I am looking for help choosing the right card/cards that match my spending and reward interests. I am 30 years old and single I make about $130k a year. I live in center city philadelphia and primarily spend money on food and socializing. I spend approximately $3,000/month on credit cards and I do not plan to keep a balance. I am a chronic debit card user but I do have good credit and should be eligbile for most cards. With my new job my travel has decreased a lot however i have a Gold corporate American Express that i can only use for business which i spend about $5k a year on. Right now i have a ton of US Air and marriott points but I will not keep that status going forward.

I did a lot of research and was deciding between Starwood and Hilton because I do travel by car now and can stay in either of those hotels. However I need to use my corpate Amex for the room charge. I read that recently Hilton no longer gives the bonus points for dining which is my major expense. Overall I am looking to accumulate the most amount of points possible and do not care about the interest rate. Can someone provide assistance with chosing between the two or possibly another card that i am not familiar with?

In your opinion what is the best card/s for me?

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Do you earn Membership Rewards points when you use the corporate card? I wouldn't focus on accumulating the greatest number of points, because they vary in value. What type of award redemptions do you value? For example, do you redeem for domestic economy class flights or for international business class; for standard hotel rooms or for resort suites, etc?

Starwood and Hilton won't give you any bonus in the categories you spend in, but like mia said we need to know how you want to use your miles/points.

Starwood is very flexible for airline point transfers. Hilton is not worth transferring to airlines. If you have airline points other ways or don't plan on needing airfare then it doesn't matter.

For me I have the Starwood and Hilton cards but I only use my Hilton. I stay at hiltons regularly for work and pay with my own card so I accumulate Hilton points quickly. When I need to redeem for a hotel I often cannot find a Starwood property close to where I travel but there is always a Hilton property. CHS comes to mind. I go to CHS a lot and there is an Embassy Suites or Hampton Inn right where I want to be while any starwood property is farther north.

ETA: if you are a chronic debit card user, make sure you aren't leaving interest on the table. I hope you have a "rewards" checking account so you are earning at least 3%APY on that. http://www.highyieldcheckingdeals.com/#Pennsylvania

I currently did not sign up for the American Express Rewards for my corprate account b/c my spending has been limited on that card. I would say I want to accumulate points for hotel stays at resorts or international locations. Hilton hotels would honestly be easier for me to stay at when I travel for work but I couldnt use the card to pay the bill.


It seems like the Hilton card would make sense because it is good for redemption internationally and I will stay at that hotel chain for work a decent amount If I use that card for grocerices etc since I get the bonus points for that but what card should I use for dining to get bonus points? I would think I would want to get a card that is more geared to airline miles for that spending??

Why shouldnt I just get a personal American Express Gold Card to compliment the spending I do on my corproate account..approx. $5k a year.

Aside from the annual fee on the personal Amex, you would have to pay $75.00 to inlcude Corp card in the Membership Rewarsd program.

My crop card at work is an (green) Amex but we are not eligible to earn Membership Rewards from that card.

I have a Citibank forward card that gives about 5% on restaurants and books etc (and essentially most of Amazon purchases, e.g. my newspaper subscriptions on the kindle); however its reward is in the form of Thank You Points, so you need figure out whether having that layer is cost-effective for your needs. The forward card has no annual fee.

Since you are located in Philadelphia and have been flying with US Airways, have you looked at some of the US Air affiliated credit cards? One of their professional cards have 2 miles/$ spend for restaurants but it does come with an annul fee.

The Schwab 2% cash rewards card (visa) is very good and I would highly recommend to everyone, you particularly since its nice complement to whichever Amex card you decide to have. You can check many posts about it in a different thread.

[edit to add]: OP, you should read some posts started by "gleff" in the MilesBuzz forum - do a search on "gleff" to find some very useful general advice.

Are there any other cards that have a good restraunt bonus???

Just a general question...why do you see a lot of people with American Express Platinum..i had a platinum card for a while but the points didnt seem to add up for good redemptions..? I spent $150,000 on my amex corporate and bought a bedroom set via pottery barn gift cards but i always felt like those points took forever to add up to anything worth buying.

AMEX Platinum is used more for the benefits of airline lounge access or other program statuses versus the actual points earned.

Doesnt hilton honors have a dining program that is separate that would address the issue noted above about not offering bonus points...appears this program offers additional bonus points. Is anyone familiar with the hilton honors dining probram?

http://www.hhonorsdining.com/howitworks.htm

I use the Citi Forward card for restaurants. No annual fee. Gives 5% back into ThankYou Network, redeemable for Expedia travel and retail/hotel gift cards, among other things.

Anyone have any other good ideas for the best card to use for dining other? Since I am most likely going with the Hilton Honors Amex i wanted to get a Visa or Mastercard that offers a strong bonus program for dining.

Either looking for the best cashback card or a card that is flexible to transfer to airlines or hotels.

This program is operated by Rewards Network. You can link any credit card(s) to it, but you will only earn the bonus at participating restaurants. You should do this, but whatever you earn will be in addition to the points or miles earned through the credit card directly. There are many versions of this program offered by various frequent traveller programs. You can join more than one version, but you can only enroll a specific card one.

http://www.rewardsnetwork.com/dining.html

Anyone have any other good ideas for the best card to use for dining other? Since I am most likely going with the Hilton Honors Amex i wanted to get a Visa or Mastercard that offers a strong bonus program for dining.

Either looking for the best cashback card or a card that is flexible to transfer to airlines or hotels.

I was a big fan of the HH Amex when it gave you bonus points for restaurant purchases. Since the program changed, I have put most of my spending back on my SPG Amex. For me it is the best option with lots of flexibility since I didn't want a cash back card. I would recommend that you search the forums because there have been numerous discussions on comparing the HH and SPG cards. Without any bonuses SPG is the usual choice. If you spend $10k on restaurants that will give you 10k SPG points vs 30k HH points on the Hilton card. 10k SPG points gets you more than 30k Hilton points IMHO but YMMV. To quote another FT member ( I think it's Cheap Elite) "search is your friend" .....be sure to research before you make a decision. Or get both card and use the HH card for bonus categories and the SPG card for the rest including restaurants. (that's what I do and many others here on FT)

Charles Schwab Invest First Visa Signature.

2% Cash Back into a CS brokerage account which you never have to use.

No Fee.

$3000x2.0% = $60/month cash

I think that is worth more than any hotel/miles reward. It's just a little annoying cause you have to transfer the money from the brokerage to your checking. No bid deal though, its free.

EDIT: Just noticed someone already mentioned it.