Originally Posted by
Laumeister
Thanks for all the useful thoughts here.
Looking into this more, I am now debating between AMEX Plat and CSR. For my wife's work, airline tickets are booked by company, but hotels (no set chain or brand) can be booked ourselves. Which card is better for us in this case? Also, isn't the CSR travel credit better than AMEX plat?
With Citi Prestige you will get 3x on hotels, and you can get 2 free nights per year, if you book 4 nights on TYP portal. Not sure how it codes, but if it codes as OTA, you will get 5x. You can also use Prestige at other OTAs and get 5x for non-chain hotels. For chain hotels I recommend sticking with one chain, and use hotel CC, such as Amex Hilton Aspire, Chase Hyatt, etc. You can also use card which earns transferable currency, such as Prestige, Premier, CSR, Amex Green. New US Bank Altitude cards also look promising. Altitude Connect will earn 4x on hotels, and 5x on hotels booked via USB portal. Details on AC are not clear yet, but Altitude Reserve earns 5x on hotels booked via USB portal, and 3x directly with hotels. You can cash those points at 1.5cpp.