Planning a wedding plus honeymoon

Will be spending about 20K or more in the next week or so on honeymoon travel with a tahiti trip booked through a travel agent bought via bulk. not eligible to earn points for staying (SPG or Hilton) as buying via bulk. wanted to ask how i should pay for above to maximize the spend.

I was thinking opening a chase sapphire preferred for me and my future wife. that will net 45000 points each assuming $8K in spending. Total of 90000 points here.

that still leaves about $15K - 20K left.

1. Should I just put the remaining balance on the CSPs as well?
2. Are points transferable between CSPs?
3. Should we open up any other cards to recoup bonuses? If so, which?


Did the citi executive AA card x 2 so we are not eligible for that anymore.

Our current cards include:
amex gold
capital one venture
amex blue cash preferred
penfed (5% cashback on gas card)

we eat out quite a bit at restaurants. located in the northeast/nyc area.

any advice welcome


THANKS!

I just saw where a FTer and spouse have ten (!) successful Executive card applications approved in eleven months.

There are other card bonuses out there as well. Check and see if Barclays is still issuing US Airways MC - 50k AA miles, low required spend. Will become Aviator (AA) card soon.

Don't forget many hotel chains will allow you to accrue points for expenses made as room charges, etc. You should be able to earn HHonors points for your expenditures at the Moorea property (most, not all, properties allow this).

I will have to review the Executive card thread again. We just did x 2 and recouped 100K points.

I already have the US airways MC and recouped the 50K points x 1 only. Could not get my spouse to get on as the card expired.

Yes. Hotel chains room charges are a good idea. Spouse has Hilton card so we should be good with that at Moorea. I have SPG so I should be okay on that end at St Regis.

Just trying to see what/where to go about with future cards...

What are your goals? Just accumulate miles/pts? What airlines and hotels make sense for you?

Yes, UR pts can be shared/transferred with a spouse, assuming you both have a CSP or Ink Business card. See more info on Chase | UR forum.

thanks for informing me about the CSP. Just applied and approved.

Goals - that is the problem! Don't really have a clear goal in mind. I suppose it is how to maximize this spend? I know it is pretty broad, but just trying to accumulate points/rewards so I can use them in future for other trips...

Airlines/hotels - not really sure as no concrete plans in the book

In that case, stick with programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Citibank Thank You points (all of which are transferable to multiple airline and hotel partners), and the Barklaycard Arrival World Mastercard (which has points that reimburse you for anything they classify as travel expenses). You don't want to find yourself stuck with a large pile of airline ff miles or hotel points in programs that will never be useful to you.

my thoughts exactly. just not sure which of the ones you mentioned are "the best"

already have CSP opened for me. now will open one for wife.

debating if I should open an AMEX for the wife as she does not have one.

We don't have citi thank you, but she does have capital one venture

hmmm

That can't be determined without specific travel goals in mind, unfortunately.

Consider also picking up Chase Freedom for the rotating 5x categories (it's a no annual fee card, and the points can be transferred to your CSP card), and if you qualify for a business card, one of the Ink cards.

Consider the AmEx Everyday (no annual fee) or Everyday Preferred (annual fee, but with slightly better rewards) if you want to earn Membership Rewards points.

But first consider how much you spend on a regular monthly basis. You'll earn points faster if you stick to just one program (although Chase and AmEx do share some airline transfer partners, at least for now).

[QUOTE=artemis;24817313]That can't be determined without specific travel goals in mind, unfortunately.



Consider also picking up Chase Freedom for the rotating 5x categories (it's a no annual fee card, and the points can be transferred to your CSP card), and if you qualify for a business card, one of the Ink cards.

[QUOTE]debating if I should open an AMEX for the wife as she does not have one.thanks. good advice.

i will look into the freedom as well as the ink - looks like a good way to accumulate UR with a host of these chase cards.

i already have everyday preferred - debating if to keep as it is a cashback WITH an AF

That's the idea - use each card for its specific category bonuses, and you can accumulate a lot of points quickly. Just make sure at least one of the cards has "real" Ultimate Rewards points that are transferable to airline and hotel programs, so that you can transfer the points you earn from the other cards (like Freedom) to it.

I wouldn't use AmEx Membership Rewards points for cash back - they are far too valuable for that! The Chase and AmEx programs share a couple of transfer partners (notably British Airways and Singapore Airlines), which is very helpful when it's time to use those points to book an award.

Just to clarify - real means the premium cards like CSP or Ink plus. Yes?



I have the AMex cashback preferred that gives 6% back on groceries. This is what I was referring to as cashback. I don't think there is an option other than anything but to get cashback.

I also have the Amex gold premier rewards card and have been using this for most of the everyday purchases. Not sure if it worth the $175 AF fee though.

only if there was a card that I could use on amazon to get some chase UR points!

Your CSP card will earn the standard 1 UR point per dollar for Amazon, just as with any other regular purchase with the card.

The Chase Freedom card has Amazon as its 4th quarter 2015 bonus category.

Yep! I just saw the freedom ad about 5x on amazon. That is pretty sweet.

We also have a capital one venture MC and are currently earning 2 miles per $1 spent. Have about 85K points. Should we squash this and transfer spends to CSP or other chase cards?

Are 2 miles on capital one > 1 Chase Ultimate Reward?

Yes. There are two types of Ultimate Reward points. The points you earn with Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Plus, or Chase Ink Bold can be transferred to airline frequent flyer and hotel frequent stay programs, in addition be being used to buy merchandise at the Ultimate Rewards Mall, book tickets on the Chase website, or redeemed for cash back.

The regular Chase Sapphire card, Chase Freedom, and the other versions of the Chase Ink card earn Ultimate Rewards points that cannot be directly transferred to airline or hotel programs. But you CAN transfer those Ultimate Rewards points to the account of one of the cards that DOES earn transferable points, and that magically transforms the points into transferable ones which can then be sent on to the airline or hotel program.

I don't have an Ink card, since I don't have a business, but I do have Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Preferred. I periodically transfer the points I earn with the Freedom card to my CSP account, where they become "real" Ultimate Rewards points I can then transfer to airlines. If I ever do get an Ink Bold or Ink Plus card, I could downgrade to the no annual fee Chase Sapphire and then transfer the points from both Freedom and Sapphire to the Ink card's account. The key is to always have one of the cards that generated "real" Ultimate Rewards points on hand at all times if you want to use your points as frequent flyer miles.

Last year American Express opened up a new set of cards, American Express Everyday Preferred (annual fee) and Everyday (no fee), which generate Membership Rewards points with bonused spend on groceries and gas, with an additional bigger bonus if you meet a minimum number of swipes per month. If you're thinking about collecting Membership Rewards points, one of those cards is what I'd recommend for your wife.

Chase Freedom generally has Amazon as a 5x category for three months out of the year. Chase Ink cards have office supply stores as a permanent 5x category, and those stores sell Amazon gift cards. And on the American Express Membership Rewards side of things, grocery stores are one of the bonus spend categories, and grocery stores sell Amazon gift cards as well. So you can easily get additional bonus points (either Ultimate Rewards or Membership Rewards) for your Amazon purchases just buy using the right cards.

You can't compare their value so simply. Capital One "miles" are fixed value, while the value of an Ultimate Reward point varies greatly depending on how you redeem it. Most fixed value "miles" programs are giving between 1 and 2 cents back per dollar spent, while you can potentially get as much as 8-9 cents back per dollar spent on some frequent flyer tickets.

Example: I am traveling to Singapore next spring, and booked two business-class award tickets to get me there and back. A round-trip business class ticket from my home city of Omaha to Singapore would cost between $10,000 and $12,000 if I bought it with cash. Using my American Airlines miles, I got the tickets for 110,000 miles plus about $150 cash. In most fixed value "miles" programs like Capital One or Barklaycard I'd need between 500,000 and 1,000,000 "miles" to buy that ticket. So in this case the American Airlines miles are 5-10x as valuable as the Capital One "miles"! But for an economy class domestic ticket, the difference in value between the airline miles and the Capital One "miles" would not be nearly so great.