Hi all. I was hoping I could get some ideas from some of the members. I have 2 credit cards. A personal diners club card and a AA Amex card i use for business purposes. I do not travel much for work, my spend is 5k/month personal and 2.5k/month business on the 2 cards. I have accumulated 75k in AA miles,125k diners points an have 145k marriott points. I tend to use the points for air travel and vacations. I fly american the most, but also delta,southwest,jetblue on occasion. when i have stayed at hotels, they have been marriotts and have used Marriotts website to accumulate miles from retail purchases for business and personal. Just wanted to get some thoughts on better cards or combination of cards to maximize earning points.

Thanks an sorry for the long winded question.

If you're going to use points for air, AA offers signup bonuses (25-30K) for their credit cards and you'll see folks here regularly churning through those cards to build up miles.

AMEX SPG allows for great hotel redemptions as well as a great rate into AA miles (20k points into 25k miles). It's a 1:1 spend so it works out to be better than the AA Citi. Spending $7,500 a month will also give you SPG Gold and a reasonable amount of points/miles every year.

I spend similarly to you (~$5k per month combined) and I use SPG Amex and Hilton Honors Amex. Combined I have gold with both programs and earn points faster than I redeem them. However, I don't use them for AA miles since I fly a lot and can generally earn miles faster than I redeem them (butt in seat method).

I'm not much a Marriott fan and try to avoid them (I find their entry level properties to be far less attractive than Hiltons (e.g. Hampton>Fairfield, Embassy>Courtyard, etc.). However, I gained that opinion a long time ago and never really gave Marriott another try so take it for it's worth. I will say, in the past three years I stayed at the JW outside of Phoenix and the Grand Marquis in Times Square and both were great!!! However, I've had too many crappy nights in Fairfields and Courtyards, and I think Hampton and Embassy are best-in-class products. For upscale, I'm a Westin guy!

Finally, welcome to FT (this place is great)!

Thanks for the input guys. I don't fly enough for the butt in the seat method, and don't really have to stay at a Marriott. The few times i have stayed at a Hilton or SPG property they have been great. I have been thinking of churning some of the AA cards to get more AA miles and also getting the SPG amex, at least I can take advantage of the tranfer ratio to many airlines

Be sure to apply for the SPG amex first, as American Express has been extremely fickle recently on approving CC apps for people with multiple hard pulls on their credit report.

Applying for all 3-4 cards on the same day would also be a good idea.