Originally Posted by
broadwayblue
Ok, that makes sense. It's too bad though, as a HH Visa (at 3 pts/$) would have been a great 2nd card to carry along with my SPG Amex. All too often I get rejected (by the vendor) when I try to place an order on my Amex...and as of now I go to my Citi AA MC. It kills me when I lose out on 50k or 100k Starpoints in one shot. So the HH Amex won't work as a backup, but rather another option to diversify my spending with. Nothing wrong with that.
In this case, you may want to consider the Charles Schwab 2% cash back VISA. You get 2% back straight from all your purchases.
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/...?#cash_rewards
The 2% cash back is roughly equivalent to the
real cost of 1 SPG point or 3 HH points IMO, plus as cash earns interests while points don't, it may work out better for some people. Plus, this card has the benefit of charging 0% transaction fee on foreign amounts, which is another plus in the view of many people.
With this card, what you can do is when you decide you need some HH points; or SPG points for that matter, you can go to the Coupon Connection section of FT, posts an offer for HH/SPG or whatever by offering a FT approved giftcard in return. You will find that most transactions will take place around $0.02 per SPG point or $0.0067 per HH point. However, due to inconsistent liquidity and the timing of the trade, this may or may not hold true and you may be a little patient with such an offer.