Originally Posted by
NationalCCW
What is the best program, Membership (Amex), Ultimate (Chase), or ThankYou Rewards (Citi)?
I am looking for a program where I can earn points and have the freedom to transfer them directly to an airline and pay no annual fee for the card. I know Amex has a no fee card with Membership Rewards. But I don't know if Amex is still the best program to go with so I am asking for opinions.
Ultimately am looking to accumulate airfare to Brisbane for 3 in Business Class. I did this 12 years ago and am looking to start over again.
Thanks
First of all,
forget about Citi TYP. The Citi TYP program does not work like the other two. In the other two, you can accumulate points slowly on different cards, cancel cards, and as long as you one card in the program live, the points can stay alive "forever". But with Citi TYP, the points from a card you cancel "evaporate" 60 days later, no matter other Citi TYP cards you have. Plus Citi TYP has no domestic airline partners other than JetBlue, and most of its airline partners have horrid "hard" expiration policies.) To build up points (at a decent rate) over years, CIti TYP requires that you keep an AF card (with 3x on travel and 2x on dining + entertainment) open for years, even if that means maybe paying an AF each year. (Unlike Amex MR and Chase UR, which have some nice no-AF cards, the Citi TYP Preferred no-AF has pretty mediocre earnings.)
If you want to hold only one card and both earn on that card and transfer directly
at any time, there is no option other than Amex MR.
However, Chase UR is an option if you want to hold no-annual-fee cards (such as Freedom with rotating 5x bonuses and Freedom Unlimited with the consistent 1.5x earning) "always" (which earn but don't transfer) and then only get an AF card the year you need to transfer.