Originally Posted by
ZNPmountain
I don't have any miles with anyone currently, so I don't have any loyalties. I was convinced the Arrival would be best, but once you take into account utilizing the Freedom's rotations and shopping through the UR mall, are the 2.2 miles from Arrival really better? Or is Barclaycard's rewards portal just as good?
Basically, if I were to spend the same with both, which one would end up letting me travel more for free?
Lastly, here are some travel goals if this also helps:
We are going to lay low a couple years (not fly much). Most of our vacations involve driving and camping somewhere. But, I'd love to save up to do about 3 trips to Europe and 1 to New Zealand eventually. I thought United would be good for getting to Europe. Closer to home, I'd like to get to the Virgin Islands, Hawai'i, and Alaska.
Which city do you fly out of? That might come into play depending on if you're not OK with doing multiple connections to get to your destination. For example, I'm based in NYC, so I can fly non-stop on United to almost anywhere. However, if you're based in Kansas City, you'll likely have to connect to a US departure city first, and then possibly again when you land in the European city serviced by the airline.
But without knowing everything, I'd suggest the following:
1. Apply for both cards at the same time. You should be able to hit minimum spend requirements on both within 3 months.
2. After hitting minimum spends and earning your sign up bonuses, either (a) pick just one card to focus the rest of your spending on or (b) actively use both cards and pick based on the category (restaurant, gas, etc)
3. You can use many different Shopping Portals, including BigCrumbs, TopCashBack, Ebates, etc. which are not affiliated with any banks/credit cards. You will earn money back, not points, but they may be better for your needs (especially since they don't require you to have or use that card).
4. Think about a hypothetical $1,000 US-Europe round trip economy flight.
Excluding the sign up bonus, a Barclays card would require $50,000 in spending to pay for that using their points. (Remember you actually only earn 2.0% per dollar spent and later get back an additional 0.2% after you redeem)
However, if you choose to use Chase UR as a cash redemption at 1.25 cents/pt (need 80k UR points), Sapphire Preferred is either $40,000-$80,000 depending on your spend categories.
If you transferred to United Airlines, then you'd need 60,000 UR points, which is $30k-$60k of spend. But then you'll be limited by Award availability (which can be a big deal if you're not flexible on dates or # of connections).
Overall, if you wanted to keep things simple (easy), go with the Barclays card.