Originally Posted by
J.Nash
thanks for explaining that in a way a newbie can understand.
I understand that she rewards points can transfer at a one-to-one ratio airlines. What does that make it a better value than utilizing the Chase portal to book American Airlines flight?
my local airport has many united and American flight options. So either would work well.
and for that reason, my spouse and I are torn between which card to open next. It will likely be the last card we open for a welcome offer for our upcoming trip. Should my spouse open the Chase preferred Sapphire card as I already have. Or should one of us open a United or American Airlines card?
They’re welcome offer for the Chase Chase card is 60,000 points, the United card has 60,000 miles, and the American card has 50,000 miles.
Both the Chase United card and the Citi AA card have minimum-spend requirements before you earn the sign-up bonus. Both cards waive the first-year annual fee. However, the Barclays AA card, which does
not waive the first-year annual fee, has a higher sign-up bonus (70,000 AAdvantage miles), and only requires one purchase of any amount, so you might be able to get those miles posted sooner, and thus have them available sooner for redemption.
Current Barclays offer here:
applyaviator.com
(Most people would happily pay the $99 for the additional 20,000 AAdvantage miles.)
In
some cases, you will get more value by transferring your Chase points to an FFP than by using them as cash through the cash portal. It all depends on what the cash price is for your desired ticket vs. the redemption cost in miles for the same ticket.
As to whether you would find AA or UA miles more valuable for your upcoming trip, you just have to price the awards on both the AA website and the UA website to see what they are currently charging. No frequent-flyer account is necessary to do so. However, if you do decide to apply for an AA or UA co-branded credit card, you should first create a frequent-flyer account, and enter that number when submitting the credit-card application, rather than relying on the credit-card issuer to establish a frequent-flyer account for you.