highops

It ruins birthdays and Christmas and the like.

lkar

Shouldn't there be a caveat here though? There is nothing that obligates Chase to continue to have a policy to pro-rate fee returns for product changes. It could change that tomorrow -- or, at least I assume Chase could change it reasonably easy (I'm not a banking regulations expert). For that matter, it could change the 60-day rule for product changes. Or, it could simply decide to no longer allow any product changes at all for the CSR, and just allow cancellations, which would leave everyone who had held the card for more than 30 days hoping to use this method out in the cold.

In the end, for anyone who has $300 in expected travel expenses between mid-December and the next annual fee, the risk here is relatively modest -- it's capped at $150.

But it does seem worth mentioning the risk here -- you have to hope that current policies both with respect to product changes and with respect to pro-rated refunds for product changes survives until after the annual fee credit posts in December.

A less significant risk -- is that Chase will start to enforce the 1-2 month time provide the statement credit on travel expenses. It certainly wouldn't be unprecedented for them to do so in the industry. Amex recently greatly extended the time for points reimbursement on their too-good-to-be-sustained 2 cent per point Amex Business Plat redemptions. Again, this is not a huge issue, but at $37.50 each month one has to wait for the travel credit to post, it is not insignificant.

txpenny

For $75, it's hardly worth the effort. Every 5 years we will use this card to renew GE for one of the utes - so now it's a $55 card vs. AU. So far, PP has not been a benefit to her, but she does have some international trips on the horizon so that might change.

jjmiller69

That's pretty much how my Wife and I figure it too. We have used PP ~ 10 times since we had the CSR.
Chase will also have weeded out all the churners with no bonus offers this year.
I also think that like her Bold card, next year there may be a retention bonus. She get's one every other year on her Ink Bold even though she only had ~$2500 spend last year.

Troopers

Easy decision for churners to dump card and re-apply in ~12+ months for the bonus.

borgdrone

Hi Everyone,
I just got charged annual fees on sep 1st.
Any chance i can take advantage of next years travel credit before i downgrade to chase freedom?
When would be the best time to downgrade, so that i can take advantage as well as save on the annual fees?
Thank you
Borg drone

mia

Assuming you already used the 2017 credit, you will be eligible for the next credit after your December 2017 statement is generated.

Discussion here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...el-credit.html

Happy

If you are not in an immediate need to book your travel, why not just park the UR pts in one of the now fee cards such as Freedom, Freedom Unlimited or Ink Cash? Then later get a fee-based UR card (can be done via upgrading?) to regain the transferrability.

I agree on the Hyatt proposal. Do check the Hyatt charts to see if the locations would work for you because its footprint is not large. The value is biggest at 8K especially airport / downtown properties, then 15K would be where the value proposition starts to decline.

For KE, isn't it charging YQ? Also KE is very restrictive on redeeming for passengers other than yourself. Basically you need to send in documents to prove the relationship defined in its "family tree" in order to be allowed to redeem for the family members. GF or BF is definitely out of luck here IIRC.

Happy

What jamesteroh means probably is for people to calculate how much withholding is needed based on their filing situation, and just have enough witholding on their paychecks instead of overwithholdings to cause a refund big enough to meaningfully pay down your debts. He does not advocate underwitholding, as a former CPA I fully see where he is coming from.

It also never ceases to amaze me how people are so joyful to get a tax refund check which is their OWN MONEY that are loaned to the government interest free... Some people KNOW that but they view it as a mechanism to FORCE them to save, else they would spend that money carelessly. I can see that part of human nature too, as long as they would not spend more than they have to incur debts and use the refund to pay it down, but with the refund as a forced saving.

nastar1

Called Chase regarding CSR annual fee.
She went through the benefits and quoted this article
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/09/fir...phire-reserve/



Of course no offer for me

RNE

Yeah, a phone call to save $75 is an onerous burden. You're right.

RNE, noting in passing that an AU gets his/her own PP card.

edealinfo12345

1) Once you cancel the Sapphire card, isn't there a waiting period before you can apply for another Sapphire?

2) Will Chase in future prevent the transfer of points from a Freedom card back to a Sapphire Reserve card (in which case you would lose the bonus 50%?)

Need

This is why I am transferring my points from Freedom and FU cards to the CSR every month now. I used to do it only when I wanted to use the points.

Happy

1)

I thought downgrading is not forbidden? Only applying a new Sapphire card is?

2) is always possible but that is assume the 1.5 travel redemption value is always there, AND you can use it effectively. And you would keep the CSR. If you do not keep the CSR, then this is a moot point even in theory.

It is YMMV but we have found the 1.5 travel redemption is only good in theory but a very hit and miss / frustrating / failure experiences in the few occasions I tried to take advantage of it. So to us, the UR pts literally only worth 0.01 guaranteed value as we always see it this way.

You can read my horror story posted in the Sticky on redeeming an accommodation as well as the latest one posted by someone suffered similar fate at Bahamas on last minute booking. (mine is not last minute but the experiences from years of travel tell me something is very fishy in that UR booking.)

txpenny

For me, it's not that important. Clearly for others it makes sense to downgrade and go the AU route.

Give it a rest.