First off, welcome. Second, I agree with you entirely as far as SPG AMEX is concerned. I recently dropped it myself as almost all of my charges are made outside of the US. On the Chase front, if most of your expenses are travel related you will get double UR points if you use the Sapphire preferred card (and you can exchange them for United as well as few other kinds of points). Of course, you will not get the United specific perks the MP card gives you. In any case you can have both cards, and the annual fee is waived in the first year for both so you can decide later which one you prefer. You will find VISA has much wider acceptance outside of the US than AMEX.