Originally Posted by
Churnman
Help me understand why I should value this card beyond what I have or in complement to. Also, wish the sign up bonus was a little more enticing.
I already have Ink and Sapphire for UR.
I have Arrival for 2% on any spend. Why would I put spend on a 1.5% when I can put it on a 2%? Show me why I might want 1.5% in UR instead of 2% Arrival. I currently do the most of my non-cat spend on the Arrival and then use those points for various travel needs especially for lodging not affiliated with a program (for instance villa rentals). I'm open minded so appreciate ideas on making the 1.5 card more valuable via points transfers. I mainly use AA for award flights and for hotel programs: Marriott, IHG, SPG and Hilton. Most of the time I find myself just cashing out UR even though that's just 1:1. Inspire me.
I think the difference is that UR points can be transferred to miles on freq flyer programs. On my last trip to Hawaii-Japan-South_Korea-Los Angeles, I transferred 360,000 UR points to United to get 3 round trip business class tickets. The same amount spent on the Arrival will get 480,000 miles so it will be $4800 to spend on the tickets. I don't think it will be near enough to get 3 business class tickets.
Since then United is increased the points needed.. so it is more like 480,000 to get 3 business class tickets. It will be like $6400 on Arrival. I still don't think it is enough to get 3 tickets... but maybe 2.. if on discount? I am getting really tired of searching on United and not finding any saver award. Maybe I should switch to arrival...