I have been lurking and reading on this forum for a few days now, but more information is just confusing me further. At this point, I am asking (and hoping) for some direct advice.

I currently have two credit cards: a Chase Sapphire Preferred which I currently use for 100% of my purchases and a Citi student card which I first used to build my credit. I am in the first year with the Chase card, which I got mostly for its bonus. I'll probably drop it to the Sapphire to avoid incurring the annual fee.

I'm 25 years old with excellent credit (not sure of the exact score, but its 770+). My monthly expenditures are low, ca. $1200 on the Sapphire, though I plan to use the Bluebird/Vanilla strategy that I learned about on here to pay for my rent and bring that total to around $1900.

I am looking for another card for airline points. It's obvious, but I'm not a churner and will be using this next card for at least a little while. Also, I really would like a card with 0% foreign transaction fee, since I may be spending a lot of time overseas next year. I was thinking about the Capital One Venture card with a 40,000 mile bonus. More than a specific recommendation (which I would still very much appreciate), can someone please explain to me what I should be considering as I make my next move?

Look at the transfer partners of the CSP and go from there. That way you can continue to build with a card that will provide the points all in one place. That is, if you are set on getting a co-branded card and not something like the PRG.

Consider making some sort of plan, and work towards that. High-end hotels, short haul economy flights, a trip around the world and everything in between is possible, but it helps to have some sort of goal. UA 55K, Hyatt and Barclays Arrival come to mind as being worth some research.

Who are you looking to redeem travel rewards with? That can definitely have an impact.

What are your major spend categories? Consider whether or not something like the Freedom might help you to build Ultimate Rewards points faster -- that is, if you find UR's transfer partners to be of use to you.

I would build towards a goal as mentioned.
A good example would be:

trip to a nice hilton on a tropical island
churn hilton citi card every 65 days (only 1k spend) to pay for hotel
apply for card for airline that will get you there - meet minimum spend
then go card by card for transfers to that airline (like united and chase UR)

alternatively, if you have southwest at your local airport, you could go for the companion fare next time the southwest 50k promo comes upand get a business and personal card. that only is great if you have someone flying with you

I think really the best way to do it is to discover a destination and set that goal. Then you can get more specific advice and do more specific reading.

Figure out which airline works best for you. I'd recommend UA (tho I really am looking forward to bolting this airline when I reach 1MM) because the Chase points will transfer there. I think American Express points will transfer to Delta, but I'm not sure about that. The problem with American Express is that it isn't accepted everywhere.

I'd second the churn Hilton Citi card. That's what I'm doing now. (I'm not sure whether the no fee has forex or not.)

The Chase Sapphire Preferred doesn't have forex, so that's good. Chase offers a bunch of UA cards' see which one works for you. I don't know which ones don't have forex. I'd stick with a no fee for the time being since you have a card with no forex.

I've got the Capital One Venture. I put all my spend that doesn't get double or better points on it. It doesn't have a forex and you can get 2% back on travel expenses (it's a bit tricky to do, but it is doable)

With Chase points, you can either use the points or transfer them to Marriott or Hyatt. With a Hilton card, that gives you three hotels to choose from when you travel. (With the fee Citi card, you get Gold status with Hilton which means free breakfasts. Since I eat breakfast, I like this; it may not matter to you.)

Once you decide on an airline, you have to decide whether you want to stick with it to earn as many miles as possible or go with the cheapest airline.

I'm much, much older than you are and am about a year into my churning career. I'd suggest taking it slow. I remember some guy posting about his App O Rama getting about 1mm points/miles in one AOR and then folks pointing out to him that about one third of his points were useless to him. So, start slow and as you build up knowledge, you can do more.

Good luck

how about a freedom card? no annual fee and category bonuses on normal spend like gas and amazon

Plus right now you get 20,000 UR's sign up bonus normal is 10,000. It'a a good fee free card that you can transfer points to your Ink Bold or CSP. With the 5X category spend which builds my point totals.

First, thanks so much for all the replies.

My goal would be to either work on getting lots of domestic flights (seems to me that a Southwest card would be good for this, despite the imminent point devaluation, right?) or work on obtaining flights to Europe (seems like United would be best for this, yes?). With this in mind, I'm rather arbitrarily leaning toward the United Mileage Plus Explorer card. It's currently got the 50k bonus + $50 credit right now and first year fee waiver. The United also has no forex fee.

The only other one I really considered that was mentioned was Barclay's Arrival because the 2x bonus covers all purchases and thus accommodates my erratic spending habits. But, would the Barclay's Arrival be better with this goal in mind? What airlines could I use with these two cards? And will I run into issues transferring Arrival's points into a form that can be combined with my UR points? For whatever reason, I had trouble finding detailed information about this card.

Considering the credit history mentioned in the original post, what would happen if after a year, I simply cancelled the United card? Credit hit would be very small, right?

The problem with the United card is that it costs nearly $100 annually after that. Considering the fact that I really don't spend much, I don't think it would be wise to keep two annual fee cards going. My inclination would be to downgrade from Chase Sapphire Plus to the regular Sapphire in order to waive the fee. I really wish there was a way to downgrade the United instead, but I can't find a way to do so. In the end, it probably doesn't matter much anyway. I know that Chase gives 20% back when booking through the Ultimate Rewards' site, but I can't transfer the United points into my UR account. As a result, I'll have to transfer them out of UR to United and lose the bonus. Again, does this make Barclay's more lucrative?

A quick note: The Freedom card doesn't seem like a great fit for me, despite the lack of an annual fee. I don't have a car, so the gas benefit is useless. And since my number one priority is to keep all expenditures low, I feel that even the restaurant and Amazon bonuses (probably the most useful ones to me on the 2014 schedule) are only of mild benefit.

UA and the Barclay Arrival card are two of the best choices. Go for those and then see what else you might want to add as time goes on. Keep reading, and the information overload factor will decrease. If Southwest serves your airport, I would get one or two Southwest cards when the bonus is 50K.

You can use any airline (even award taxes and fees), any hotel, any car rental agency or any online travel agency with the Arrival card, and you have 90 days to redeem. So you can actually earn all the points to cover a charge after making it.

Assuming award seats are available on UA, you will get more out your UR by transferring to UA (or Southwest) than you would redeeming through the UR mall.

As far as I can tell, you can't transfer Arrival's points into a form that can combine with your UR points. Arrival's points seem to be 100% an internal currency that can be redeemed for cash back- most profitably on travel. UR points, on the other hand, can be transferred into other currencies.

It does seem that they could complement each other, though- use UR points for miles or hotel points when that fits best, and use the Arrival points to pay for travel expenses that can't be covered through a chain (i.e. small hotels/B&Bs) or when it just makes more sense to pay "cash" for a flight.