[...]I've been thinking about this for a while now. Recently I got a Citi Premier and with the Citi DC's ability to convert to TY on a 1:1 basis, I'm wondering if that is a better path to accrue more points?

First, I don't understand why so many sites value UR higher than TY. I get that it's all subjective at the end of the day. I know CSR have insurance while the Citi Prestige doesn't, but it doesn't have a 5x multiplier. Chase also doesn't have a card that seems 2x in general spending. I like how Chase have Hyatt as a transfer partner. Is Chase overrated? I feel like I'm missing something here.

Citi seems to devalue its TYP-earning cards� benefits more and more intensely than Chase devalues its UR-earning cards benefits, so there is a trust/mistrust factor in valuations. And beside that I seem to get more value out of any given UR point than I get out of any given TYP. While the different earning options/rates make a difference in which cards to use, any given individual point earned has a value for redemption purposes, and that�s where UR points are more valuable than TYP as I see it.

I think the Chase transfer partners are superior.. or perhaps they just are more useful for me. Hyatt is a key factor.

I dunno on TY Points to UR Points. I think Chase is good for Hyatt and if you want to redeem for 1.5x. Having said that, UA has devalued its chart, Chase lost Korean as a partner, and does not have the number of partners that Citi does. For me, Etihad and CX are pretty strong in this respect if you know how to maximize the rules on them. Avianca is another good one for *A. If the redemption is just straight points for miles or for Hyatt, then good argument for Chase. I tend to fly a good bit of OW being an AA EP, so TYP (and Amex MR) I prefer. While I know Chase has Avios (as does Amex MR), I don't generally redeem for domestic economy.

All in all, i find Citi TYP and Amex MR points a little more valuable if you are willing to put in the work and have flexibility of travel and are interested in the aspirational redemptions and/or OW. Certainly, YMMV

Safe Travels

The best current path to accumulate TYPs is with a Citi Sears Card, read this thread,
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi...rs-card-9.html

You redeeming on Hyatt stays?

Chase, Amex = Good to premium market

Citi, synchrony, capitalone = Junk market

I think the most important factor to note in the "travel sites" (aka credit card sales sites) valuations is that Chase appears to pay very well for advertising. This is conjecture, but if you look around you will see that every credit card sales/travel site always has Chase as the most prominent advertiser by far.

Seriously. Don't think for a second that this does NOT factor into their calculations.

That said... in all fairness, I believe a few of these additional items factor into the valuation:

You have a guaranteed minimum value of 1.5 cpp for UR and only 1 cpp for TYP.
UR has a major US carrier (United) as well as Southwest while Citi does not. Bear in mind that most of these sites are US based for US customers so this is actually pretty important. I don't include JetBlue because they share that as a carrier, and the miles value sucks anyway.

At the end of the day, their valuations are going to be more generic value as opposed to individually tailored. Only you can decide what works best for you. I'm leaning towards the Citi Prestige/DC pair myself for pure earning potential although the loss of travel insurance is certainly painful. However, anyone who is based in or travels to Asia a lot would probably benefit more from the TYP partners (Cathay, Malaysia, Qatar, Garuda, Eva, Singapore, Thai, Eithad) as opposed to the UR partners (Singapore, United).

I'm under no illusion that these travel sites are paid by Chase or have some sort of affiliation with Chase.

It's disappointing that TY doesn't transfer to AA and I'm not sure why considering Citi have have a co-branded MC with AA. TY can be redeemed at 1.25 cpp with the Premier. It's a bit strange that it's only 1 cpp with the Prestige.

If I remember correctly, the Prestige DID transfer to Chase. It also did have a much higher cpp before as well, but they removed both of these benefits a while back. I remember a lot of people said that they were going to cancel when these changes hit. Part of me does understand this, although I certainly don't like it... my guess is that the Prestige heavily cannibalized the AA card crowd and AA didn't like it.

I agree that it's strange that they removed the bonus value from the Prestige but didn't touch the Premier. Citi has been making a lot of negative moves with the Prestige and I keep hoping that they'll start adding some meaningful benefits again soon. The 5x categories and DC for everyday spend does make it a compelling pairing though and if the Sears card continues to be amazing, I guess that would be enough to justify keeping it around.

Huh?

With regards to the Sears card, I don't get it. I quickly went through the head and I guess I'm having one of those days, but I don't understand why it's a keeper.

uh....disagree.

I transfer all of my Chase and Citi points to Singapore Airlines to redeem for J travel to Asia.

hardly a �junk� transfer partner. Premium product, always award tickets available too.

I earn a lot more points with my Prestige for Airfare and Dining with about $50 in annual spend in those categories.

One thing you need to understand it that TYP is way more complicated than UR.

With UR, you can pool all the UR points you earn with different UR cards, and they stay around no matter which cards you cancel, as long as one of those cards stays open.

Not at Citi. Citi keeps track every point you earned as to which card you earned that point with, and expires each point 60 days after you close that card (or product convert to a non-TYP card).

So with Citi if you get multiple cards but don't know where to transfer and thus want to wait to transfer, you have to keep all of those cards alive (though you may be able to downgrade most to no-AF TYP cards) to be able to transfer.

So since TYP is so hard to understand (and so easy lose all your points if you don't take the time to understand it), most web sites are not prepared to do that kind of education, and thus they rate TYP much lower.

But also, explaining a program that has no domestic big airline / hotel partners is much harder. Most websites start explaining UR by explaining how you can transfer to United, to Southwest, to Marriott, or to other programs. TYP doesn't transfer to any domestic programs other than JetBlue (and doesn't transfer to any hotels at all), so it's much harder for a website to explain TYP to the general public which is not that familiar with foreign airlines (including not knowing their often much worse expiration policies, and not knowing where else to get miles into those same airlines if they don't have quite enough TYP points yet for the full reward).

So TYP is much more specialized program which requires you understand more about it and understand more about booking foreign airlines (since that's just the only airlines you can transfer to if you don't want JetBlue).

Based on what I read, it looks like the Sears card has been giving quite a large number of 10x or even 15x "surprise" bonus categories during the past years. Sometimes these bonuses are for "all spending" or easy categories and they can even overlap for even faster point earning.

It's certainly convinced me to take a look at the card. I'll probably apply for it shortly.

I just finished a Oct-Nov-Dec 20x $1000 TYP offer on my Sears card, easy 60K TYPs, that was proceeded by a 3rd QTR, 15K x $1000 offer 45K TYPs.

Not sure what OP was reading or not reading to not see the extreme value