Hi there,

After reading through this site and some others, I've realized that my credit card strategy could use a LOT of revision. I currently have 2 cards: a Merrill Lynch Visa, and a Chase Sapphire. I picked the 1st because it was easy to get as a first card, the 2nd because a co worker recommended it. Didn't strategize much either time.

I'm thinking I need to shift around my spending to be more strategic, but can't figure out what to do. It seems like it makes sense to get a new card to replace the ML visa, but don't know which direction to take. I'd appreciate advice! I'm considering the SPG AmEx, the AmExGold, or a cash back card. Here are some details about me to give more context.

Spend: About 1,200 personal per month, paid in full. I currently use the Sapphire for business expenses only, and that ranges from $0 - 2,500 depending on how much travel I do. My personal spend is pretty much bills + groceries + dining out + cabs/bus. I don't buy gas.

Travel habits: I travel for work, but my schedule is pretty unpredictable. I've spent 12 hotel nights so far this year and expect another 6 nights before the end of June. Past that it's anyone's guess, but I will definitely be on the road again. For personal travel I tend to stay with friends or use points- I go for the cheapest properties possible vs. the fancy ones, to save points. I am a SPG gal, though I sometimes get stuck elsewhere if SPG isn't available. I am currently SPG gold and expect I'll maintain that this year through work travel. I tend to fly American, though again, sometimes end up on Southwest or Delta depending on flight options.

I don't have a specific trip or points goal in mind, so I'm finding it hard to evaluate which card is the best bang for my buck. I know I already have enough miles for one flight I need later this year, and will probably want to use miles/points for an international vacation, but haven't decided where I'm off to yet. I do worry a bit about the fact that SPG doesn't have as many value properties, and is more limited in its spread, because it's sometimes harder to find a cheap SPG property vs. something like a Marriott.

Ok, sorry, that was a lot! But I'd appreciate any tips you have about how to pick rewards vs. cash back, and then from there, which rewards or cash card seems to make sense.

If you don't have a specific goal in mind, the Sapphire Preferred is probably a good place to start. You aren't committed to an airline, so there's flexibility in what you use the points for. Also double rewards on dining/travel. Not sure what the best offer is right now...40k I think? Also getting the Amex SPG wouldn't be a bad idea...the cash+points option allows you to really extend the value, and you can always transfer the points to an airline if you aren't going to use them. They'll build up nicely if you're staying at SPG properties as well. [I think this is the only program that lets you transfer points to American, although I might be forgetting something?] And of course there's the Citi AA cards, which is a quick way to build up miles on AA but aren't the best for everyday use.

the cash back vs. rewards question is really up to you. For example, the Amex Blue Cash does 6% cashback on groceries, which is better than pretty much anything else. But, if you end up using rewards for premium international travel, the 'value' can often be much more than that. Me, I'm much more interested in traveling fun places than I am in getting a few hundred cash back, but that's my situation.

Anyway, if you decide to go for the Amex SPG card, send me a PM and I can give you a referral - 25k pts.

Hi Flygirl.

I would echo Dagaetch comment's. I'm in my early 20s but have been at points came since I was 16. So if you are new to this whole thing then I would get the following cards (albeit not at the same time if you are worried about your credit score).

1) Chase Freedom: I love this card for the 5% cash back categories. You can get 5% cash back on up to $1500 worth of purchases (7500 points) in each quarter. The categories change each quarter. Right now they are supermarkets and movie theaters. It's a really easy way to earn points. I believe there are sign up bonuses for 20000 points. It participates in Chase Ultimate Rewards.

2) Chase Sapphire Preferred: This is my default card for pretty much all purchases in Food and Travel and anything foreign. 2% cash back on Dining and Travel and this includes everything from a fast food chain to fancy dinner and cabs to trains and rental cars. The fee is waived for the first year. The best sign up bonus right now is 40000 points. This also participates in Chase Ultimate Rewards. And if you have this card, then you can transfer your points to a variety of airlines and hotel programs. The best thing, is that if you have the Chase Freedom card as well, then the points you earn on that card you can transfer to your Chase Sapphire Preferred and then transfer those points to airlines and hotel programs as well.

3) SPG Amex. This is a good intro card for Amex, especially if you only stay at SPG properties. Then the points will really start to build. For having the card, you get SPG Preferred Plus status, which is basically gold without the possibility of an upgrade. The Cash and Points option is the way to go here. You can easily get 4-7 cents/point using this method, so it's really lucrative. Also, Amex does some great promotions with this card. They recently put on an event at Tribeca Film Festival for people who had this card. $70 for an open bar, food, a movie, and a discussion with the movie's creators. You can transfer the points to a variety of airlines and programs at a 1:1 ratio, and for every 20K points you transfer, you get a 5K bonus. However, I still think the Cash and Points option is the way to go if you stay at SPG properties a lot. You will also get 2 stays and 5 nights toward elite status in case you are aiming for SPG Gold or Platinum.

Happy to shoot you over a referral for the SPG Amex card, just send me a message.

Thanks a ton to both of you for your help! Sounds like I ended up on a good thing with my Chase Sapphire card even though I picked it blindly. I didn't even realize the 2x travel points applied to cabs... I definitely need to switch to using that as my everyday card!

I'll have to do some research into the cash back options you mentioned vs. the SPG AmEx. The idea of cash back is incredibly appealing in theory- it seems logical in many ways to get cash back vs. points toward an awesome vacation I don't technically "need." But man... I love awesome vacations

Do you have the Sapphire or the Sapphire Preferred card? They're slightly different (https://creditcards.chase.com/sapphi...ds-comparison/); most important difference is, only the Preferred lets you transfer rewards to airline/hotel programs.

Thinking more about cashback, over time, it's probably more value than the miles you'll earn from spend, at least assuming the categories work for you. BUT, the sign up bonuses on miles cards make up for a ton of cashback dollars. So again...what's important to you there's also a stage of life question; I imagine that cashback will be much more valuable to me when I have young kids and am not able to travel as much, whereas right now travel opportunities matter more. That's the nice thing about this - you aren't locked into anything! You can always get a different card later.

Luckily I have the Preferred, so I do get to transfer points to miles. Whew!

I guess the temptation of cash back is that it's cold hard money to plump up my account for needs like groceries vs. working toward a vacation I technically don't HAVE to take. it sounds like the practical choice, albeit the less fun one. But even though I don't have concrete travel plans, the idea of working toward a cool hotel or flight is incredibly appealing. I guess it's a matter of funding everyday life vs. aspirational benefits? (Sorry, I work in marketing, I can't help but analyze my own consumer behaviors!).

While I'm at it, are there other points cards I should be looking at besides the Chase and the SPG AmEx? I've heard some chatter about a Capital One Mile One card (or something like that).

This is getting me excited about playing with points!

It's definitely a "cash now" vs. "potential fun travel" debate, and that's just a personal call. There are some ancillary benefits of other cards; for example, the SPG card gets you further on the way to status levels, some airline cards give you lounge access, etc. Based on your travel amount, though, I'm guessing those are of low value to you. It's also worth remembering something I occasionally forget, which is that just because you may not have the points to go on a trip, doesn't mean you can't decide to pay for it with cash! Especially if you're willing to fly coach and watch for great deals, amazing travel experiences don't have to cost a lot (relatively).

There are a bunch of other cards out there. The Capital One Venture card was a big thing last year since they matched all miles earned; this year, the program was changed and ended up not being a good deal (for most people anyway). There's the Citibank ThankYou Premier card, which comes with up to 50k points that can be used for cashback or travel purchases. If you do a lot of online shopping, you should also look into cashback portals for more savings.

Ha, you're very right- I could definitely use the cash back to fund future travel. Somehow the cash going into my bank account feels practical, even if I then took it out for trips later. The illusion of miles-funded trips being "free" makes it more appealing, I suppose, than having saved cash to use. Since I can't really predict the value of money vs. points for a hypothetical trip, looks like I'll just have to make a decision!

For hotels, I suggest using Priceline whenever possible. Although you won't get points, and can't redeem points, the savings can be huge.

For business travel it's not as great, because you won't get points or upgrades, and very few companies will give you a medal for getting a $150 hotel room for $60. But it's definitely the strategy of choice for personal travel.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onlin...ng-primer.html

That's one of the best things about the Chase UR program. The points are in cashback form unless you decide to transfer them. My girlfiend had ~60K points in her UR account, and was looking for a coast-to-coast trip over Christmas for two. The cheapest we could find was $579 per ticket, but using award travel on UA, I found the same flights for 25K miles RT each. She was able to transfer 50K UR points to UA and book $1160 in airfare with it. 2.32cpm is significantly better than cashback (pretty much locked in at 1cpm)!

One thing to take into consideration when making your decision is how much discretionary income you have. If you don't have excess cash to spend on trips, and plan to count entirely on rewards/CB for travel, then maybe sticking to CB is the best option, because you can always use it. If you have finance some trips yourself, then you can emphasize rewards more and use those for the trips that have award availability (and maximize redemption value, like my parents did).

Thanks again to everyone for your help!

Roki, very good point about UR cash back- I could always do that if I bought my travel in other ways and wanted some extra cash. I don't technically NEED the cash to get by, it's just that my practical brain says that extra cash in the bank is never a bad thing. It sounds more concrete than hypothetical trips I hope to take. But I probably WILL end up taking a couple trips this year, so the flexibility of UR is very cool. It's good to know that United is a great redemption value. I never fly United, since I haven't been able to for work and most of my personal travel in the past few years was actually branched off from work trips. But since I can just transfer UR points to United, seems like I'd be able to pull something off! Without status but hey, whatever, I'll take what I can get.

Redtop, I will definitely need to give Priceline a try, that article was very helpful. I usually try to stay with friends or get uber cheap hotels off of sites like hostelworld, but that doesn't always work! Another trick I do is to just stay by the airport if I get in late at night since the airport hotels are always fewer points to redeem vs. a city center hotel. Not a big deal to lose 4K spg points.

I'm thinking maybe I do the spg amex but only use it for hotel stays at SPG + whatever it takes to hit the amount to get my sign up bonus. i'd make sure that spend was in categories that doesn't get me extra stuff through Chase, so basically not dining or travel. I appreciate the referral links but actually already had one I promised to use if i signed up.

All your help is very appreciated. As you might have guessed, I'm not looking for the most luxurious perks, though I definitely wouldn't turn down suites or first class seats. But I'm also not about to spend more points to get a better ticket- even if the incremental value is amazing, I'd rather save my points! I'm young, I'm still ok with "roughing it"

My mentality exactly! My problem is that I'm already borderline overextended for my spend levels with:

Chase Freedom
Chase UA
Chase WN/Southwest RR
Citi TY Premier
Citi Forward
Citi AA
US Air
AMEX MR

I want the AMEX SPG myself, but that's just way too many programs. I'm probably going to close out the US Air, Chase SW, and maybe AMEX PRG, and just get the SPG. There's a few hundred dollars of annual fees represented in the cards listed above.

If you travel American a lot, the Citi AA card might be worth grabbing, as well. $95 annual fee, but if you don't have airline status, the free checked bag makes up for that with 2 flights annually.

Hi. I don't mean to thread crap, but I'm in the same boat as the OP. I just applied for UA Explorer to fill up on my current united account. What should I plan for in the future months?

I currently have the UA Mileage Plus, UA Explorer and Citi Forward. Is the normal waiting period for a chase app around 60 days? My honeymoon is in September so I'm trying to get as much freebies as possible without incurring additional cost. Thanks.

Roki, I see why you don't want any more cards. I only have 2 right now, and don't plan on adding many more. I know I'm somewhat losing out by not churning, adding more, etc but I also know I'm likely to lose track of all those accounts! Don't want to take that risk.

I do have status on AA luckily, so those benefits aren't as necessary. I recently got demoted to gold from platinum bc I traveled more at my old job, but I still get security privileges and free bags so it's not the end of the world.

Found some good calculators for potential rewards, such as http://milecards.com/12/mile-credit-card-calculator/

However... am struggling to figure out if I'd spend enough in year 2 of these cards to make the card worth more than the fee. I'm playing with different scenarios of how I'd split the spend on the cards, but am not 100% sure how to figure it out. Any tips?