Hi everyone! New to this thread
I apologize if this is a really dumb question, but I have such little experience in this department and am a bit over my head reading through the thread. The only credit card I have is the Discover IT chrome card.
I'm going on my honeymoon next year, and we are either doing a Disney/Punta Cana double trip, or a trip to Hawaii. I'd love to pay for our flights using points from a card sign-up (thinking the Chase Sapphire Preferred). We'd fly SW if we did the Disney/Punta Cana trip, and either American or United for the Hawaii trip if we did that (hopefully in first class)!
My main question is - I need to spend $4,000 in the first three months with the CSP to get the bonus. If I pay my rent for two months, I'll be over $4,000 (with other misc. purchases). Would that count, or is rent/mortgage/home payments excluded for some reason?
Sorry if that's a dumb question, and if anyone has any tips for me they would be greatly appreciated
And congratulations on the wedding and honeymoon!
You’ve come to the right place! We’re all about helping each other travel for free, for less, or take trips we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to take by taking advantage of bonuses and benefits offered by credit cards! I’m thinking
@amalone1013 travel hacked her honeymoon recently (maybe her wedding too)!
I’m usually much more helpful, but I’ve got to get my morning started. I’ll make two points and then leave you in the friendly, and capable hands of others here.
1. If you’re considering a CSP, you really should consider what we call a “double dip” — that is applying for both the Chase Sapphire Preferred (“CSP”) and Chase Sapphire Reserve (“CSR”) together. That’s because Chase has a so-called “one Sapphire rule” that limits you to having only one Sapphire card at a time, and restricting you to only one 50,000 Ultimate Rewards (“UR”) points bonus from one of the Sapphire cards every 24 months. If you were to apply for both the CSP and CSR together, and get them approved on the same day, you could get around the restriction and get yourself 100,000 UR points from those two cards. When redeemed for travel (e.g., flight, hotels, car rentals, cruises, Disney packages and tickets) through the CSR, 100k UR are worth $1,500 in free travel.
2. Applying for both the CSR and CSP will combine for $8,000 in minimum required spend (“MSR”) in the same 3 months period.
You said, if you pay your rent for two months, you’ll be over $4,000 (with other misc. purchases). That sounds like you have at least $2,000 in spend/month. If you can shift a few more bills or perhaps pre-pay some bills onto a credit card, you can cover $8,000 in MSR in 3 months. And there are other tricks to meeting that spend that we don’t mind sharing.
To your question about rent, yes you can absolutely pay rent with Chase Visa cards. I do it every month. There are numerous ways to do this. Your apartment may be set up to receive rent paid by credit cards directly through a website or portal. Often, this involves some kind of credit card fee. Evaluate whether this is the lowest fee you can get. Another way to pay rent with your credit card is through a service called Plastiq, which allows you to use your credit cards to pay many kinds of bills that don’t take credit cards, or charge a higher fee than the 2.5% fee that Plastiq charges for its service.
On the subject of fees — we don’t like them, but if it helps you meet MSRs, then the value you get from the signup bonuses usually outweigh that cost. If you can do more organic spending that don’t carry fees on the cards, great! However, at worst, 2.5% fee on a $2,000 rent payment is $50; x4 = $200, but you’d be working towards signup bonuses worth $1,500.
Set up a payment through Plastiq, and Plastiq will have a check mailed to your landlord or property manager in 7-10 business days. Payments through Plastiq, and rent generally, count towards the MSR on Chase cards. (Since you mentioned it, mortgages are restricted and more hit or miss.) The limitation to Plastiq is that Visa recently placed restrictions on many of their consumer/personal credit cards, including the CSR and CSP, that limit payments through Plastiq to 20% of the credit limit on the card. So depending on your assigned credit limit and the cost of your rent, you may come up against that limitation and have to separate your payments or get a little creative.
One last thing, if you’re interested in pursuing credit card bonuses and benefits, I’d encourage you to join our Reddit group called DISchurners, where we have helpful posts, including guides to travel hacking for Disney, and links to applying for credit cards that support each other in this community. Just let us know if you’re interested
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). I would really prefer to use my URs with Chase to get the full 1.5 value with my CSR, but of course we wouldn't have the same rates as renting DVC points. It's so hard to let go of that extra value for my URs. Decisions, decisions.
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