Hi
@tenngirl! I’m so glad you’re back asking more questions and giving us more details about your situation so that we can help.
I hesitate to offer too much advice for travel to Europe or on Southwest because they're not really my area. That said, there are a number of us who fly on Southwest often and have earned Companion Passes that let a companion fly free, and hack their travels to Ireland and Europe with credit card points who can offer you their experiences and advice.
@disneymagicgirl is near you in Franklin, TN, and she travels a lot to WDW.
@CaliforniaGirl09 recently came back from an epic three-week trip around the British Isles and Ireland. I believe
@KPK02090 recently visited Ireland. And
@tink1970 and
@calypso726 have visited Ireland and have a fondness for visiting next door Scotland often. And
@SouthFayetteFan is our resident Southwest guru.
Have you joined our private DISchurners reddit group yet? If not, please reach out to
@SouthFayetteFan to join because we have some useful resources there that you can reference.
Since it looks like you’re 1/24, you will almost certainly be told universally to focus on Chase’s Ultimate Rewards (“UR”) earning cards first.
@calypso726 already gave you this valuable piece of advice and how you might use it for travel to Ireland. I’ll explain a little more.
As I mentioned in my early post, it’s important to develop a strategy early on, then you need to play your cards very carefully. Chase has some of the most lucrative signup bonuses (“SUBs”) with their Ultimate Rewards (“UR”) earning cards. But they also have one of the most stringent rules to prevent people from getting their cards if they’ve gotten too many other cards from them or other issuers. That’s the “5/24 Rule” — Chase will deny you for any of their cards if they see from your credit report that you’ve gotten 5 or more cards from any issuer in the past 24 months. You said you’re 1/24 with a Cap1 card. This means you’ve got 4 slots to play with. If you’re open to business cards, you can get many more than 4 cards and still be in the game with Chase. That’s because if you’re willing to sign up for business credit cards, including Chase’s own business cards, the good news is most issuers don’t report business cards to your personal credit report so Chase doesn’t see them on your credit report and won’t add the business cards against your */24 count. This gives you a lot of room to play your cards right! Chase’s 5/24 Rule is why we suggest prioritizing Chase’s cards first, while you’re still under 5/24, because going willy nilly and getting personal cards from other issuers (e.g., Amex, Citi, Barclays, BofA, Cap1) will blow your */24 status in no time and lock you out of Chase for at least two years. (You can still, generally, get business cards from other issuers while you’re under 5/24, as long as they don’t report their business cards to your personal credit report. And we can tell you which ones are safe.) It’s important to consider both the short and long term in developing a strategy because you want to travel more so your next trip won’t be your last travel hack.
Another reason why we encourage prioritizing Chase’s UR cards is because there’s A LOT of points on the table for you to earn! Just look at the SUBs for some of Chase’s cards: the Chase Sapphire Reserve (“CSR”) has a 50,000 UR SUB; the Chase Sapphire Preferred (“CSP”) has a 60,000 UR SUB; the Chase Ink Business Preferred (“CIP”) has an 80,000 UR SUB; two other Chase business cards, the Chase Ink Cash (“CIC”) and the Chase Ink Unlimited (“CIU”) each have 50,000 UR SUBs. You can run up a lot of points by getting all of these cards, some of them more than once! If you have a willing partner in your husband for him to also sign up for new credit cards, he can get each of these cards and earn their SUBs too, and you two can even increase your haul by r e f e r –ing each other and earning the “support” bonuses for some of these cards where “support links” are available, then combine your UR points to make some big travel redemptions. But keep in mind there are rules to applying for these cards, but if you’re willing to listen and learn, we can walk you through how to get all of them, maybe even more than once, while you’re still under 5/24.
For some idea of what you could do with all those UR points, you can cash it out at 1 cent per point ("cpp") -- but don’t do this because they’re worth more by redeeming them for travel; you can redeem these points through the Chase travel portal (think of it like Expedia) with for 1.25 cpp by using a CIP or CSP card towards airfare or hotels, or 1.5 cpp worth if you get the CSR; or you can transfer the UR points you'll earn to Chase’s many airline and hotel travel partners.
The advice you’ll receive a lot is to start with the Chase Ink Preferred (“CIP”). This is because the CIP has the biggest SUB right now at 80,000 UR after meeting a minimum spending requirement (“MSR”) of $5,000 in 3 months. The CIP’s $5,000 MSR will net you at least another 5,000 UR. (If this MSR seems daunting, don't worry -- I'll get to that in a bit.) The CIP does have a $95 AF, but you're getting over $800 in value (discussed below) back from the SUB. If you involve your DH as Player 2 (“P2”) in this game, you can “support” him to his own CIP for a 20,000 UR bonus to you and a separate 80,000 UR SUB for him, which points you can combine with the person doing the travel planning. And right now, there’s a peculiar quirk that lets you get multiple drinks from the “CIPpy cup,” which you can read about on the DISchurners reddit. But as
@SouthFayetteFan likes you say, you can’t get another CIP until you have your first one.
So picking up from above what 80,000 UR points are worth -- you can cash it out at 1 pp for $800; you can redeem these points through the Chase travel portal using a CIP or CSP at 1.25 cpp for $1,000 worth in airfare or hotels or $1,200 worth if you redeem with the CSR; or you can transfer any 1,000 increment of those UR points 1:1 to Chase’s award partners like Southwest, JetBlue, British Airways, Aer Lingus, United, and
Virgin Atlantic to book award seats.
The CIP is a business card, so you'll need to come up with some numbers for your business. A lot of our businesses are in various stages, from planning and start up, to actually generating income, to something we did a few years ago that we might have some plans to pick up again. As long as you can come up with some numbers for annual business revenue, whether actual, estimated, or projected, and years in business, you’ve got a start. Separately, you'd report your total household income under total gross annual income. The easiest approach would be to apply as a "Sole Proprietor" using your SSN as the Tax ID Number, and most importantly use your legal name First Name (Middle Initial is ok too) Last Name as your business name, and your home address as the business mailing address. Don't get fancy with your business name by making something up like "tenngirl’s Side Biz" -- Chase will check for this business and ask for documentation; whereas, you as a sole proprietor are you, and all the ID you'd need -- if it ever comes to that -- is a photo ID, maybe your SSN and a utility bill with your address on it. If you actually have paperwork that formalized your side business, you could use that too but Chase may want to see documentation. Then you’ll select the type of industry or category your business is/was in. As a sole proprietor, you’d generally have only 1 employee.
You mentioned you normally put $1,500-$2,000/month on credit cards. Time to thinking about moving that spend over to new cards.
Do you have any other bills or expenses that you're currently paying by cash, check, or direct debit that you could possibly put on a credit card? This could really help increase your ability to hit MSRs. We can usually find some way to put things like utilities, insurance premiums, rent or mortgage, car payments, day care, tuition, student loans on a credit card, sometimes for a small fee. (If you're working on MSRs that earn you hundreds of dollars in rewards per card, and in the range of ~15% or more in cash value back for that spend, a 1-3% fee is tolerable if it helps you hit more MSRs.) Let us know, and we can see about earning you rewards on spend you didn't know you could pay with a credit card!
At this point, I realize I’ve written a wall of text. I’ll give you some time to take it in. Applying for that first card is a major first step, so I’ll try to keep my advice to that for now. When you’re ready to think about your next card, we have lots to discuss!
The idea, at least in the near term, is to be signing up for new cards that minimize the impact of your under-5/24 status and putting all your spend towards their MSRs to earn the SUBs. As I said above, there are A LOT of Chase UR earning cards for you to work your way through, not to mention Chase’s Southwest cards if you want to eventually earn a Companion Pass that’ll help a companion fly free. When you've almost met the MSR on one card, get ready for you or DH to apply for the next card. The pacing of signing up for new cards will be dictated by how much spend you have (don't spend more than you usually would), and by the velocity (how many cards you get in how short of a time period) rules and guidelines that each different card issuer will tolerate and still approve you.
In the meantime, please reach out to
@SouthFayetteFan to join our DISchurners reddit group.
When you're ready to apply for any card, we can help walk you through it if you still need it. If and when you do apply for any new cards, and you don't have a "support" link for that particular card, it would really help give back to the community if you first check the DISchurners support links pages to see if you can find an application link for the card you want. It only takes a few seconds, but when you apply through a fellow DISchurner's link, you show that their help, advice, shared experiences, and contributions are appreciated.
Good luck!
