tennisboy

Debating which card to use in Europe - most spend will be on food. Venture at 2 points per dollar or Chase Sapphire at 2 points per dollar.

Say I spend $1000, that would mean

2000 points with Venture, or $20 off any future travel on the card

2000 points with Chase Sapphire - converted to UA MP - 2000 MP points. If 25,000 points is worth a $500 saver ticket, then 2000 points is roughly $40.

Is it obvious to go with Chase Sapphire here?

Also I'll be at a Marriott so I'm going to use my Marriott Visa to get 5 points/$1 ($1000 - 5,000 points - worth about $50 to me).

Ideas/thoughts?

samdori

Yes, go with the Chase Sapphire. An ultimate rewards point is worth roughly 1.5 to 2 cents each when transferred to UA (could be more or less depending how you redeem them). Capital One points are worth just 1 cent each.

Also, I have heard from other posters that Capital One is ultra sensitive to fraud when traveling abroad and if your account is frozen, it is very hard to unfreeze it again while you are out of the country.

srdshelly

It is not that hard to unfreeze it if you give them a collect call with proper identification. I've done that more than once. But that can be a big hassle depending on where you are and what you're doing when you learn of the problem. I agree that Capital One is ultra sensitive to fraud when traveling abroad, even if you notify them ahead of time (which you certainly must do - can easily be done online). No reason not to take it along, but be sure you have something else in your wallet too.

amolkold

Chase UR points are worth a hard minimum 1.25 cpp so there shouldn't even be a debate here -- 1.25 cpp hard value > 1.0 cpp hard value.

allanfan

how do you get the hard minimum 1.25 cpp?

amolkold

If you redeem points for travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal, they're worth 1.25 cents each, so $625 of travel costs 50,000 points.

Of course, no mileage junkie would do that, but it sets a baseline for how much you should value a UR point.

bluto

Why not bring both? Use the Sapphire on travel and dining spend, use the Capital One elsewhere. For non-dining spend, I think 1 UR point versus 2 cents cash back is pretty close.

FriscoHeavy

Avoid using Crap1 at all cost overseas. Read the complaints about them. They are ultra sensitive about "fraud alerts" and very hard to deal with when something goes wrong. Go with the Chase card all the way.

With that said, I always travel with several cards when traveling in case I run into an issue noted above. That is always the smartest move.

rionio77

I think this is the best strategy. Use your Sapphire on travel and dining, and the Capital One card for everything else.

chelmkamp

I live overseas and travel around the globe. Never had a single issue with using my Capital One, or my Chase Sapphire for that matter. I don't even use the travel notification. I prefer the Sapphire Preferred this year, but Capital One customer service has always been prompt and efficient when I've needed it. The same can't be said for Chase who are conscientious about customer service but hardly ever get it right until I escalate. Citi is actually my most problematic issuer, whose army of marketers manage to reach me anywhere I am -- sometimes at great cost to me -- to try to convince me to purchase worthless and redundant 'insurance.'

It's been said a bazillion times before but fraud protection is all about your profile. Any good card issuer who sees a random overseas charge or an uncommon charge in a kind of place where fraud is high is going to freeze you if you don't notify them ahead of time. Any good card issuer is also going to be damn certain it's actually you who calls them to unfreeze, something that can be hard to do when the caller ID shows you calling from overseas.

IkeEsq

I read on one of the Boarding Area blogs about people in Europe treating the SP card as a debit card because of the way it looks. I don't think there was a problem using it, just required some explanation. One note, however, if you plan to go to any small establishments that take an imprint, might not work so well with SP.

Ike