ayee007

After moving back to the US, I need to get a US credit card for rewards travel. It seems that United requires more miles to redeem flights than AA, but the Chase Sapphire has way better benefits in terms of flexibility and spending. Right now the Sapphire has a 50,000 bonus for signup where as AA only has 30,000. 2x spending for Sapphire on restaurants would be a great way to earn faster, but will I need to earn more miles to redeem flights?

What are your thoughts? Does United really seem to use more miles for redemption than AA? Are there segments where United requires less miles to redeem? My next trip will probably be to Madrid...

IAD-MAD RT...45,000 miles on AA, 60,000 miles on United

Any advice would be great!

garykung

Welcome to FT.

You are comparing apple with orange.

1. CSP is a general purpose reward card (with certain bonus categories). Citi AA is an co-brand card. They work differently.

2. There is a Chase UA Explorer Card available. You may be eligible for a 50K miles offer with $2K spending.

3. There is a 50K miles offer with $3K spending for Citi AA.

4. A single card is NOT enough for an international award ticket (the international definition does not include Canada, Mexico, and certain Caribbean destinations).

5. In many instances, it is not about how many miles you have to spend. It is about if you are able to book your trips with the miles you have. For example, DL's SkyPeso program is unfortunately famous about its difficulty in redemption despite willingness to spend big miles.

NRTBound2015

My quick thoughts:

- The Sapphire does have broader bonus categories than the AA card, so you should rack up the points more quickly with the CSP. As you noted, however, United does tend to be pricier, especially when it comes to premium cabins on partner airlines.

- Do both AA and United serve your most used airport(s)? If, for example, you live in Dallas, you might prefer to earn AA miles over United.

- How much value will you get from the non-mileage benefits of the AA card? If you either rarely fly AA, or you fly it so much that you already have high status, benefits such as priority boarding and free checked bags might not be very important to you.

- If you got the Sapphire, would you only be using the points on United, or could you also get value from some of the other transfer partners (British Airways, Hyatt, Southwest, etc.)?

- Personally, if I were only getting one card, I would get the Sapphire b/c I value the flexibility of having points that can transfer to many programs. Of course, you may weight these various factors differently...

sdsearch

Charts are one thing, actual availability for specific dates is another thing.

Just because that's how many miles the flights cost in theory, if the less expensive one is not available for the dates you want and the more expensive one is, then what?

If you could, I'd thus suggest you get enough miles in both programs, in case one has availability by the time you want to book and the other one doesn't. (Then you'll have miles left over for a second trip on whichever one you didn't use.)

One Citi AA Platinum card, if you've not had one in the past 2+ years, will get 50000 miles (with $3k spend in 3 months), which is more than enough there.

The CSP card (which you should apply for first, if you're going to get both) will get you most of what you need for UA, but not quite all unless you do more spend than just the minimum.

ayee007

Seems like the AA Platinum Card only offers a 30,000K bonus, do you have a link to the 50,000 bonus? For me, I'm not a HARDCORE spender so I probably won't get both cards, not off the bat at least. And two cards with about $100 annual fee would be $200 per year, I dont think I'd spend enough to justify that.

Since I've been out of the states for 5 years and only fly AA back to the states, are United flights readily more available?

EmailKid

Many cards waive the fee for first year.

I just cancelled the Plat card as I was not going to be using it much, but still have the 50K miles in my account (yes, fee was waived for 1st year).

Yes, UA is commonly though to have best availability for reward travel, certainly in US (maybe only the major overseas carriers as I believe Southwest is pretty good).

AA has seasonal rates, so they can be lower on some routes, an IIRC you got 10% of your miles back if you used the card.

Now as to the poster who suggested you may want to focus on flying airlines from their hubs (which many if not most pax do), I have two words:

HUB ATTACK !!!!

I have flown on UA from DFW on some ridiculously low fares when UA would slash prices on some routes from AA's hubs - sometimes for a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days.

And to reiterate, HOW you use your miles is important, as some folks like to use them for longhaul int'l travel, and some for upgrades. I think most of us agree that using miles for domestic travel is not really good value (unless going to a very expensive destination).

garykung

See here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-...ess-cards.html

Next time, read more and search.

No one has ever told you to keep the card.

Yes. But if you fly AA most of the time, then stick with AA.

How much the award costs is one thing. The availability is another thing. Your affiliation with a specific program is another thing.

satman40

I often fly out AA only to return UA, it pays to have both ].

Many times UA has a better award rates, depends..

My flights are to Asia, next month Hawaii AA has a better Award schedule...

I keep them both active

sdsearch

There are several links near the top of the wikpost, which is itself at the top of any page of this thread:
Please note: Wikiposts are not viewable when using the mobile version of FlyerTalk, you have to use the regular "computer" version of FlyerTalk.

Most such cards waive the annual fee for everyone the first year.

Then the second year, you can try (and may very well succeed) at offsetting all or much of the annual wee with a "retention" offer. For Citi cards, the thread covering that is:
For Chase, the thread covering that is:

eajusa

I prefer UA award flights to Europe (fewer miles required).

sdsearch

Actually, only if you can get there on UA metal. At least for business class, UA charges 110k round trip to Europe if flying UA metal, but 140k round trip to Europe if flying only partner metal (but partners may be the only ones with business class availability !). AA, meanwhile charges the same (115k I think) whether you're flying AA metal or AA partners.

ayee007

Thanks a lot!

eajusa

Absolutely correct.