Originally Posted by
SpunkyGD
Whoops, thank you on the formula! I also wasn't aware of the bonus airfare point through UR--is this just a system to find a book flights on the normal market like
https://travel.americanexpress.com/ or is it a bonus attributed on award travel? This is new info!
The UR travel portal is basically a travel search aggregator (like Kayak, Ortbiz, Travelocity etc.) and if you book through it instead of the airline directly you get an extra UR point (so 3.21x effectively on CSP). There have been data points about UR travel portal bookings not counting toward United PQD requirements though (because the purchases code as an OTA), but I haven't had this problem myself. You can't book Southwest flights through the UR mall portal either, which I'm assuming is the same case with AmEx's travel portal.
Originally Posted by
SpunkyGD
Well, it's worth a shot. I'll probably play around with it. Also, the other columns are open to edit if you want to extend this
I've already added a Freedom column on my custom saved copy.
Didn't want to mess with the original. Thanks for putting this together btw!
Originally Posted by
SpunkyGD
Sure, fair enough. I assume this covers both completely non-AF cards, and using cards with it waived during the first year (or waived as a retention bonus). Still, one point of this exercise was to understand a little about the business model, and under what circumstances a fee-based product can still generate a greater benefit under standard usage: for different products, where is the sweet spot for maximum mutual benefit between issuer and consumer over several years?
Makes sense. And spreadsheet users can obviously delete the AF value if they want to see how the math shakes out assuming a waived AF.
Originally Posted by
SpunkyGD
Yeah I missed the boat on the rewards portal. The travel site is a general public-facing service (I think it's just a white-labelled Orbitz for flight at least).
Sounds just like the UR travel portal.
Originally Posted by
SpunkyGD
I'm curious what a good example scenario is? And in the end, bonus rates are probably going to be blown away by how each individual values points. I by contrast am at a Delta/KLM/Air France hub and will be traveling to Euro & SE Asia.
Great conversation, btw. Thank you.
I plugged in my actual spending numbers from Mint.com for the trailing 12 months. I'm not comfortable sharing them on a public forum, but I spend tens of thousands in the categories of dining, hotels, and airfare every year. On the other hand, I spent less than $2k on groceries over the last 12 months (I don't cook much...), which is why the AmEx Everyday cards are of little value to me personally. Even when valuing UR and MR identically (0.02 cpp, a common valuation cited) the CSP+Ink combo prevails in my case.
Yes, great conversation. You're like an MR-inclined version of me haha.