Hello,
I recently found information about the world of credit card points and miles. Though I don’t travel often, I thought it would be smart to get a couple credit card bonuses for my upcoming trip (Oct 11-14).

Originally I got the Chase Sapphire Preferred card because many websites mentioned it was a great card for someone new to credit card points. The bonus offer was solid and we already reached that offer with our initial spend. My spouse doesn’t have this card. The plan was to maybe use this card for our flights.

And after looking at the hotel options for our trip and hotel credit card offers we decided the Hilton Amex Surpass card would work well for us, for at least this year’s trip. They have good local hotel choices, a great intial bonus offer and we instantly reach Gold status with Hilton. We reached the original spend amount bonus for one card and should hit the required spend amount for the other card in about a week.


looking at the uses for the Chase card, which has a good transfer to some hotel chains (but not Hilton), I realized it would be smart for me to join a community so we could make good use of the current points and also make good decisions getting the next cards.

for now it appears Chase has the best transfer to United, which is fine for our domestic flights. And since we likely won’t have enough points for 2 round trick tickets, we will pay cash (on our credit cards) for the difference.

and then we will combine our Hilton credit card points to use for a Hilton hotel at our destination and again pay cash for the difference.


how does that strategy sound?

do we have time to get another new credit card and obtain a significant intial bonus offer before the trip? If so, what should we also add?

thanks in advance to anyone who can help this newbie!