Help with my first rewards card
 

Hey, I'm looking to get my first rewards card and any input is appreciated. I currently only have a regular wells Fargo visa that doesn't give me any points/rewards. I'm considering the SPG Amex bc of the 30000pts promo.
My stats:
Spending: 1200 a month avg - gas, restaurants, groceries
Credit score: 750's
Hilton points: 130k
Spg points: 3500
United miles: 30k
Marriott pts: 12k

Thanks!

Share with us some of your travel goals--where do you want to go? Is it just you or along with a spouse/partner/friend? Want to fly coach or first-class? What kind of hotels do you like to stay at--basic, luxury, high end. What airports are near you or where you can easily travel to?

Hey thanks for your questions! It's usually myself and a friend. Coach, I typically stay at budget-boutique-luxury hotels. Flying out of LAX. Would like to explore Asia, S America, and more of the east coast.

The SPG is a good card, for sure. I'd consider as well the Chase Freedom card, as gas, groceries, and restaurants are commonly 5x bonus categories.

In addition, the Citi Forward card gives 5x point on restaurants year round, so depending how much you spend there, that's a good card to always have in your wallet (no annual fee).

I'd say most people will give you this advice for rewards cards to hold on to long term:

Chase Freedom (No annual fee) - 5x rotating categories
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95) - 2x travel and dining, 7% annual bonus
Citi Forward (No annual fee) - 5x dining, amazon.com, itunes
*Citi ThankYou Premiere ($125) - Companion ticket, 15% discount, 1.33x TY value
AMEX SPG ($65)- Most "valuable" points

Most other cards are good, and often recommended for signup bonuses or churning (Citi AA, Chase United/SW/BA, Barclay's US Air, etc)

*The Citi TY Premiere card is only worth keeping IF you use its features effectively. Otherwise, it's good for the signup bonus at least.

Flying yourself and a friend means the TY Premier gains a decent amount of value for domestic flights. Once per year, it gives you a companion ticket for free + taxes + some markup. It's marginally more difficult to book through than, say, Kayak, but in a lot of ways it's similar. If you and your friend want to fly to NYC, for example, and the ticket costs $400 ($300 + $100 taxes), you'll end up paying something like:

$340 base airfare
$100 takes x 2
-----------
$540 for two tickets that would have cost $800 to book. $260 in savings is more than twice the $125 annual fee, so that makes the card definitely worth it.

The best part of it is that it doesn't rely on miles or points, so if you have to buy a ticket because there's no award availability, it's there for you.

I always recommend getting it, playing with it, and if you don't think you'll get the $125 value out of it, cancel in month 11.

Other FT members will have a lot of info for you on the best travel programs to South America and Asia, as I have little experience with that. Chase UR points are often considered the most versatile because you can transfer them to various loyalty programs (when you have the CSP)

Depending on where in Asia American Airlines AAdvantage program is great space on Cathay Pacific if you are going in Coach.

For South America and travel within South America you should look at Avios points or right now get an AMEX Membership Rewards card because they have 40% transfer bonus to BA Avios until 9/27.

From LAX to Peru is 35,000 AAdvantage or 50,000 Avios on LAN Airlines nonstop.

Avios are also good for short-haul flights, in all regions of the world, and could be good for exploring the east coast, Asia or South America.

If you are budget friendly you could get the SPG Amex and use it for their lower tier hotels but it would probably get more bang for your buck if you use them on higher end hotels.

I'd pass on the extra 5K of SPG as it would suck up most of your spend and there are better cumulative offers out there for 5K of spend. - you may need to front load some of your expenses (e.g. prepay bills, gift cards to retailers you use a lot, or xmas spending) to meet this (can your cashflow handle it?), but I'd shoot for the highest yield out there, and do miles>points based on your travel interests.

Citi - 2xAA for 100K miles, $6K in 4 mos.

Chase - 50K - (55K w/auth user) United for 1K spend in 3 mos - again. Good reward/spend ratio. Chase Sapphire Preferred might be interesting if the 40K for 2K offer comes back, but maybe save that for a future set of apps.

Barclay - 40K US Air, first purchase. Why not.

Amex - may the no fee HHonors Amex ($750/3 mos), something that you can hold on as the other cards have annual fees you might not choose to renew and your credit file will need some cards to hold for future seasoning. Some one else mentioned a membership rewards card, might be worth a look.

Get SPG next summer if they bump to 30K, or the like.

Thanks for all the info guys, the chase TY premiere definitely has its appeal. If I can get all the 30000 spg Amex points by 9/27 I'd be able to transfer to avois and get a 40% transfer bonus? That sounds like a flight to s America! Do the have that promo often?

How valuable are the chase sapphire and citi forward points compared to the SPG points?

SPG points are not Membership reward points. No transfer bonus on SPG points.

SPG and Ultimate Reward (CSP) points have transfer partners, thus more valuable than TYP (Citi Forward/Premeire). Every one has their own calculus for what $ to put on the points.

A few things. The TY Premier is a Citi card (Citi has the Thank You network, Chase has the Ultimate Rewards program). In general, people consider:

SPG points > UR points > TY points, in terms of value. However, the earning rate can more than make up for that. For example:

You said you spend $1,200/mo on Gas, Groceries, and Dining. Let's say (for ease of math), that's:

$600 groceries
$400 dining
$200 gas

On the SPG, that is:

$1200 * 1 point/$ = 1200 points
1200 * 12 months = 14,400 Starpoints per year

On the Chase Sapphire, that is:

$600 * 1 point/$ = 600 points
$400 * 2 points/$ = 800 points
$200 * 1 point/$ = 200 points

1600 * 12 months = 19,200 UR points

On the Citi Forward, that is:

$600 * 1 point/$ = 600 points
$400 * 5 points/$ = 2000 points
$200 * 1 points/$ = 200 points

2800 * 12 months = 33,600 points

So, many would still argue that 14K Starpoints are more valuable than 33K TY points, but, what I'm trying to demonstrate is the value of making sure your spend that qualifies for a bonus category ends up in one.

Add in the Chase Freedom card that has rotating categories (often with gas or groceries), and you can see how you can earn a lot of points fast.