Currently I have a couple of various cards I do not use, and then an AMEX PR Gold that is used for just about all my wife and I's spending. Love that we get 2x on gas, 2x on groceries, 3x on airfare, and then 3x through the bonus points mall. We like going to nice restaurants frequently but don't get any bonus points when we use the AMEX to pay.

Doing some research on FT, I've tentatively decided the chase sapphire preferred would be the best choice to get (with 50k point signup bonus) to use for restaurant spend. Main reason is they do 2x points on all dining spend. Anyone out there provide 3x points/miles or more?

My wife and I travel a lot with a couple of domestic road/plane trips per year and usually one week long international trip per year. My goal for rewards is business/first class cabin international airfare or hotel points for stays at nice resorts or hotels internationally. Being able to transfer directly into FF or hotel programs is a big plus.

With that in mind, is the chase sapphire preferred going to be the best card option for dining spend? I'd probably continue to use the AMEX for the bulk of our spend as I like the many options they have for transferring to air and hotel programs. The only other card I can think of that is great for travel is the SPG AMEX or particular airline CC's.

Citi Forward.

https://creditcards.citi.com/credit-cards/citi-forward/

5 ThankYou Points for every $1 spent on purchases at restaurants (including fast food), bookstores, music stores, video rental stores and movie theaters; 1 ThankYou Point for every $1 spent on all other purchases

5,000 bonus ThankYou Points after you make $600 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening

1,000 bonus ThankYou Points when you sign up for Paperless Statements within the first 3 months of account opening

100 bonus ThankYou Points each billing period when you pay on time and stay under your credit limit

Travelocity AmEx 4% in Travelocity credit if you select restaurants as your bonus category.

Are Travelocity points worth $0.02 each?

https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/...&cellNumber=13

2x vs 1x is nearly irrelevant if you use a dining program, where you get 5 miles (or even way more during bonuses) from the dining program itself. Switch even a portion of your dining to particpating restaurants (after singing up all of your cards to one or more dining program), and then you won't care that you only get 1x on the card itself, because the 3 miles, 5 miles, or more will be on top of that. (In each program, you'll get only 3 miles + any bonuses on your first 11 dines in your first calendar year, then 5 miles + any bonuses after that as long as you do at least 11 dines in each subsequent calendar year.)

Well, I see you participate in UA, WN, and hotels. What I described is the way the UA program works (as well as AA, DL, and AS). WN's and HH's earning in their dining programs are a bit different (and IMHO not as good as UA's).

And if you were offered UA's Months of Miles promo, you can ean a bonus on all UA Dining dines (of $10 or more) during the next couple months. (You specific bonus may be different than mine, so I can't tell you exactly what your Months of Miles bonus would be.)

Unfortunately I wasn't offered the UA month's of miles. I am enrolled in the UA dining program, but haven't found it very useful. Most of the restaurants we eat at, or would like to eat at, are not included in the MP dining program. However I did get 22 miles for getting some frozen yogurt the other night

How are the Citi ThankYou points redeemed? I am assuming that you basically pay for travel booked through their site with points at a value of $0.01 per point which ends up being $0.05 per dollar spent at restaurants.

5x points on spend is a great bonus, and thanks for pointing me in that direction to check it out. I still like the transferability of the Chase Sapph to airline programs. I was just running some numbers, and the 5x ThankYou points on dining is fairly comparable in value to 2x points transfered to miles and redeemed for business class international travel. But when I realized that it would be about $120k in spend at restaurants redeem for $6k in airline tickets. That would take me close to 10 years to build up to! With the Sapph PR, I could transfer those to a FF program each year to top off an account that is being build up from multiple sources.

How do the ThankYou points transfer over for hotel redemption? That might be something useful since hotel redemption is a lot less valuable. Is it still $0.01 per point for hotel redemption on the travel site? AMEX gives that for airfare when using pay for points, but their hotel redemptions are worse.

Can you estimate the amount you spend annually dining out? You need to weigh the benefit of the bonus points against an additional annual fee.

All dining including fast food I would estimate at $10k per year. I also think I could lose all that spend from my AMEX PR Gold and still hit the $30k annual spend for the 15k bonus points. My current spend on the Amex is about $4k-$5k per month which covers most bills and all other spending.

I'm pretty sure there's a whole thread on it, but I personally redeem 10k pts for $100 in Walmart Gift cards, and trade those to plasticjungle for $90 cash, making it ~ 4.5% cashback.

I think I will end up going with the Chase Sapph. Figure 10k a year on restaurant spend gives 20k points plus the 7% dividend for another 1,400. The 50k sign up bonus is also a big factor as that is a lot of points. My plan would be to transfer those to CO miles, but I'm not totally sure what is going to happen with that once CO is fully merged with UA since it is MP and United that are surviving. I travel mostly united for work, so having these points to top off that account is enticing. Assuming double points on dining with a $0.03-$0.04 value of miles, I'd be earning a 6% to 8% return. Should work out to a $600+ return per year which justifies keeping it and paying the fee.

This just in...American Express now offers a card with 2X Membership Rewards points for dining, (3X Gasoline) and the same annual fee as Chase Sapphire Preferred:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...dit-cards.html

Wow, look at that timing ! And 3x for gas is a nice boost too. Beats the 2x that PR Gold gives. A combination of this with the PR gold for 3x gas, 2x groceries, 2x dining, 3x airlines, and 3x bonus points mall is pretty juicy.

Wonder if they will have a better signup offer than the measly 5k points they currently are offering?

Another possibility is the Costco Amex at 3% cash back.

Unfortunately this is not the case anymore. It was reduced to 2% at the beginning of August.

Here's a brief description from the Costco AMEX landing page:

Hmmm this seems like a great option.. i'm definitely going to look into this. Thanks for sharing!