enough. They'll then use the VGC/MCGC at Best Buy to purchase a $100 Disney GC each day and scanning the Swagbucks QR code each time at checkout (deal is limited to one per day). Swagbucks has a deal where if you spend $100+ in one trip in store, you'll receive a 750 SB points bonus (worth at least $7.50 cashed out), and you get usually 2x SB (currently 4x SB) for every dollar of your purchase. On a $100 Disney GC, you earn about $9.50 in SBs. GCs aren't supposed to count, but they do. And since you're paying cash for the Disney GCs, you're earning 1-2.5% in Best Buy Rewards, which count towards a reward certificate. So while a little tedious, because you have to hit two stores, and can only do $100/day at Best Buy, you're looking at a 15-20%+ savings on Disney GCs.

Target is the low hanging fruit. The 5% off is not bad, and very easy to save. But with a little bit of work, jumping on deals when they happen, you can pretty easily save 15% or better on Disney GCs. I try to shoot for over 20% off, so I'm buying Disney GCs throughout the year whenever I see a good deal/stack. The Disney Gift Cards Deal thread is excellent at reporting and discussing these opportunities.

Good luck!

Thank you!

I already have my CIP added to PayPal just for this occasion! I will place my first order tonight. I guess $50 should be safe to start.

I unfortunately did not have the Chase promo for Sam’s and am late to the slickdeals promo (although the link with the $10 gift card still seems to open). I still have the $45 off coupon in my e-mail, but would have to find something to use it on online with free shipping or just pay to ship something to “break even.” I guess I could wait to subscribe and slowly build inventory of Walmart cards.

The Amex offers really seem great. I almost feel like the discounts I see that I cannot utilize could offset the AF on their own! I didn’t do the BBP… but now IDK if I should still make that the my first Amex or start with a big card and spread the MSR to have Amex not hate me? It seems like Amex will decide whatever it wants to about me.

The next card I was hoping to get was the CIC for the office store 5x in April.

Target will always be there as a last resort. 20% is definitely a lot better than 5%!

i also want to add to @Lain comment on gyft.com. ive heard of a few tips to help improve relations with gyft.com. I was able to get verified with them which i guess they no longer do.

- login via Facebook or Google. For some reason, they feel more comfortable if coming through them as most of the time, google/facebook has verification.

- Use a legit email from a legit place. if you have a biz email or a school email, i think it works better than a standard gmail/yahoo email. dont use some random email with a randon ending that no one has heard of. that seems to scare a lot of companies away.

i believe CIP doesnt require u to checkout through paypal though. it works both ways. CIC is a different story, must u paypal.

Thanks! I didn’t make the account yet so I will definitely do this. My Facebook is linked to a .edu email so I can go that route. I do have the CIP setup with PayPal, but its a personal gmail. If it doesn’t matter for the CIP, I can try it that way. I can try the smallest denomination not to look suspicious and see how it codes then go to PayPal if need be.

 

[mmmears]

This is probably old news, but I found a $75 back on a $350 spend at Loews Hotels on my AMEX, which might be useful if someone wants to stay at Universal. Just thought I'd share.

 

[wanderlust7]

Oh, I wish I had better advice for you! But who knows with the RATs running Amex nowadays?

I'm assuming by "Marriott Biz" you're referring to the SPG Biz (or "Bonvoy Biz"), because Chase's Marriott Biz will be discontinued to new applications after 2/12/19.

I'm wondering what your rationale is for choosing the SPG Biz over the Marriott Biz? (I'm not judging, just trying to think this through. And I'm not even sure if you're eligible for Chase's Marriott cards under the new restrictions: Navigating Marriott’s Byzantine Credit Card Rules.)

I feel like a lot of folks are taking a hard look at the Chase Marriott Biz before it's discontinued because it is essentially the same card as the SPG Biz. Both currently have 75k Marriott points SUBs after $3k MSR, both earn 35k FN certs after one year (Chase's posts promptly on your anniversary vs. Amex posts 6-8 weeks after your AF posts, forcing you to pay the AF if you want the FN). The big difference is in the AF. The SPG Biz has a $95 AF, waived in the first year if you apply by 2/12/19; but the SPG Biz AF is going up to $125 effective 2/13/19. It's unclear if you apply for the SPG Biz before the AF goes up, whether you'll be grandfathered into the old $95 AF for at least another year or you'll be paying a $125 AF in year 2 -- but again, Amex effectively forces you to pay the AF in year 2 to get the FN. The Marriott Biz has a $99 AF, not waived in the first year, but also not slated to increase. I'd also note that while the SPG Biz/Bonvoy Business SUB is scheduled to go up on 2/13/19 (through 4/24) to 100k Marriott points, the MSR will also increase from $3k to $5k/3 months, and of course the AF from $95 waived in the first year to $125 (unclear if waived first year or not). So I guess you need to decide Chase Marriott or Amex SPG? And if you go the Amex SPG route, then apply for the SPG Biz offer by 2/12/19, or do the elevated after 2/13/19?

Do you already have the SPG Personal or SPG Lux?

I see the plan for P2 is to get the SPG Biz/Bonvoy Biz, then SPG Lux/Bonvoy Brilliant. So yes, getting the Marriott Biz now will disqualify P2 from getting the bonus on the Lux/Brilliant. However, if the Chase Marriott route is an option, remember that P2 can apply for the Marriott Biz by 2/12/19, then apply for the Marriott Premier Plus (Bonvoy Boundless) when the elevated 100k/$5k MSR/3 months offer becomes available on 2/28/19 (I don't recall an end date, but maybe until 4/24/19?). If you want the perks of the SPG Lux/Bonvoy Brilliant, note that you can eventually upgrade the Brilliant to the Ritz-Carlton Card, which shares a lot of the benefits as the Lux but is arguably better. Also note that if you decide to get the AMEX Platinum card, it comes with Marriott/SPG Gold Elite status, making the Gold status benefit on the Lux/Brilliant/RC redundant.

I was a big proponent of going the Amex SPG route because they had 3 cards (and SUBs) vs. Chase's 2. But the SPG Personal is being discontinued after 2/12/19. The Marriott Biz is being discontinued after 2/12/19. If you're not going to be able to get all 3, and realistically looking at just 2 of Amex's SPG cards (the Biz and the Lux, which are sticking around for the indefinite future), then why not just get Chase's 2 Marriotts (the Biz and the Premier Plus) now and worry about maybe getting Amex's cards 2+ years from now? I also wonder at this point, if focusing on Chase for Marriott cards might take off some pressure to spend on Amex. Chase doesn't really care about ongoing spend (so drop the CL on the Marriott Biz down to $1k eventually if you want to open up room for more Chase biz cards); Amex does. If you get 2 Amex SPG cards, those are two more cards Amex wants to see you put spend on. The SPG cards aren't terrible -- the Biz earns 4x Marriott points at gas stations and restaurants -- but you'd only really maximize the category bonuses by staying (and paying) at Marriott hotels for the 6x Marriott points. Otherwise, Amex's other cards (e.g., BBP for 2x MR everywhere, Biz Gold for 3x or 4x MR for gas, Gold for 4x MR at supermarkets and restaurants, Plat for 5x MR on flights and Amex Travel), not to mention Chase's lineup, beats the SPG cards in most other categories.

As for spending on your Hilton Biz cards, I like @speedyfishy's suggestion to put at least $15k of organic or manufactured spend on them for the Free Weekend Night award. If you eventually get the Ascend, that card earns 6x Hilton points at supermarkets (which should make buying VGCs/MCGCs rewarding enough), and earns another Free Weekend Night award after $15k of spend/yr. If you can push your Aspire app out to mid-November or December, you can triple dip the $250 airline fee credit.

Phewww.... hope some of that made sense.

Thank you for the super detailed reply! Yes, I meant the SPG biz, sorry that was very unclear!

I don't have the SPG Personal or the Lux, but not planning to get them since I want to stay under 5/24. Same reasoning for not getting P2 the SPG Personal.

My thinking behind choosing the AmEx route, even though I don't plan to get all 3 SPG cards, is because so far they've only done soft pulls for us. I've already taken a lot of hits on Eq and Ex with Chase. DH wants to take out a HELOC to do some remodeling on our rental property. From what I read, I think what I've done so far churning wise is okay, they just might ask us to write a letter of explanation. I just don't want to add to it further. Also, I had to go to recon for my CIC recently, so another reason to take a break from Chase. AND - I feel like I already got started with AmEx, if I stop and slow spending, maybe I'll get the pop-up when I pick back up.

According to FM (is that the correct abbreviation?? lol), the SPG biz AF will be waived, so the plan is to apply after the elevated bonus and before the waived AF offer ends (2/12-3/28). I hope they're correct, since my plan is based on it.

https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/which-marriott-or-spg-card-is-best/

Quote:
"If you want more cards, but can’t qualify for a signup bonus, then the best option is the Bonvoy Business (SPG Business) Card since it does not add to your 5/24 count. Even though the annual fee on this card is going up to $125, if you apply before 3/28/19 your first annual fee will be waived and the next one will be only $95 (then $125 after that)."