You folks got me thinking it’d be a good idea to move some of our largest corporate payables to credit card to capitalize on points and I was hoping for a little guidance. Currently the only points we capture are via an AMEX Platinum for miscellaneous expenditures at approximately $350k annually. I expect to keep this spending as is for simplicity.

We’ve identified approximately $1.7 MM in annual charges from a few key vendors we can easily move from check to AMEX charges. The general consensus seems to be the AMEX SPG card has the best redemption value. Would you recommend the SPG card for this spending? Or put it all on the Platinum? Or other?

In addition, we have approximately $250k in Visa spend with folks who don’t accept AMEX. Our current Visa card is a corporate bank card that gets no points. Aside from the 2 for 1 deal with British Airways, is the redemption value at 1.25 points per dollar spent good? I was looking at the United Airlines/Continental Mastercard too given that neither American Express card seems to have good redemption value for UA/CO. Or is there another Visa or Mastercard you’d recommend to get benefit out of this spending?

I’m based in Los Angeles. Our favorite travel destination is Hawaii. 2nd would be various East Coast destinations. Europe, Asia, and Australia have appeal too if I’m not sitting on the back of the plane to get there or paying $5-10k fares.

Thank you in advance for any recommendations.

I'm a DL person, because they fly out of my town the most. So, I would get (actually I already have), the DL Reserve personal and the DL Plat Biz. Spend $50K on the DL Plat and get 20K MQM's, and spending $60K on the DL Reserve, and get 30K MQM's. Then you're DL Gold before flying. Put those cards away, and everything else that takes Am Ex spend on the Biz Gold MR card. Anything that doesn't take Am Ex spend on the Chase Sapp Preferred Visa. That's the strategy I take.

Get miles and MQM's for the DL cards, then there's no advantage in spending anything over those amounts needed for MQM boosts.

Get MR points that are transferable to most anywhere on the Gold Rewards Am Ex.

Get points to transfer to certain companies for the Chase Sapp Preferred, or use it as 1.25% for travel expenses.

Welcome to FT!

It would be worth it to get a Visa with point accumulations to cover vendors who don't accept Amex..

In Canada, I use Amex, and run expenses through regularly.. after 25K spend, the bonus 1/2 point adds up..

But not all vendors take Amex, so the backup is a Visa that generally collects 1 point per $1 spent..

We are running the same issue in our office, regarding extra adminstration involved to charge to credit card.. But streamlining expenditures to cc, will see bonus points add up quickly..

The first question is to know what you are looking to get out of your points. The best value comes from transferring them to hotel and airline programs which can be redeemed for premium cabin travel and luxury rooms. But some people would prefer cash back.

One card to strongly consider would be the AA Citi Executive World Elite MasterCard. American Airlines recently changed their lifetime status qualification rules. In the past any miles earned (even though credit cards) counted towards lifetime gold. Starting Dec 1 of this year, only miles flown will count towards that status. The one exception is that for the next year, miles earned on that CC only will count towards lifetime status, so long as you are approved for the card before Dec 1. With that kind of spend you could start from scratch and reach lifetime status with a large chunk of AA miles in the bank.

For your a VISA card, I'd go with the Chase Ink Bold. It earns Ultimate Rewards which can be transferred into a few airline and hotel programs. United is a transfer partner, which fills the gap left in AMEX now that Continental is no longer a transfer partner. The SPG points can still be transfered to United, however at a 2 SPG points to 1 mile rate (half of most other airlines).

With the Citi AA Mastercard, the Chase Ink Bold, and your AMEX Platinum you would have transfer partner into all 3 airline alliances (AMEX/Delta/Skyteam, Citi/AA/OneWorld, Chase/United/StarAlliance) and also to most major hotel chains.

For the next year at least, I'd put $1M on the Citi Mastercard for AA lifetime gold and 1M miles in the bank, then split the remaining spend between your AMEX Plat and the Chase Ink. Once you get lifetime gold with the $1M spend on the AA Citi, ditch that card for a SPG AMEX whose points can also be transferred into American Airlines (as well as many others).

Final thing to consider is where the money is being spent. Several cards offer bonus earnings for various categories like travel, gas, advertising, restaurants, groceries, etc. Some cards will put a limit on how much of your spend would qualify for the bonus points (i.e. AMEX Business Gold limits double points to the first $100k in each category, after that it's just single points).

You might also run into issues with the very large amount of spending you are putting on the cards. With about $200k spend per month, you could run up credit limits very quickly, but you should be able to work it out with the issuer or just pay off the cards weekly.

Consider the USBank Flexperks, former NW, VISA card. It gives points that can be used for almost any airline ticket with no capacity or award inventory requirement and you earn FF miles on these free tickets. The bad news is that this card carries an annual fee.

I would stay away from airlines that have difficult redemptions. DL would be the one that I'd really stay away from.

Personally I like AA miles the most for awards to Asia on CX. Some European destinations may have big fuel surcharges, so beware of those for redemptions. Lifetime status is also a nice perk, if you have a huge spend.

CO/UA is also a good option.

The Flexperks card is a little better for using points to directly purchase tickets, giving a value of up to $0.02 per point, but that's only if you buy a ticket that maxes out each tier. If the ticket price is slightly over and bumps you into the next tier, the value drops. You can still do the same thing with the AMEX Plat for a value of $0.0125 per point in travel. Chase offers the same as well. Both those will earn ff miles/points which is great for getting elite status (although with close to $2M spent annually you don't really need the extra miles).

For international business/first travel, transferring to an airline FF program is much better. If want domestic economy, international economy, or even domestic first then the Flexperks might be a better redemption. But the long run average would probably not be that much better than the AMEX Plat or Chase.

FlexPerks Redemption:


Any decent card is going to carry an annual fee, so no big deal there. It's a drop in the bucket when looking at the huge points earned with $2M spend.

With $2.3MM in total annual credit card spend, I'd diversify. No need to put all your eggs in one basket. I'd start by looking at cards that can transfer to multiple programs, like the SPG Amex and Amex MR.

The Citi Executive card mentioned above is also a good choice, for reasons discussed.

This is really a business plan decision. If you need flexible / last-minute travel, FF mileage isn't a good deal because award travel is exactly not that. Same thing for hotels. On the other hand, points can be used to purchase business supplies and other equiptment reduce your operating overhead, increase your bottom line and, if you have an equity interest in your company, increase your revenue which you can then use to purchase travel.

So, the starting point from a corporate perspective is to figure out what you want from the rewards you expect and then backtrack. If you travel to/from ATL regularly on business, it's silly not to go with DL, but as some point out, redemptions are hard.

You also need to check with your tax accounting types. Accounting for awards for an operating business is not the same as for an individual and you may find that it increases overhead. So, not something to leap into.

The downside to flexperks is I think they expire every 5 years. Additionally, that's a lot of travel with that kind fo spend to use them up.

The good news is you can exchange them for 1% cash back.

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"Im based in Los Angeles. Our favorite travel destination is Hawaii. 2nd would be various East Coast destinations. Europe, Asia, and Australia have appeal too if Im not sitting on the back of the plane to get there or paying $5-10k fares."

For 50K AA miles, you can get a (one-way) Hawaii-Europe Business Class award that would permit you to stop over for months in Los Angeles. @:-)

And AA's oneworld awards can also offer very good value for multi-destination travel completed within a one-year time period.

With that level of spend I would also consider adding a Plum card.
At some point you have more airline and hotel points than you can use in a year (probably sacrilege to say on FT), and if you have steady cash flow you can take 1.5% discount instead of rewards.

Thank you for all the feedback, folks. I'm going to do some research on the cards suggested as well as try to better understand the value of loading up on AA spending to get lifetime gold status in the next year. Thanks again!

Sacrilege indeed! I thought the first rule of flyertalk was: "you can never have too many points!"
But it does kinda make sense unless OP is burning points at an extremely high rate.

No, no, no, the more points the merrier

I'd recommend a SPG Amex (1.25* point transfer plus huger flexibility in number of partners) and a Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa for all airfare/dining/travel spend that get 2.14 points per dollar (2 plus 7% annual bonus) and all other spend gets 1.07 points per dollar- so that's a good card for when Amex isn't accepted