Peas

I've tried crash coursing the knowledge on here, but after 3 late nights, I'm throwing up my hands and asking for help in directing me in the right direction.

Currently, we have chase freedom w bonus chase acct. Redeemed for the occasional gift card sale or item during reward mall discount on cyber Monday. Aside from that, we redeemed for cash. I see the error of my ways now.

Husband's work recently decided that at least for next year, he should charge and get reimbursed for a lot of business expenses (mostly professional services) which does not fall into any category. We're guessing total spending to average out to 8-10k/mo.

Goal: looking for airline points though preferably not w/ one carrier. If we had to pick a carrier, it would be American. Hotel redemption not a big deal to us.

Currently we have flown 1x/yr as family on various carriers. It wasn't worth it to us to open frequent flier miles account because we had such low to no activity and had no shot of redeeming miles.

So now that we have been enlightened by FT, I looked at the SPG which comes highly recommended here. As I read about it, I'm concerned how it requires one to either have the CC which means continual AF or have activity on the reward acct (we don't anticipate hotel stays), otherwise you lose the points. I wonder if I would feel trapped in the card just to keep the points alive.

Credit card tuneup recommended Barclay arrival card (with fee), but I get the impression that the airline redemption isn't as favorable as the SPG.

Any recs for a course of action?

Schutzee

Welsome to FT! ^

If I had to pick just one card, it would be the Starwood card. It is well worth the annual fee IMHO. Transfers to airlines earn a 5,000 bonus when you transfer 20,000 points, and American is a partner. In addition, You and hubby should each go for the 50K AAdvantage Citicard offers.

TravelinSperry

+1. Starwood Amex is the way to go. And they have both personal and business cards so you can get both (to start off with more bonuses).

skitch23

Add me to the list for the Starwood.... But I'd also recommend the Arrival. You basically end up with a 2.2% credit to use for all of your out of pocket travel (rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, etc). The $89 fee is waived for the first year and when you meet the min spend you'll end up with $440 to use for your travel expenses. It would definitely offer you the flexibility you are looking for on the hotel side of things.

Read more here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...-2-2-back.html

acrollet

8-10k/month is a decent amount of spend - look into cards with threshold bonuses. (E.g. the amex gold rewards personal which has a 15k bonus at 30k in spend)

drminn

I am going to disagree with the Starwood crowd - you get pretty much just 1 point/$ spent, 1.25 if you count the transfer bonus. I would go for one of the Chase Inks, 5x points on business expenses, 2x on gas, transferable to a number of partners (unfortunately AA not being one of them). It comes with a 50K signup bonus. You could supplement it with an AA Visa (and the Business Visa) for a quick 100K points signup bonus on AA.

Gamecock

If you go with the dog AMEX don't apply for all at one time. They have a 5000 point bonus per referal. So you apply, get personal card, then refer your spouse. Have the spouse apply for the business card and then refer you.

Also get cards of each account for everyone you can. That will get each carholder an extra 1000 points per extra cardholder.

BQatWSU

To me it depends on how much travel you will be doing in the next 1-2 years. For diversity of Airline transfer options, yes, the Amex SPG is the way to go. This is assuming the business transactions will accept Amex. The 50K Citi American Visa Personal and Biz cards are an easy 100K miles for each of you. You can also both get a Barclays US airways card for 35K with no annual fee first year, then buy a pack of gum, let it sit for a few months and they usually send out "spend more than $750 for 3 consecutive months for extra 15K Miles" email. That's 50K more soon to be AA miles there.

Having said all that, if you aren't going to travel much, or if only domestic, or if don't care about business or first class travel internationally, then getting the 2% Cash back fidelity amex card may be the way to go. You can use the money to buy any ticket you want AND get miles and points back.

Based on your numbers, that's $200/month just from the business spending that can be used for anything. And you can still get credit card bonuses mentioned above for plenty of other miles.

Miles/Points depreciate if not used, so hoarding up tons of SPG points or airline miles when you only travel 1x per year domestic doesn't make sense. That's why look at your travel goals for the next 1-2 years, then start earning points/miles toward that redemption. Then spend the rest on the 2% cash back card.

MDtR-Chicago

Depends very much on where you want to go and how you want to get there. If it's an international flight and/or in a premium cabin, an airline/SPG card will usually be better.

However, if your family vacation is simply a domestic flight in coach, cash back will probably be better.

To transfer SPG to an airline for that domestic ticket, you'd need $20,000 in spending and be subject to capacity controls.

On the Arrival card, that same $20k spending would earn you around $440 toward the retail price of the ticket. That would cover most domestic fares easily. (The ticket would also earn frequent flyer miles itself, probably in the neighborhood of $50 value.)

The best research you can do is to try to understand how much tickets "cost" in each scheme. Look up the award charts for the airlines you could fly on your routes. Plug in typical dates into their award searches to see availability. Compare to cash prices.

jdtravel

i find spg amex the best for me due to ability to to transfer to different airlines as well as option to use at starwood properties. i also like chase for cards with no foreign exchange fees and great signup bonuses.

biggestbopper

I agree with just about everything above except for the implicit assumption that you have to decide on just one card.

IMHO, get several. SPG Amex is a good start--and remember you can get the business card as well, both personal and business have 25K bonuses at the moment. Or, to avoid the annual fee, you can just switch yearly between the two, canceling when the fee comes due. Personally I am too lazy to do this as I get older but it does work.

I'd also get the Chase Sapphire Preferred and one of the various Ink cards for starters as well as a couple of Citi AA cards.

And, remember, spouse can also get cards in their own name. Spending 10K a month is nice but those 50K bonuses can add up really fast to free first class flights.

ddallas

The easiest AA miles will come from signup bonuses on the Citi AAdvantage cards that both you and your husband can get. Then I would get flexible points cards like the ones that give Chase UR points and the Barclay Arrival points. You can use these points for more than airline tickets. Sit down and plan out a trip and than ask what cards will benefit you most for that trip. You don't want to accumulate points and miles just for the heck of it because they devalue pretty much each year or so. If you don't plan to use the points or miles in the next year and don't have any plans to go anywhere then you might want to go with a cash back card.

ffI

Best answer
Get 1-2 cards a month that require 5-10 k for spend bonus
As you finish the spend move to the next card.
It is better to get 20 x 5k spend done with 20 x min 25k bonuses than any single cash back or milesTotal 50k + 750k Bonus = 1 MM miles
Apply for 3 at a time at once. Choose the best ones
Start with SPG and Chase Then look at Amex Gold Then go to AA cards
SPG 5k spend 25k bonus
SPG bz same
AA Personal 3k spend 50k bonus
Chase Ink 5k spend 50k bonus
There are 2 versions of Ink. give a few month.
Do AA bz version
The AA Executive is next 5k Spend
United cards 1-3 k spend alone
Alasks has a 50k offer now
Just goose the spend with free reimbursement and 5-10x bonuses
really equal to 20k min cash back, with ability to use for real aspirational travel.

Lastly don't be too cheap.
Be prepared to spend a small amount in card fees to get a lot back.
e.g., Citi AA Exec card 60k bonus 5k spend = 450$ fee
Gives you AA miles at less than 1c each.
Can go to Australia in Bz for that well worth the first year fee

PtsJunkieWI

Totally wholly and completely agree with this strategy since you’re starting fresh.

Using business reimbursement to meet and pay for minimum spend is the best way to crank out a ton of points, and across a multitude of programs. Hoarding in one single rewards currency can lead to disappointment (witness Chase UR points suddenly less shiny due to United & Hyatt decisions). You could easily earn 1M diverse points within a year. .. Easily = about 6 hours of work (mostly planning/tracking). I wish I still traveled a lot for work on someone else’s dime… Self-employment’s one drawback is it’s my own dime, even if it’s a business expense. ;-)


To double-down on this: spouse independently applies for cards and makes business traveling person an authorized user for that card. They can then use that account for business purposes & reimbursement (and heck, sometimes there are bonuses for adding AU). This will spread the inquiries across you both.

With that said, I’d recommend the following:
Husband:
Alaska Airlines right NOW with 50k offer (which might disappear soon) and min spend is trivial
Chase Ink—50k UR points
SPG, as it is a very flexible currency. In between your minimum spend cycles and as a fall-back, use this card.
Whatever hotel card goes with the properties he stays at the most via work travel


YOU:
Alaska Airlines right NOW with 50k offer
Chase Sapphire Preferred (40k + 5k for adding authorized user) 2x on dining very lucrative for those business trip meals, and it increases the value of your Chase Freedom (UR transfers)
Also SPG, since you clearly have an interest in that

Don’t worry about or feel trapped by the annual fees. Once you’ve arranged a few amazing trips all on miles, you’ll laugh at the $200-300 in AFs you pay, compared to the $3000-4000 in value you get
Bide your time and wait for really lucrative offers to appear



PS: I’m curious why you don’t think you’ll need hotel stays? Once you have many, many options available to you and your family, you probably will consider destinations where you’ll need them.
In my experience, hotel points are much easier to earn, long term, due to the fact they’re usually 5x or greater on normal purchases and they often offer annual certs or grant points or whatever.
Also, IMO, booking hotels closer in on awards is much easier than booking flights on awards (which are best far out, or VERY close in).
For these reasons, I have focused more on airline credit card bonuses in several programs, and a few long term hotel cards, on which I continually “earn” (mostly via MS) and keep year after year, in addition to the initial credit card bonus. For a couple, Club Carlson is phenomenal-- my girlfriend and I have booked several BOGO itineraries (2 nights, 2 nights, 2 nights) and that kind of value is just impossible to beat.

Peas

Thanks everyone for generously sharing your thoughts and knowledge. Indeed a warm welcome!

I’ve been doing a lot of homework. I took the solid advice of starting with deciding where you want to go & how you want to get there in the next 1-2 years as BQ & MDtR suggested. Most of our family (of 4) vacations have been contiguous 48 w/ Carribean & HI. I haven’t had issues dealing with booking what I consider okay to good rates for direct flights on coach. We’re okay w/ coach. So cash back is probably more attractive.

I initially wanted to redeem points for DFW to Maui where I haven't been able to get deals and then another year a trip to Seattle/Vancouver. When I calculated on AA, it seems like it’s a push, meaning it could swing either way couple hundred per ticket ($900-1200 for Maui) depending on if I catch a good fare sale or not. (With school age children, we travel peak times but a lot of that was when the kids were younger and non peak times too.) It seems hard to predict what my actual cash outlay will be in the future since I rely heavily on fare sales and I don’t have a great feel for peak fares yet. Conclusion: go safer route & go for the cash back.

Then as suggested, I turned to international usage--flying on Korean Air to Korea. KE points were way too high compared to AA (though I hear the flight on KE is much nicer). So the question became if accruing points on AA was better than going with a cash back program. The problem with this is that I think this trip is in 3 years, maybe 4. How much is the average devaluation? I hear summer ticket to Korea is around 2k. sAAver peak is 32.5k/50k/62.5k. Conclusion: With signup bonuses, go for a 2 AA accruing CC for husband and me and try to spend to get 2 more tickets for the kids. Caveat – unless devaluation is severe enough.

As for the implicit assumption of having one card - Clearly I see that signing up is the very fastest way to accrue points. If we weren’t open to this, then the cash back option would be the clear winner. But we discussed, and we’re open to opening 2 more cards each. We had a minor experience with ID theft which was a big annoyance; we’ve preemptively locked credit (though it never hit/affected credit) and are a little weary of having too much going on where we can’t keep a close eye on it all. I guess you read into my hope of having one card, but I should have known better.

Point taken about the being too cheap, ffI. Thank you.

I was leaning toward putting all my efforts into accruing AAvantage points . Is this a bad idea?

Anyone think I should just go with the Fidelity Amex 2% and if the vendor doesn’t take Amex (could very well happen), then just use the Barclaycard Arrival World card (after hitting min for each of our Citi AA card) or stick w/ the Chase Freedom since we redeem for car rentals?

Thus order would be:
Husband - Citi AA until min - Fidelity Amex w/ wife authorized?
Me - Citi AA until min - Barclay Arrival World w/ husband authorized?

I’m blurring 2 questions:
1. Anyone think I should go for cash back b/c I’m leaning towards going for miles.
2. Anyone recommend the best way to get 2 CCs for husband and 2 CCs ?
or 3. there’s always option #3 – other – ex: assumptions are wrong, your plan needs work.



PTSJunkie – Why no hotel interest? Depending on the type of vacation, we do VRBO, hotwire/priceline if hotel needed-usually in urban area so many options of great hotels (don't mind not having perks for the prices we pay), or use timeshare (please, no flack; we enjoy it ). With hotels, no loyalty & not enough travel to justify a loyalty account.