EasternTraveler

I got the 529 card but I have not figured out yet to set up a 529 account or how to make it deposit to it, when I do. Does anybody know how to do this?

pinniped

Depends on how many points you have. Visit the SPG board and read up about the program changes. Many (most?) hotels in the system changed categories on Feb 1 - the magnitude of the changes was much, much higher than typical annual "category creep" that all hotel programs go through. This was a major category shift - effectively resetting the entire valuation of the program itself.

Or just go to SPG.com and see how many points Bora Bora now requires (I know there are several props there - maybe one of them didn't change categories).

Note that Starwood is now running promotions like mad - it seems like point inflation is underway. The frequent hotel guest might come out okay - they've offered me double base points and double elite nights for a period, which somewhat offsets the devaluation, although I won't have more than 1-2 stays during that time. It's the credit card user that loses out, because 1 Starpoint is no longer worth near what it was.

Kagehitokiri

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...7&postcount=42

starwood
-best for earning miles with spending, lots of partners, 25% bonus
-best for earning miles with stays, slightly better than Marriott, much better than all others
-most flexible hotel awards (no blackout, upgraded rooms, suites, night&flight, etc)
-most luxury properties that allow both earn/redeem
-NOT good for UA and CO (which are the best domestic programs IMHO, and i believe UA has a number of redemption benefits as 1K, so that is a weakness)

marriott
-comes close to starwood for mileage earning via stays, but not as many partners
-ritz carlton awards

(diners club has better ritz carlton award rates than marriott if youre only using spending, and not stays at marriott properties)

thank you network is also a very strong alternative program, primarily for those who maintain status on many airlines, and whose annual credit card spend is fairly high

jmorgans

Take a look at Citibank Driver's Edge- they are giving 6% on gas, groceries and drugstores for a year, after which it drops to 3% ongoing.

What makes this card even more interesting is that they will pay you a penny per mile driven. In my situation, a gallon of gas is $2.50 and I get 20 miles to the gallon. That's 20 cents back per gallon or an additional 8%- not bad! If you use cheaper gas or have a more fuel efficient car, you can do even better.

farscape

Deleted - found answers under terms & conditions.

Card not as useful for me since I divide my driving among multiple vehicles and the rebates are applied toward vehicle purchase/lease, maintenance or Thank You points not cash.

farscape

jmorgans

I personally have decided that there is no longer one King of the Hill. I am going to choose cash (or Thankyou points) over Starpoints wherever I can get 3% or more as follows:

1) Citi Drivers Edge for supermarkets, gas, drugstores 6% first year then 3%
2) Costco Amex 3% restaurants
3) Chase Freedom 3% for auto-bill of cell phone, home phone, utilities (get to choose 3 of 15 categories). This card I won't even carry.
4) Discover card 5% quarterly promotions
5) SPG Amex for everything else

Also have a drawer full of other cards which will be taken out if the appropriate promotion is comes along...

catonis

What about a card such as Chase Rewards Plus where they claim for 25,000 points you will receive a round trip ticket valued up to $400? It says you can use any major airline with no blackout dates.

RLG

Fidelity actually is one of the easiest firms with which to open accounts. To open the Fido 529 account to which you need to link your card:

1) go to the fidelity site at www.fidelity.com
2) if you already have any kind of account at fidelity, login to the website
3) click on "open an account" in the upper left corner
4) scroll down to "education and custodial services" where you'll see "529 account"
5) click on "open online"

If you've already got a fido account, most of the entries (e.g. ame, address, ssn, etc) will already be completed for you.

Once completed, phone MBNA to give them your 529 account number. They'll automatically transfer your rebates to the 529 at the end of every calendar quarter.

jmorgans

If you are only getting 1 point per dollar spent, you're getting less than 2% back, assuming you get the full $400 valued ticket. Plus, you're at their mercy as far as choosing flights, airlines, etc.

catonis

Is it common to obtain more than 2%?

ILUVCITIBANK

pinniped, well, guess starwood nailed both of us. I am as much embarrassed for friends and business associates I have convinced to use and focus their spend effort to this card...as for myself. If it weren't for the (one) remaining airline partner I can use, spg would have even sunk deeper in the pit for me. I am fairly certain I won't spend much effort to stay PLAT w/ starwood for 2008; earned it the hard way for 2007 (matress run fall, 2006, to make the 2007 PLAT) but have lost my taste for starwood at this point. Like many other - because of their devaluation I am radically shifting my spend over to:

Sams Club Discover (true 2% cash-back rebate, non-1099 reportable (since its considered a rebate), caps only at $1MM total spend (just short of $20K cash back because the 2% tiers up and begins at $10K to be very accurate). Let me be the first to say Discover is a major pain to use, , especially for high-volume spend, and then GE/Discover is even worse in terms of customer service (GE/Discover is behind the Sams Card) and is sadly about 15yrs behind the times relative to other credit cards for some archaic policies I have run into, but over time I will build my credit lines to support the volume I am trying to shift. Again, technically, the 2% kicks in after the first 10K and then stays at a true 2% no matter the purchase (ie none of these drugstores, grocerstore, gas charges only) category.

Link below is the thread I started on the Sams Club Discover card in Feb, 2006. Little did I ever figure this would be my #1 go to affinity card in exactly a year.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...+club+discover

Now, spg/amex comes in second, and USAA's Eagle Points program (modeled after Cap One's program) is third.

Airline-only cards are absolutely sitting on the shelf for me (and I have UA, Continental, several AA, SWA, and US Air cards) now and collecting dust. I, like you, use them only when teaser rate promos come around (which of course does not earn airmiles). Why get boxed in with near-worthless airline-only miles and let the airlines play games w/ miles worse than or equal to what starwood just did via their fiendish capacity controls (AA's milesaaver brought this to light for me a couple of years ago). I am starting to conclude that starwood *does in fact* have de facto capacity controls now emplaced via their unreasonably high redemption rates. Clever implementation since they can plausibly deny that cap controls are in place...but who among us mortals has over 100K starpoints per night for some of their properties ? I call this a de facto capacity control.

My AMEX CENT card, because it feeds into the moribund and near-comatose Membership Rewards program, is now at risk of being downgraded back to GOLD because of the watered-down partners and getting worse by the minute perk package. One surreal thread in the AMEX folder attemps to highlight difference between AMEX PLAT and AMEX CENTURION...and it is laughable how much AMEX has let the CENT perk package slip.

So, 2007 will be an interesting year. Oh, how the mighty have fallen (spg amex) and I am still trying to figure out what/who steps up.

I do admit so some monthly spend on my AMEX/HHONORs card, though I have had a high-end Hilton stay on points in years.

Kate_Canuck

This is a great thread! Mr Canuck and I might be moving to the US (New York) in the coming year, and we'll need to come up to speed quickly on which credit cards will best serve our elite travel addiction. (We're coming from Paris, where about the only worthwhile option is Flying Blue Amex, which allows you to accumulate status miles for purchases.) May I please pose a few questions to the experts here?

1) In addition to the HH Amex, are there any other credit cards that provide the holder with decent elite status/perks with a hotel chain?

2) Are there any credit cards that provide you with elite status/perks (either elite check-in or lounge access) with an airline, e.g. for an extra yearly payment? In Canada (where we're from originally), you can pay a $190 supplement to your Aerogold Visa ($120) and get Bus Class check-in and access to the lounges. Is there anything similar in the US for a major airline, even if it involves paying a supplement for the card? (We have elite status with BA, but no status with *Alliance - so economy class travel for work and play might not be very much fun.)

3) Are there any credit cards that offer readily available, reasonably priced companion airline ticket offers? I used to have a Royal Bank BA Visa in Canada. It was a good value at the time (even though it was expensive) because I was flying BA regularly in J and was able to get a companion ticket in J at least once a year. The availability was almost unlimited. Plus, I got 2x BA miles for BA flight purchases (plus the value of the purchase, plus the regular miles), so I'd accumulate almost a full Y trans-Atlantic ticket for each BA J flight. But companion ticket offers are often next to useless if availability is severely restricted.

Thanks

mia

1. Starwood Preferred Guest credit card by American Express offers SPG Gold status with minimum calendar year $30,000 spend, annual fee $30 waived first year. American Express Platinum charge card provides immediate SPG Gold status, annual fee $300 ($395 as of 5.1.2007) "business" version or $395 ($450 as of 3.1.2007) "personal" version.

2. The American Express Platinum charge card provides access to Delta, Continental and Northwest operated lounges when flying the same airline. Merrill+ VISA (no annual fee) allows the cardholder to choose an American Airlines AAdmirals Club membership -or- a Delta Crown Room membership with a $50,000 annual spend.

3. The American Express Platinum charge card provides international companion airline tickets on a dozen carriers, but these require purchase of a full fare ticket which probably does not meet anyone's definition of "reasonably priced". British Airways offers a similar program through Merrill+ VISA, Diners Club, Carte Blanche, and Chase British Airways VISA, but again these offers are tied to purchase of full fare tickets.

You may wish to visit the Credit Card sections of Flyertalk where these topics are discussed in greater detail.

cloneofsnake

Noob here. I'm doing research on which mileage card to get... so, sounds like SPG was da bomb, but not as good anymore... however... it's still pretty good ~~ and there's no one King of the Hill anymore. Right?

Here's a link to the "Starpoints for Rooms" comparison:
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...omparison.html

Here's a link to its partners:
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...ers/index.html

As far as I can tell, most of the airlines are still doing 1:1 transfer of Starpoints to miles. For example:

American Airlines AAdvantage

With American Airlines, you can transfer up to 99,999 Starpoints® into AAdvantage® Miles at a 1-to-1 ratio. And for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred you'll earn 5,000 bonus Starpoints, which will be automatically added to your transfer. For complete details about the AAdvantage program, visit www.aa.com. There is no minimum point transfer requirement for Platinum members. Gold members have a minimum point transfer of 1,500 Starpoints and Preferred members have a minimum point transfer of 2,500.

Isn't this still a good deal? Besides UA and CO, where else has SPG decreased in value?

For a noob, should I still get this card??

Thanks!!!

AKronin

The Alaska Airlines Visa Platinum and Signature cards both give you one $50 companion ticket per year. I've had no problem using mine so far. AS has a nice mixture of partners, and right now there's a 20K mile signup bonus for the Signature card. I'd be happy to refer you for a 2500 mile bonus.