Engagement ring = Best way to earn miles/points?
 

Hi All,

Been following FT for a long time. Love this forum.

So I'm finally taking the dive and have been shopping around for an engagement ring. My budget is around 35-40k. Been going to local jewelers and looking online at Blue Nile and James Allen. So I was thinking, with such a big purchase, what is the best way to earn miles or points? I currently have the Amex Platinum, Amex Blue Cash, and Chase Sapphire. I travel mainly on AA, Delta, Cathay, and British Airways. I love starwood hotels also. Anyone have any good strategies? Thanks for any advice.

don't get married and apply for the cc yourself. you will have 40k to spend.

Welcome to FT!

Congratulations first of all! With any B&M purchases, you're likely to only get the 1pt/$1 redemption rate. However, looking on line, you could make the purchase with your chase sapphire card through the UR mall at blue nile at 3pt/$1 for 100-120k points. Also, Citi Thankyou mall has the same offer, so depending how soon you're looking, how much effort you want to put in, etc, citi MAY be offering TYP transfers to BA starting 4/1, and 120k BA miles is a nice perk. That would require a citi TY card though, and one with a giant limit to boot. Depending what you want to do, of course, will change what gives you personally the best value. All things equal, though, I think the Blue Nile purchase through Chase UR mall might give you the most value.

If you have $40K to spend on an engagement ring, why bother with the points? lol jk :) Congrats tho!

You can use Chase Sapphire and get a 7% rebate next year on this 40K purchase, which in turn can be converted to BA Avios points. Or, you can apply for a new card with high spending requirements and use it for this purchase.

:D That 40k would provide for quite a few flights and *wood hotels.

I think there's 2 ways you could go about it, 1) apply for 4-5 cards with good bonuses and have the jeweler split the cost between the cards so you meet the minimum spend on all of them instantly. 2) Depending on how flexible your jeweler is you could do the same 4-5 cards, buy gift cards through stores or portals with bonuses and then split up the cost. In this scenario you should probably be shopping for a patient jeweler as well as a nice ring! :D

EDIT: If you choose the BA Card from Chase, you could put 30k on it and get a companion ticket. This was mentioned in the hailstorm thread a few days ago.

Are you willing to apply for a new credit card? The Amex SPG may fit your needs but you would obviously need a sufficient CL to put it all on 1 card. Amex often requests a financial review (form 4506-T) for CLs exceeding $25K. There is currently a sign up bonus of 10K Starpoints after 1st purchase and an additional 15K Starpoints after $5K in spending. You earn 1 Starpoint per dollar which can be exchanged 1 point to 1.25 miles to over 30 different FF programs as part of the SPG program.

Here's the link to the offer: [Moderator edit to remove broken link]

Not sure about Blue Nile but I know James Allen gives a discount on bank wire payments and requires them for high value purchases.

To be honest in this case I would not use a credit card for the purchase. Assuming you're going through a dealer face-to-face you can probably ask them to give you an extra 2-3% of the final sales price if you pay in cash, that would net you close to $1000 probably.

That said SPG points are not a bad way to go. This all assumes you have a credit card with that kind of a high limit or you can prepay one.

EDIT: Ha, TangoPudding you beat me by 1 minute!

You could get an amex card.

On the amex shopping portal, you get an extra 6 points per dollar when shopping on bluenile.com. I got the stone for my wifes ring from there (about 11K) and the extra amex points were certainly useful. That means, for a 40K ring, you can get 280,000 points which translates into 140,000 SPG points with the bonus going on now, or 5 business class roundtrip tickets with air france when they run their 50% off award sales (every couple of months). Thats also 2 around the world tickets in business on * alliance when transfered to Air Canada. That seems like the best bet for me.

There's a limit on the number of MR points you can earn at BlueNile.

Question
 

Has she actually said yes yet?

I'd just like to add to the conversation, that a high credit limit is not needed. Just pay the bill in advance. If you have (say) a $5000 credit limit and want to buy a 40K ring, just send the credit card company $35K the week before.

Similar limit applies at Ultimate Rewards Mall:

Yea, there seems to be a cap at AMEX, AA.com, and ultimate rewards mall at $12,500. Someone know a work around that cap?

but 4 rings!