See here: https://www.applyaviator.com/

You can decide whether to keep the card for a second year by asking Barclays for a retention bonus to offset the renewal fee.

I've been wanting the Barclays Aviator card for a while but haven't had much luck in getting approved on previous attempts.

A business card for legitimate business expenses - which one?
 

I am looking for advice.

For my rental business, I need a business credit card for recurring expenses and generic spend that would be composed of following:

1. Utilities: electricity, propane - like $300-$350/mo
2. Software subscription: google drive, onedrive, apple - about $30/mo
3. One-off Amazon purchases for about $50-$70/mo
4. Home Depot purchases for about $50/mo
5. Other misc spent - about $100/mo

I can spend about $5000 at the beginning for a deposit for propane and electricity, and plan to purchase a generator for $2500, but there will not be big expenses after that, so the key is what to use for recurring/generic/one-off expenses.

I already have US Bank Leverage that pays 2% cashback but that pays that amount for the first two highest amounts of transactions. So there are $500 expenses for each $100, and you will get 2% cashback only from $200.

Conditions:
- It must be a business card - it is for real, legitimate business expenses
- It can be both cashback and points
- I am OK to pay an annual fee but it must not be more than $100/year

In addition to US Bank Leverage, I already have Chase United Business as well.
Ready to hear your advice.
Thanks

American Express offers two business cards which earn either 2% cashback or 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar on all spending. No annual fee.

Cash: https://creditcard.americanexpress.c...h-credit-card/

Points: https://creditcard.americanexpress.c...s-credit-card/

The ongoing expenses are about $6000/year. At 2% that gets you about $120. If you could find a way to bring that up to an average of 4%, that would get you another $120.

It's just not an important consideration. Find the highest signup bonus you can and ignore the ongoing spend. Something like an Ink card will easily get you $1000 signup value. It would take you 8 years of elevated recurring expenses to earn that.

New Credit Card Advise
 

Hello,

I am currently looking to add another credit card and curious what the best option would be. Leaning towards the Chase Marriot Boundless or Amex Gold for groceries. Current cards and points below:

Current Cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Chase Freedom Unlimited
• Chase Freedom
• Chase Freedom Flex

Current Points:

• Chase - 350k
• Marriot - 100k
• American Airline - 35k

Thank you in advance for the help!

For utilities I would use Wyndham Business card. Amex BBP for the rest. You can also get Amex Amazon for Amazon.

Advice on Best Credit Cards
 

We are looking to revamp our credit cards for the first time in a while to make sure we are maximizing our benefits.

TL;DR: Replace Marriott Bonvoy AmEx and Delta Gold Amex with an AmEx gold card. We have an offer for 90K AmEx Membership Rewards signon bonus. The only thing that gives me pause is AmEx Membership Rewards don't transfer to Alaska Mileage Plan. What are your thoughts?

More Details:

• We live in San Diego and I travel for work to Amsterdam 3x per year and DC/Maryland 6x per year. The company pays for all travel expenses on corporate card, but I do get frequent flyer miles on airfare. The company requires stays at Marriott properties.
• My company reimburses for one lounge membership per year, I'm currently a member of Alaska Lounge+
• We travel to Detroit to see family 2x per year (On Delta, the only non-stop option)
• I am lifetime Marriott Gold status and have had Alaska Airlines MVP 75K status the last two years
• Due to the status and miles I accrue we try to fly Alaska or American any time we go on vacation. Fortunately, Alaska files to a lot of great vacation destinations out of San Diego
• We are Costco members, get gas there weekly for our cars and generally spend ~$100/week on produce there as well
• We spend ~$100/week on groceries from places other than Costco
• We spend ~$300/week at restaurants

Credit Card Summary:

• Our current primary card is the Marriott Bonvoy Amex. I had the Starwood Amex, which was converted to the Bonvoy card. I don't think it makes sense to keep this card moving forward. We were thinking about replacing it with the AmEx gold card as we almost always buy airfare direct from the airline and it has good rewards for groceries and restaurants, where we spend a decent amount as well.
• Our secondary card is the CostCo Visa. I think we will keep this just for Costco gas if nothing else.
• We have an Alaska Signature Visa card. I plan to keep this for the companion airfare given we fly Alaska so often.
• We also have a Delta Gold AmEx for the check baggage fee waiver. I am torn on keeping this card or not. Although we save more than the annual fee from avoiding checked bag fees when we travel to Detroit, I wonder if the rewards from the AmEx Gold (not Delta Gold, but the card I'm thinking of getting from the first bullet point) end up being more valuable than having this card. What are your thoughts?

Any other cards we should be considering? Thanks in advance!

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

A few thoughts:

1. If you are going to continue to fly only DL for your trips to DTW, you might as well keep the DL Amex card for the baggage-fee waiver. You don't have to actually charge anything to the card, you just have to keep paying the annual fee on it. You can keep the card and still apply for the Amex Gold card if you decide that the Gold card is a good fit for you.

2. Is airport lounge access important to you at all, either at SAN or elsewhere?

3. I'd make sure that you would have a good use for Amex Membership Rewards points before getting the Gold card with its $250 annual fee. If you fly on AS for vacation travel during off-peak times and AS is offering low-tier redemption rates, you could transfer Amex points to BA, and redeem BA Avios for travel on AS when AS has low-tier redemption rates and makes those seats available to partners like BA. But you'd want to compare redemption rates for those flights with cash prices to see whether you'd be getting decent value for your points.

4. If you are possibly interested in earning cash credits valid on travel, rather than Amex (or Chase) transferrable points, I would take a look at the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card. All "travel" and all mobile-wallet purchases earn 4.5% in credits good for redemption on travel. The $400 annual fee is offset by an automatic $325 credit on travel purchases, as well as historically generous annual retention offers, the combination of which typically brings that card's annual fee down to zero (or less). The card also includes four yearly Priority Pass lounges or restaurant visits per year for the cardholder, and four yearly guest visits. (At SAN, those credits could be used for the Aspire Lounge or the PGA Tour Grill restaurant.) The Altitude Reserve card also offers primary rental-car insurance, which the Amex Gold does not.

5. If the bulk of your paid travel is on AA/AS/BA, I would think that you'd be able to continue to achieve at least low-level status with AA or AS, which would give you some nice benefits on both AA and AS. If you were willing to connect on AA for your trips to DTW, AA/AS status would get you free checked baggage, and you could ditch your DL Amex.

Hope that at least some of this is helpful.

I do get a lounge membership from my employer once per year, I currently have Alaska Lounge+. I edited my original post to include this info.

Thanks for the inputs, I'll give your suggestions a look!

What does the Costco card get you? If that card doesn’t get you any bonuses I’d get a card with bonuses on gas, groceries, restaurants.

To add to this point: The DL Amex card also gives a 15% discount on award redemptions. If you get the regular Amex Gold card, you'll be earning lots of Membership Rewards points. What will you be using them for? Will you be transferring them to DL to redeem for your DTW trips? Then that is another good reason to keep the DL Gold card anyway.

Credit Card strictly for hotels + flights - Capital One Venture X vs the field
 

Hey guys,

Long time viewer, and now my career has taken a turn to one where I will be flying quite a bit.

I am looking for a credit card strictly for booking hotels and flights. Although I will fly everywhere I will be flying much more frequently around Asia.

I used to have the CSR, downgraded to the free one during COVID and have left it there. I remember the Chase portal would sometimes be more expensive than if I tried to book on Agoda.

I also travel somewhat budget-minded (3-star hotels, and I book the cheapest non-budget airline flight)

Not sure what other details I can provide that will be useful.

Lounges are a nice-to-have but I usually skip it.

TSA pre-check is not a big deal because the majority of my travel is outside of the US.

The Capital One Venture X jumps out at me for the 10x on hotels and 5x on flights, but I'm not sure how good their portal is.

Would like some advice from other people on which card you'd recommend.

Chase changed their portal operator from Expedia to cxLoyalty in 2021. You can compare portals by reviewing these threads:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...ty-portal.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/capi...al-hopper.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi...ch-2023-a.html

Most reported problems with all portals pertain to schedule changes, refunds, etc rather than the initial booking process.