tmiw

I'm not sure there's much of a difference between Visa Signature/Infinite and MC World Elite, honestly. Different issuers opt into different things as well, regardless of how a card's branded (for example, Chase doesn't offer the Visa Infinite airfare discount for the CSR while CNB does). However, you do have a point in that the higher tiers are more likely to require an AF.

Also, if it matters to OP, the Savor only has secondary CDW coverage.

darthbimmer

If the UR travel portal were useful to us we'd likely keep the CSR, too. We consider it worthless because we've found the prices there jacked up over best available rates numerous times, by enough of a factor to negate the bonus on redeeming UR points there vs. taking them as cash. We seldom waste our time even checking anymore when planning travel. How does the portal fail to meet your needs?

Happy

Yes, I basically value the UR pts at 1cent Cash Value, with the occasional usages of transferring to partners.
It is also no longer worthwhile with UA due to the continuous devaluation of its program, either by the chart (the most recent one was on Nov 1st) or by changing the routing rules / option to pick your own route versus what is dissed to you on its site. (pick your own route via multi-city would make the award priced per segment, i.e. each segment is an award!) The WoH is also a form of devaluation so the Hyatt option is not as reasonable as before as well. Not to mention the latest 2 rounds of SQ devaluation within 6 months in this year.,,

While this should have been in the CSR cancel or renewal thread, I would give you the reasons why the UR portal is worthless to us.

The portal fails in the following areas
1) jack up prices that makes the advertised 1.5 deceiving as in reality it is only 1.1 to 1.2. It does not worth it to go thru an OPAQUE booking especially with hotels that I have no direct control.

2) cannot find airfares that include checked bags on international carriers that the onboard bag often is limited to 7kg. After purchase add-on checked bag fee negates most of the "saving" using UR protal.

3) cannot find the lowest fares offered by airlines itself on the airlines own sites. This happened with UA this year.

4) hotel booking is the worst as it is totally opaque - you dont know which OTA the hotel is booked thru, though Expedia is used the most per DPs. Enough horror stories including my own, means you have to call the property to make sure your booking is in the property's record. Else you may find yourself standing at check in without a room, or being walked. This type of foul up does not limit to independent properties (as in my case, the owner basically ignored the "confirmed" booking by not answering my repeated attempts via emails to confirm the booking), it also happens with chain hotels, especially sold out properties that no longer accept booking when UR portal continues to take bookings. Someone was walked at an airport Marriott because of that! His booking was NEVER accepted by the property. Expedia knew about it but NOBODY ever contacted the poor guy who found out he had no room after a long flight.
I also found out that the UR bookings thru the OTA are not a seemless process. It is sent to the OTA via fax, despite the fax is handled by system, not a manual fax. Based on my experiences with the cruiselines, if there is a glitch in the receiving end, the fax is forever lost. (the latest case is Princess told me they have not been able to receive any fax the past 4 days due to the system having issues. They do not know whether the incoming fax are in the memory or never ever arrived, when I checked whether they had received the CCL shareholder proof fax I sent on Monday, they told me the ongoing sob story. So I imagine if the communication between Connexions the company handles Chase UR booking as well as Citi TYP booking, and the OTAs used is relying on fax via computer, the communication can be down without anyone knowing it for a while. That means the UR bookings are not reliable and it is upon you the user, to make sure your booking is indeed confirmed by the actual service provider.
I find this is totally UNACCEPTABLE that I need to contact the property to make sure my booking is in the system.

5) the portal is super glitchy and super slow. The blue circle of infinity just keeps circle and circle and circle. The month I used quite a bit search on UR portal, I found my usage of Data on my internet service (Comcast) jumped THREE times!

There are other issues such as the description of the property is different from what it is shown on property's own website, such as room type / size, breakfast, transportation, etc etc.

In short, I dont feel I can rely on the portal. The customer service support is also much less than desired. When there are problems I found booking.com would stand behind the customers while it took multiple calls and multiple supervisors to get Connexions own up.

So yeah, no 1.5 value to us. For those who vouch on the 1.5x value, good for them. For us, it is a "value" we dont have. So cannot be used to justify the annual fee.

mocarey

I have a Savor Visa Signature card, which was per a product change from a VentureOne Rewards. At the time of the product change I was advised that I would not get the Mastercard version of the Savor card, as the VentureOne was a Visa and they couldn't convert a Visa to a Mastercard.

As a Mastercard version of the card is more valuable to me (for international travel specifically, where I have had instances in South America where my VISA cards didn't always work), I was planning to do a separate application for the Savor card, in the hopes that I would be able to get the Mastercard version of the card. At some point, I plan to cancel the Savor Visa version of the card. I'm not sure if Capital One would allow this. Any thoughts or experience or DPs with this?

rasheed

If someone did apply for the Premier Dining card which then became Savor or was able to get in and do a PC before yesterday to Savor, this now became the mic-drop cashback card for entertainment and dining.

I am very impressed the Capital One decided to give the 4% version to its current customers when it could have put them on the current no AF offering.

References:
https://www.businessinsider.com/capi...or-card-2018-8
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/th...eal-2018-08-14

The main reason I got this card is because it was a no FTF Mastercard, and I was able to PC into it, but I will need to put away my Marvel Synchrony card (except maybe for Amazon).

Blind and Green

In addition to the 4% categories, I was impressed with the new $500 signup bonus. Unfortunately, I've had too many Capital One cards to get approved for a new one.

wco81

You'd have to dine out a lot to make up the 4% dining?

You can get 2% from no fee cards so that extra 2%, to cover the annual fee, is about $2000 in dining per year.

Well you can go have about a dozen steak dinners with overpriced wine, I suppose.

tmiw

4% applies to "entertainment" too, which seems to include stuff like video rentals, concerts and sport tickets. I could see the right person being able to spend that $2000 in a year.

wco81

Well if you could put your cable and Internet bill on it.

But I use the Chase Ink Cash for 5x UR points on that.

swiftaw

Does anyone know from what date they count the 3 months for the bonus $500? I applied and was approved for the card today, so just wondering when they start the 3 month clock (or do they simply mean in the first 3 billing cycles?)

rasheed

From my experience, the 3 months start when the card is issued and not typically related to billing cycles for Capital One

Non-bonus rebates are earned instantly as charges post and you can see for each transaction if it was in a category bonus earner or regular 1% (no need to wait for closing statement). It takes a few extra clicks to get those screens, but on the summary screen, dining is typically labeled clearly.

inY

According to https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Cre...s/td-p/5374478 , but not the wiki, MCC 7999 "Recreation services (not elsewhere classified)" counts as entertainment. Anybody have more data on this?

rasheed

I had a transaction with this MCC credit at 4% recently.

rasheed

You cannot unfortunately. After the charge posts, you may get a better idea of the type of transaction. Otherwise, you have to contact Capital One for that detail.
There is a Visa website to lookup a merchant MCC that sometimes works as well.

rasheed

Savor added a free 12 or 13 months of Postmates Unlimited. First, I really enjoy interesting offers, but I can't get excited about this one. Here is what I find to be the issues:

Positive:
-Good if you order delivery frequently and are accustomed to paying service fees/delivery fees/tips.
-Good if you are not price sensitive (perhaps OPM or work-reimbursed situations).

Negative:
-Even with the waived delivery fee, there are other fees (high menu prices versus ordering directly)
-If you can pickup your food, this is not a good option.
-The gig economy is not great for those who delivery your food (low pay and sometimes long wait to pickup your food).

I am trying to figure out if I should even look into this program based on how it is currently setup.