I've had the Freedom card for about 4 years, and have earned about 110,000 UR points that I'd like to do more with than obtain cash back. Because most of my purchases are on dining (I live in NYC and eat out every night), I'm really tempted by the CSP because it will allow me to boost my dining earnings as well as offer better redemption offers for my points.

However, I'm a single guy and my annual spend isn't that much (about $12-$14K a year, $6K-$8K of which is on dining. I'm really not sure if I spend enough to justify the $95 annual fee of the card. I could go with the regular Sapphire to save the annual fee and still get 2x points on dining, but then I don't get any of the sweet redemption options.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Apply for the CSP, get the sign-up bonus and get the ability to transfer points. Downgrade CSP to CS after 1 year to avoid AF, then apply for Ink Plus, get the sign-up bonus, and retain the ability to transfer points. Downgrade Ink Plus to Ink Classic after 1 year to avoid AF (or get a retention bonus), then apply for Ink Bold, get the sign-up bonus, and retain the ability to transfer points.

Or just pay the $95 CSP AF.

Seems like a lot of hard pulls, no?

Would it be possible for me to cancel the CSP after one year but transfer the credit line to my Freedom (that way even though I am cancelling the card I can maintain the credit line to keep a good utilization rate)?

Whether you spend enough to justify the annual fee depends on how you redeem. If for cash/gift cards, then no, you don't. If you transfer to airline miles and get >1.5cpp, then yes.

But your best strategy, as bribro said, is to get the CSP and its nice sign-up bonus. Keep your Freedom card and use it for the 5x categories. Put everything else on CSP. When your renewal comes up, then make the call of whether you should pay the AF.

You think 1 hard inquiry per year is a lot? If you follow the strategy I outlined you will net 140,000 UR points (easily worth $3,000+ if redeemed properly) over 3 years, in exchange for a 3-5 ding point on your FICO. No brainer. (This all assumes these offers will still be around of course.)

Why not just downgrade the CSP to a CS? You maintain the credit line, improve your AAoA in the long-run, and still have a 2x dining UR card.

I know this is more complicated, but haven't we determined that if the spending isn't on dining or travel, the Freedom wins if you have a Chase checking account being that CSP and Freedom both earn 1x on noncategory spend, but the latter gets a yearly 10% bonus as opposed to CSP's 7%?

At least, that is how I play the two cards together.

Unless your Freedom is a Visa Signature, I would put all my other spending on the CSP because of the return/price protection/warranty/etc benefits. The 3% annual dividend isn't worth giving that up IMO.

I'm more amazed that you live in NYC and only spend about $1k/mo on credit card purchases. Do you contain your cc spend or is that all the spend you can reasonably muster?

The CSP is a no-brainer for you. It is not a long term contract. You don't like it, cancel it before the AF is due (or better yet downgrade it and keep the credit line).

With the current 50K+5K bonus you could be sitting on 165K UR in a few months.... enough for some fantastic world travel experiences, especially if you're single and spend it all on yourself

I don't know, most of it is just dining. And it's not usually more than $20 per night. So like $600/mo dining, $50/mo cable internet bill, and the rest is basic small things like uhh toilet paper.

No/very little groceries because I eat out every night.
No gas or public transit expenses because I walk to work (and everywhere).
No cell phone bill because lol that is the only thing my parents still pay for since we're on a family plan.

Living in NYC isn't as expensive as people think. Most of it just goes to rent [not credit-card-able]. You'd probably spend more on a credit card living in the suburbs (gas, groceries...)

Anyway, the only better card out there than the CSP, given my dining expenses, would be the 5% cash back U.S. Bank Cash+, but I can't seem to get it because it's only offered in branch (not even over the phone) and the nearest branch is 600 miles away!

I think it's been established that the CSP is worth it for the first year. However, your original question asks if it's worth paying the AF for the CSP. Prior to the United, Southwest, and Hyatt devaluations, 2 cents per UR seemed like a pretty reasonable value. Using that number, if you can generate more than $4750 in annual spend, then you are obtaining more than the AF in additional value. You estimate $7200 a year in dining spend, so yes, it would be worth keeping the card and paying an AF.

There's also the additional feature that any points earned on your Freedom are more valuable when you have one of the premium cards.

With all the devaluations, I'm not sure 2 cpp is still a reasonable value for UR points, but the question is what are you looking to redeem the UR points for? Figure out what travel redemption you want to make and then figure out the points costs and the face value. The lower the cpp, the more bonused spending you'd need on the CSP to justify the AF over sticking with the freedom.

This is really the first question the OP should ask himself, before asking whether the annual fee is worth it. The best approach is to set a general goal, like "I want 160,000 points so I can transfer them to United to redeem for a business class award ticket to Asia." Then, based on your spending pattern, the bonuses available, etc, you can figure out the best strategy to get there using the CSP and/or other cards. It might take longer using some strategies, but you incur less in annual fees (e.g., open CSP now, collect bonuses, then downgrade to CS at 1 year); other strategies might get you the points faster, but you end up paying more in annual fees (e.g., to collect the 7% annual bonus, you keep the card open and pay the fee).

To give you an example, in my case, I'm really interested in premium cabin award tickets to Europe or Asia. I don't know where exactly I'll be going 3 years from now, but I know roughly what the cost is in miles. Even though I pay a couple of hundred dollars per year in annual fees to CSP and a UA-branded card, the total amount I have to pay per ticket I ultimately obtain amounts to less than the cost of a comparable coach ticket. But I'm flying in F or J, so it's worth it to me. So I don't worry about "cents per miles" and so on - the ultimate question is whether the cash cost is worth the outcome to me.

Hope your parents have an Ink card to get the 5x UR on cell phones. Better yet, you get the Ink card, pay your parents' bill, and get them to reimburse you. Then you can manufacture some spend on the Ink.

Two recent attempts produced the same answer: Ink Plus cannot be downgraded to Ink Classic because the Ink Classic is an "inferior" card and downgrades are not allowed.

so there's no option to downgrade ? only move credit line to bold? i currently have ink plus and AF is due in Feb. so was thinking to downgrade