Hello Y'all!

I need help on what new card I should sign up for to make my primary card.

1) Now I am using the Capital One - Venture as my main card and I spend around $600-800 on it a month - primarily restaurants (occasionally a flight/hotel). I get 1.25x miles for it.

2) I also have a Citi Dividend card which I never use (just a backup in case I am stranded).

I just signed up for the Hyatt card for the free nights primarily but don't expect to use it as my primary card (Should I?)

Can anyone suggest what I should make my new primary credit card? It would be nice to get a bonus at signup as well. Is the Capital One Venture my best option?

I live overseas though so I need one with no foreign transaction fees. I have excellent credit score.

Thanks in advance!
Poorbanker

Just to clarify, my Capital One is a venture One card. The one without the annual fee.

For me the two best cards I carry are: Chase Sapphire with Ultimate Rewards, and my work horse is Starwood Preferred Guest Amex. They give me alot of options with hotels and airlines.

If you spend a lot of money on dining out, I say go with the Citi Forward (5% cash back if used to redeem travel-no annual fee) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred for 2x Ultimate Rewards points for dining purchases ($95 fee).

I have the C1 Venture one as well but I don't use it as they don't have autopay feature (or atleast I couldn't find one). With so many cards I prefer not to deal with keeping track of due dates.

I think Chase Sapphire Preferred would be a strong candidate due to no foreign transaction fees. I have used it abroad and the exchange rates you get are very good.

The trio of Chase Sapphire preferred + Chase Freedom + Chase Checking works very well for me. Mommy points has a good blog post about it:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/mommyp...perfect-combo/

Chase UR portal can yield significant points earnings.

Amex SPG is next on my list as well as the Discover more card due to significant savings through Shopdiscover portal at many places. I think they have foreign transaction fees though

After looking at these suggestions - it seems that the Chase Sapphire Pref. is the best and easiest alternative.

But how much of an extra benefit am I getting by switching from Capital One Venture to the Chase Sapphire Pref.?

It seems marginal at best, especially when I also have the annual fee to worry about.

Do you think I should just stick with the Cap. One?

I do like that the Chase cards can have auto pay.

A benefit I see to the Venture card over the Chase is that I can use the points to pay for flights I take retroactively rather than having to deal with scheduling frequent flyer tickets which are a pain.

Chase Sapphire Preferred also has a 50K sign-up and spend bonus if you can spend the $3500 within the first three months. The 50k points can be transferred to Hyatt if you want and that gives you at least 2 extra free Hyatt nights at a Cat. 6 hotel (or possibly more if you go with a lower category). As already mentioned, Sapphire Pref. also earns 2 points per $1 spent on restaurant charges so it would IMHO be a better earning card for you highest spend category.

true, but using points to 'pay' for flights generally doesn't give you as much value as using miles. domestically it can be a wash, but for most international travel (esp. premium) miles will get you further. For example - 120k miles is $1500? in Cap1 dollars to reimburse. Or if it's in United miles, it's a free business class ticket to Asia, which would easily run you $4k+. But if your travel is limited to short-haul domestic, then the points can definitely be a better/simpler way to go.

Thanks.

Do the Chase reward points ever expire? What about the bonus points for sign-up?

never

Thanks for all the help guys.

I think I am going to sign up for the Sapphire card and potentially later the Freedom.

Does anyone earn anything for a referral if so, send me a link and I will sign up under you.

The UR website says you can transfer UR points to certain airline miles programs at parity. You could conceivably get the best of both worlds by using UR directly for domestic and transferring to united or whatever for international. Don't know how long it takes to transfer, though.

Curious to know if you can go the other way, too....

True, so it does give you flexibility. I think the transfer happens instantly. Can't transfer into UR; however, you can combine points from multiple UR accounts/cards. So if you get the Sapphire Preferred and the Freedom, the points can all be combined.

Signed up for the Sapphire and the Hyatt card. Almost got rejected from the Sapphire I think because both Chase, but I called them ahead of time and got them to approve them both.