Which credit card for travel?

[disneedee]

i would like to try getting airline tickets for points but am not sure which airlines. southwest is a maybe as is american. i've tried reading about csp but can not find the airlines they work with, just the ones they transfer to. they do transfer to southwest but all i can find about american is that you would have to transfer points to british airlines to use american. is that right? would i need to get the british airline card to transfer to their system. i do not need to fly until jan 2017, but not sure i have time to meet 2 credit card minimums and still have time to book a flight. suggestions?

 

[JWigs]

We have the Cap One Venture card and it gives us 2x the pts on antrying we buy and we don't have to pick an airline. Anytime you want to redeem you just tell them and they credit your account for the miles you've earned. Easiest one and we've had Delta, BA and AK cards in the past.

 

[disneedee]

jwigs, that does sound simple, and i like the 2x points. thankyou.

 

[Albort]

The CSP Quadfecta could be very powerful if ur able to make minimum spending. It will cover a wide range of categories. Freedom Card will cover a rotating 5% category(1. Gas 2. groceries 3. restaurants 4. amazon), the Freedom Unlimited will be ur every other use card giving u 1.5 on everything. CSP will give u 2% on restaurants with lots of protections on it(ie car insurance, trip cancellation, etc). the 4th card, which is a business card is the Ink Plus, which will cover ur Phone/internet/cable TV bill, office supplies(ie Gift card Gift card gift cards!) @ 5%. CSP & Ink Plus to have a $95 annual fee though, CSP is waived for the first year, Ink Plus is not... theres also an Ink cash which lacks the 60k bonus at the beginning. If you sign up for all these cards, u can net 150k just on sign up bonuses... lol

Im not familiar with the transfer to BA and then book for AA, i know this applies to UA though. You can book using points which sometimes are a better deal. for example, for me to fly to Taiwan is in the $1000 range. with points, i can redeem them for around 35k per one way, 70k round trip. if u convert that over to $$, it would be around $700.

 

[Marionnette]

i would like to try getting airline tickets for points but am not sure which airlines. southwest is a maybe as is american. i've tried reading about csp but can not find the airlines they work with, just the ones they transfer to. they do transfer to southwest but all i can find about american is that you would have to transfer points to british airlines to use american. is that right? would i need to get the british airline card to transfer to their system. i do not need to fly until jan 2017, but not sure i have time to meet 2 credit card minimums and still have time to book a flight. suggestions?

You can use the Ultimate Rewards website (Chase website for Ink and Sapphire points) to book your travel instead of transferring your points to a FF program where it may be more difficult to book airfare. You get a "bonus" on your points if you use them in this manner. For instance, 8,000 URP would translate to about $80 in rewards or FF miles, but if you use the UR travel portal to book travel using your points, it is worth over $100 in travel. The added bonus is that if you're short on points, you can make up the difference by paying with your CC. I've looked at a few trips traveling out of PHL (my home airport) and they include Spirit, Frontier, Delta, American, United, Air Canada, Turkish Airline, Lufthansa, Alitalia, Swiss Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, Finnair. But no Southwest. You would need to transfer your URP to your RR account if you wan to fly Southwest, but at least Southwest's FF program is more flexible with how you can use your points.

And to meet the minimum spend on CC bonuses, I bought gift cards at the grocery store (sort of pre-paying my food bill for a couple of months) or paid the car insurance or homeowners insurance with the new CC. Whatever it takes to meet the minimum spend without actually spending money that I wouldn't spend otherwise.

 

[disneedee]

Thank you marionette. You are saying that if I book through chase web site American is one of the options? Csp is highly recommended as a beginner travel cc.

 

[Marionnette]

Thank you marionette. You are saying that if I book through chase web site American is one of the options? Csp is highly recommended as a beginner travel cc.

Yes, once you log into your Chase account, there is a link to take you to the Ultimate Rewards website. From there, you can book travel, using either your points or your credit card. The cost of the flights will be shown with both a dollar figure and the number of points needed. It's great to be able to compare the price to what you would pay if you were to go directly to the airline's website and pay OOP for your flight. American Airlines is one of their participating airlines.

Since I have a ton of airline miles, I tend to use my URPs for rental cars and hotel stays, but I did book one leg of a trip using the points instead of FF miles because the flight times suited me better and there were no awards seats available for that airline. It works just like booking through any other travel search engine.

 

[calypso726]

i would like to try getting airline tickets for points but am not sure which airlines. southwest is a maybe as is american. i've tried reading about csp but can not find the airlines they work with, just the ones they transfer to. they do transfer to southwest but all i can find about american is that you would have to transfer points to british airlines to use american. is that right? would i need to get the british airline card to transfer to their system. i do not need to fly until jan 2017, but not sure i have time to meet 2 credit card minimums and still have time to book a flight. suggestions?

CSP Ultimate Reward points transfer to United, British Airways, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Korean and Singapore.

British Airways is part of the One World Alliance and so is American Airlines. Therefore, you can use British Airways miles to fly on American Airlines as long as AA is showing saver award availability. You would not need to have the BA card to transfer your UR points to BA.

My suggestion would be to find out how many airline miles it will take to get to your destination with SW and with AA and also find out what the cost of that flight would be in dollars with both airlines. This will help you decide if you are better off using points to redeem for travel as cash back, or points to transfer to use as airline miles. Sometimes points can be far more valuable as miles than they are as cash. For example, I was recently able to book a first class, one way flight to Hawaii for 37,500 miles. That same flight is $1473 which would require me to use 147,300 points to pay for it if I use the points as cash back.

 

[disneedee]

i need 2 tickets Pdx to Fll. I want a cc with bonus that will get us there. I am a real beginner in this. Looks like it would take about 50000 on AA. Or a little more on southwest. Southwest dates are not out yet. Or about $800. So the miles looks like a better deal.

 

[calypso726]

i need 2 tickets Pdx to Fll. I want a cc with bonus that will get us there. I am a real beginner in this. Looks like it would take about 50000 on AA. Or a little more on southwest. Southwest dates are not out yet. Or about $800. So the miles looks like a better deal.

There is the southwest airline credit card that will get you 50K miles after $2K spend in 3 months with a $69 annual fee, a couple of AA cards that will get you 50K miles with the bonus, $3K spend in 3 months with a $95 annual fee and the Chase CSP that is 50K points for $4K spend in 3 months; $95 annual fee waived first year, with an extra 5K points for adding additional cardholder.

If you are planning to start playing this game and this is your first step and not a one time thing, my suggestion is to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card before anything else. Chase has tightened their rules when it comes to approvals and many folks with excellent credit are getting denied if they have had 5 or more new credit cards (any bank) opened in the last 24 months. This is one of the most valuable credit cards to have if you are getting started with travel hacking. I always recommend with couples that each person get their own credit card and make the spend so you get double the bonus, even if you can't get them at the same time.

I would also suggest following a few travel hacker bloggers like The Points Guy, Frequent Miler, Million Mile Secrets, View From the Wing, Mommy Points, One Mile at a Time. Go to their blogs, read the beginner sections and it will help. I would also suggest going to the Flyer Talk forum and reading through some threads. I wouldn't necessarily post there as a newbie though ;-)

It seems overwhelming at first but with a little reading and a little effort you can make it work for you. I got started in 2012 because I wanted to go on our first Adventures by Disney trip to Scotland and the air fare to Europe was insanely expensive, even in economy. In our first year of travel hacking, DH (who was reluctant at first) and I accumulated over a million miles and points. We flew to Europe R/T in first class that first year and every year since then. After that first class international flight. DH was sold. We are able to travel much more than we used to thanks to this hobby. We now try to maintain our points and miles balance at about 2 million even though we are using hundreds of thousands of miles every year. Our credit score have shot up into the 800's as well. I do try to plan our trips about 2 years out to give me time to figure out how to get where I want to go and not pay real money for the air fare, hotels, cruise excursions or what have you. This way the miles or points I need are in place to be used starting at 330 ~ days to go mark (depending on the airline) so I can book flights in first on opening day.

 

[mrsp1030]

We've had such a variety of travel based cards over the past years, including United, Marriott and Disney but the two best we have found our the Barclays World Plus and the Bank of America Travel Rewards Card. The caveat with these two is that you can use them for any travel based experiences, including cruises, theme parks, etc... Last trip to WDW, we charged everything to our room and it came up as hotel/resort option and then we paid it all off via points from our CC. Same with airlines, etc.. You just pay it all off with points you accrue.

 

[havaneselover]

This thread is great. I'm hoping for an Alaskan or European Disney Cruise in 2018 and the bonuses could help enormously with flights and pre-cruise stays. I'm keeping notes of all these great suggestions.

 

[calypso726]

We've had such a variety of travel based cards over the past years, including United, Marriott and Disney but the two best we have found our the Barclays World Plus and the Bank of America Travel Rewards Card. The caveat with these two is that you can use them for any travel based experiences, including cruises, theme parks, etc... Last trip to WDW, we charged everything to our room and it came up as hotel/resort option and then we paid it all off via points from our CC. Same with airlines, etc.. You just pay it all off with points you accrue.

Same here but our best cards to actually put spending on are the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Plus, Chase Freedom and Starwood Preferred Guest. I keep a no fee Amex everyday card to keep my Membership reward points alive. We also keep an IHG and Marriott for the annual night bonus which is worth more than the fee as well as a Club Carlson Card that I use to redeem nights at Radisson Blu internationally since it gives you 40K anniversary points every year. Since we are in south Florid and Miami is a hub for AA we also keep a co-branded card so I can get checked bags free if we ever decide to fly in economy someday LOL but more importantly 10% of the award miles we redeem back each year. We probably apply for and cancel anywhere from 3 - 5 credit cards every year.

We picked up a Barclay Arrival Plus, Capital One Venture, and Wells Fargo Propel card for exactly this reason. However, we only wanted them redeem the costs of our excursions on the 11 day Norway, Iceland, Scotland Disney cruise last year. Between the bonuses and the spend we were able to redeem $3000 in excursions and on board expenses with the points. Afterwards we cancelled the cards except for the Barclay Arrival Plus. I downgraded that one to the no fee version in order to keep a true chip and pin card for trips to Europe.

Sadly, cash back for travel cards like these cards are useless to me after the redeeming the bonus or for future air fare. I would have to spend $25,000 to accumulate 50,000 points on the Barclay Arrival Plus, $33,333 on the Bank of America card to 50,000 points which would be worth only $500 when redeemed for travel. It only takes $10,000 of spending when maximizing the 5x bonus categories to get me 50,000 Ultimate Reward points with the Chase Ink card, or rotating bonus categories on the Freedom and transferring those UR points to my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Those 50,000 Chase Ultimate reward points are redeemable for $625 on travel charges since you get s 20% bonus when using the Ultimate rewards travel portal. That is still not a good use of our points for us since we place a much higher value on air miles than we do on cash back redemption due to how we redeem them. For example, we each used 50,000 points a couple of years ago to transfer to United miles and then used those 50,000 each miles to get an airline tickets in first class from Paris which would have cost over $8,000 Not that we'd ever spend that kind of money on airfare, but even the economy tickets were pricing at over $3,000. If I had chosen to use my points as a cash travel redemption, we would have only been able to knock off $625 from the $3,000 in economy with those points and still had to pay well over $2,000 each out of pocket. No thanks. So, it really depends on the goals and needs of the person. We like to fly up front so variable award cards it has to be for us.

This thread is great. I'm hoping for an Alaskan or European Disney Cruise in 2018 and the bonuses could help enormously with flights and pre-cruise stays. I'm keeping notes of all these great suggestions.

We flew to Vancouver on United in first a couple of years ago for our Alaskan Disney cruise. I think DH and each I picked up the United card for that one. We used SPG points to stay at a Westin nearby. A friend of ours that we have been teaching how to travel hack used their Chase UR points to stay at the Pan Pacific pre-cruise. I hope this helps.

 

[hsmamato2]

Op I can see how you are starting to get confused.... so many options! The rule of thumb is this, quite simply. rewards cards,used wisely, have a FAR better rate of return/money saved than cashback cards. So.... Where do you want to go/what type of travel are you planning?
If it's domestic flights you're looking for (US,and some caribbean) then a SWA card with the 50k bonus is simple,straightforward,and at $99 fee for the year,an amazing deal!See? easy! It can't be beat for newbies to the cc game.(I'm talking about value back for amount of effort) It's a no brainer!
It's a simple way to start, and you will,for your Annual fee (plus the spend you must do to get it) get at LEAST $800 worth of air travel for free. And nobody beats SWA for ease of points use, it is the most painless way to plan a trip!(free cancel/changes etc) If SWA is in an airport near you, it's a great way to save money.
*** there are multiple ways to add to the use of this card too- as noted above- but for just starting out? this is a great toe in the water card.***
Either this card, or the Sapphire preferred is a great choice. (or both, if you want both)Travel rewards usually net you SO much more than smaller cashback options,so if your goal is actual travel,spend some time learning about your choices...it can be amazing.
million mile secrets .com excellent advice for beginners. just go there, and search southwest bonus.

 

[wickedstepmom]

Something else to think about are the travel bwnefits the card offers, after getting stuck in Atlanta for 24 hours in January, I've switched to the sapphire card bc it has trio interruption

 

[calypso726]

Something else to think about are the travel bwnefits the card offers, after getting stuck in Atlanta for 24 hours in January, I've switched to the sapphire card bc it has trio interruption

Ugh! That had to be awful. I always use the CSP to pay for taxes and fees on our award tickets just in case. They have the best coverage for that type of issue.

 

[Albort]

Something else to think about are the travel bwnefits the card offers, after getting stuck in Atlanta for 24 hours in January, I've switched to the sapphire card bc it has trio interruption

i believe most travel cards have this benefit... i could be wrong though...

 

[Ava]

I got the Sapphire Preferred after reading recommendations on this board (including from the lovely @calypso726 who is consistently patient with newbie questions). We usually fly Delta or JetBlue, neither of which are direct transfer partners for the CSP, but I was up against Chase's 5/24 limit so I wanted to get this card before I got locked out. I also already have a Freedom card so now I can transfer my points from the Freedom card into UR points and combine them. And I got the 5,000 point bonus for adding my wife as an authorized user on the card. Down the line I will have my wife apply for her own CSP and add me as an authorized user so we can get another set of sign up bonuses. It's a bit more difficult to get enough points when you need to fly a family of 4 so I am trying to maximize sign up bonuses whenever I can.

I also got the IHG card, and already used my 60,000 point sign up bonus to book a hotel stay for this summer. I will probably keep it, since the annual fee is only $49 and the free night award is worth more than that. If my wife gets one as well we could use our free nights for a weekend trip each year.

I'm very new at this as well but my best advice is to READ READ READ. The Points Guy and Mommy Points both have great "Beginner's Guides" to travel hacking that helped me a lot. Also, make sure you have a good handle on your finances and can meet the minimum spend for any card you sign up for. The last thing you want to do is charge more than you can afford to pay off every month in order to meet a minimum spend.

 

[calypso726]

I got the Sapphire Preferred after reading recommendations on this board (including from the lovely @calypso726 who is consistently patient with newbie questions). We usually fly Delta or JetBlue, neither of which are direct transfer partners for the CSP, but I was up against Chase's 5/24 limit so I wanted to get this card before I got locked out. I also already have a Freedom card so now I can transfer my points from the Freedom card into UR points and combine them. And I got the 5,000 point bonus for adding my wife as an authorized user on the card. Down the line I will have my wife apply for her own CSP and add me as an authorized user so we can get another set of sign up bonuses. It's a bit more difficult to get enough points when you need to fly a family of 4 so I am trying to maximize sign up bonuses whenever I can.

I also got the IHG card, and already used my 60,000 point sign up bonus to book a hotel stay for this summer. I will probably keep it, since the annual fee is only $49 and the free night award is worth more than that. If my wife gets one as well we could use our free nights for a weekend trip each year.

I'm very new at this as well but my best advice is to READ READ READ. The Points Guy and Mommy Points both have great "Beginner's Guides" to travel hacking that helped me a lot. Also, make sure you have a good handle on your finances and can meet the minimum spend for any card you sign up for. The last thing you want to do is charge more than you can afford to pay off every month in order to meet a minimum spend.

Thank you for the kind observation Ava I'm always happy to help people learn to cut costs on their travel expenses and I'm glad to know you were able to get in on those two cards before 5/24 hit you. Also, good that you will have your DW get the card. That's the best strategy and what has worked so well for DH and me. I've had the IHG on the radar for some time but was focusing on other cards for miles and kept putting it off since I didn't really need it until 2018 which would be 2 years out from planning a 2020 trip to Bora Bora and surrounding islands. Once the whole threat of 5/24 on co-branded cards was revealed, DH and I went ahead and lowered all our Chase card credit limits and then each applied for the IHG hoping it would slide through before 5/24 hit on co-branded cards. It took 3 weeks of waiting it out but we each got approved. Whew! We'll be keeping it since the free night at any property is worth way more then the $49 fee.

Honestly, I'd love to go for the new Freedom Unlimited card but I am at 8 Chase cards so it's doubtful I'd get approved for a 9th one, and add to the fact I have more than lapped 5/24. I've already picked up 4 new credit cards this year. I don't want to risk a another hard pull when the odds are so stacked against me getting approved. Mad props though to anyone who gets the Chase quadfecta! I'll just have to make do with my trifecta.

 

[Ngwira]

Thank you for the kind observation Ava I'm always happy to help people learn to cut costs on their travel expenses and I'm glad to know you were able to get in on those two cards before 5/24 hit you. Also, good that you will have your DW get the card. That's the best strategy and what has worked so well for DH and me. I've had the IHG on the radar for some time but was focusing on other cards for miles and kept putting it off since I didn't really need it until 2018 which would be 2 years out from planning a 2020 trip to Bora Bora and surrounding islands. Once the whole threat of 5/24 on co-branded cards was revealed, DH and I went ahead and lowered all our Chase card credit limits and then each applied for the IHG hoping it would slide through before 5/24 hit on co-branded cards. It took 3 weeks of waiting it out but we each got approved. Whew! We'll be keeping it since the free night at any property is worth way more then the $49 fee.

Honestly, I'd love to go for the new Freedom Unlimited card but I am at 8 Chase cards so it's doubtful I'd get approved for a 9th one, and add to the fact I have more than lapped 5/24. I've already picked up 4 new credit cards this year. I don't want to risk a another hard pull when the odds are so stacked against me getting approved. Mad props though to anyone who gets the Chase quadfecta! I'll just have to make do with my trifecta.

Do you recommend cash and points for the Starwood preferred guest card? I do have enough to use all points but want to stretch my points.