Hi everyone!
I am hoping to get some help here on my rusty CC churning game. So far me and my husband have done two rounds of Credit card applications one in 2011 and one in 2013. Here are the cards I have open right now.

1. Chase Sapphire Preferred - got in 2011 (kept for UR benefits)
2. Chase Freedom - got in 2010 (kept for UR benefits)
3. Chase Hyatt - got in 4/2013 (kept as we get free anniversary night)
4. Chase Southwest - got in 11/2011 should have cancelled but kept for domestic travel from points
from UR. did enjoy comp pass too.
5. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (not a CC)

Here are cards my husband has
1. Chase Freedom
2. Chase Sapphire
3. Chase Hyatt
4. Discover
5. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage(not a CC)

We only apply for cards if we have plans for a big trip which doesn't happen every year. We also bought a house in July this year so we did not apply for any cards since 2013. Now that mortgage is out of the way and we have our home, we are planning 2 trips for 2016/2017. We have not done this in the a while so my knowledge is a few years old and a lot of things have changed. I am hoping all the experts here can guide us on our next strategy.

We are based on west coast - San Francisco. The two trips we are planning to take are below
1. Nepal trip with a stopover in London(visit family and light sight seeing) for sometime around the holiday season 2016. We wanna add London here as we can get more time off this time of the year so it'd be great to squeeze London in.
2. A much awaited trip to Spain(specifics still in works but def Barcelona) in spring/summer 2017.

We will have my daughter(coming soon Feb 2016) with us but I am hoping we will not have to worry about her in terms of ticket as she would still be under 2 years old.


I am thinking whether I should cancel my Sapphire preferred and reapply to get new bonus ( how long after I cancel can I reapply?) but it is one of my old cards. I only have credit history in this country starting 2007 and Preferred was opened in 2012 so its my 3rd oldest card and the card I use the most. Will closing this card affect my credit adversely? Or may be my husband can cancel his Sapphire(downgraded) and reapply so at least one of us gets the 50k.
Southwest on the other hand I think I should just cancel. I use it for domestic travel but I don't really need the card for that. I don't think when you have a card you get better rates on the tickets. I should be able to get by just fine with only the RR membership. What do you guys think?
We are on the fence with Hyatt. It gives us free night once a year which is nice for small trips we take. But if we cancel it, we should be able to reapply later and get the 2 free nights again right?

What cards should we be applying for right now? The contender's after a little research is the United card but its sad that its only 30k points right now. Also the British airways card specially as we want to travel to London. I am not sure what card should we should be looking at for hotels. We will only need hotels in Spain. We have family in London so won't have to worry about accommodation there.

We have been out of this game for a long time so its overwhelming now and not sure where to start looking. If you guys can give us some suggestions and guide us on this we'd really appreciate it.

Thank you!

A word of warning about travel over holidays. Unless you book ASAP, those tickets can be hard to come by. And IIRC not all carriers allow a stopover on award travel, so you may have to do that as 3 legs, not a simple round trip. Which of course requires more miles.

Thank you for your response. I did realize that it might not be as easy to get a stopover in London as opposed to hongkong or thailand when travelling to Nepal from the west coast. But that would certainly be the best case scenario for me.

I would downgrade Sapphire Preferred to another Freedom rather than cancel. I'm not sure how long after that you can reapply, but I would think a month would do it. Read through the last few pages of the following thread as things have changed in the last few months...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...5-present.html

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"We will have my daughter(coming soon Feb 2016) with us but I am hoping we will not have to worry about her in terms of ticket as she would still be under 2 years old."

Think again. On most international flights, lap infants are not carried free of charge. A lap infant requires a ticket, the cost of which can vary widely, depending on which carrier you fly, and what cabin you are in.

Really? I did not know about this. I thought they fly free untill they are 2 years old

1. You will pay anywhere from $100 to $1000+ depending on airline, airports touched and class of service for the infant. There are various threads in FT that you can research once you narrow down the alliance you wish to travel in.

2. You guys need to closed some Chase cards and reduce your total credit from Chase if you intend to apply for more chase cards.

3. Not many award ticket options to Nepal (KTM). If you cannot find seats think about flying to Delhi or another Indian airport with award availability and then buying a cheap round trip for cash (that you can use Citi Thank You or Barclays Arrival points to pay for)

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"Not many award ticket options to Nepal (KTM)."

AAdvantage has three partners that offer (connecting) service between Europe and KTM. AA currently charges 20K miles for a one-way in Economy on that route; not sure what it will cost after the March AAdvantage devaluation.