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Old Sep 14, 2012 | 8:18 am
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redtop43
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I am pretty sure that Capital One has some cards with no annual fee or forex fee. But sometimes paying a fee is worthwhile.

Chase Sapphire preferred has no forex fee and 2x points on travel. If you are spending $40-$80K/yr on airline tickets, that's a lot of points for a $95 fee. If you have the option, you can also get Amex Preferred Rewards Gold which is 3X on airfare, but does have a forex fee and the annual fee is higher.

I'd suggest Chase Sapphire because it gives you diversification in transfer partners, i.e. you can transfer to United.

Keep in mind too that your Amex points can be transferred to Air Canada (and some others) and used on Star Alliance flights, or to British Airways and used on Oneworld. Both of these airlines have periodic transfer promotions (the Air Canada is usually late in the year and has a max of 25% of 100K points transferred, so it's not as good as the 40-50% bonuses on British).

CSP points can be turned into cash at 1 cent per point, or used to buy tickets at 1.25 cents. These are still probably less attractive than using them to book overseas premium cabin tickets.

You will find that getting points is only half the battle, redeeming them is the other half. It does take work. I'm not sure why you said "I don't want to redeem points on DL." if you are Medallion on DL, it's probably a good thing, as you probably get other perks even on award tickets. Yes, availability can be tight, but it can be had.

But I have found that point diversification can be very good, i.e. having points that can be booked on all three alliances. (BTW, Chase UR points can be transferred to British Airways also.)
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