Best travel credit card - Sapphire

[athena53]

I may be wrong, but it seems better to just get a good cash-back credit card like the Costco or Fidelity cards and keep the the KISS principle.
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And finally cash is cash, whereas points are sometimes devalued.

I have both but added a no-fee Hilton Amex (80,000 point sign-on bonus) and an AA Executive MasterCard ($450 annual fee but includes airline lounge membership and 60,000 miles signup bonus after $6,000 spend, and I'll be able to do most of that on AA). I have Diamond status with Hilton so I use them a lot anyway and occasionally they come through with an upgrade, late check-out and other niceties. I'm less picky about flying AA internationally- I fly Business so get the same perks on any airline- but the Admiral's Club membership came in handy when arriving in Chicago AND departing with my 2 small granddaughters last week. We'll be going again in September.

Ordinarily, the Amex and the MC will stay in the sock drawer. I agree- cash is king.

 

[audreyh1]

Sapphire Reserve does too

Yes, I know. I was replying to walkinwood and have updated my post to quote his.

 

[Chuckanut]

Most important is to pick one or two cards that fit into your style of travel and stick with them. 10,000 points here, 15,000 points there, and 12,000 points in the other place don’t add up to many free rooms or flights. OTOH, 37,000 points may get you a free room or a free seat on a plane if concentrated in the right rewards program.

 

[sengsational]

Thanks again... I live 1/10 of a mile from a Chase branch, so I will walk over and inquire.

I did a walk-in to get the perk, which was worth, seems like $100. Then I got calls from the guy trying to sell me on doing more business with Chase. Lots of calls. I kept saying "my wife doesn't like changing, and she's not going to move, and I'm not going to add another bank without getting rid of one". I probably got 10 calls.

 

[sengsational]

For the point transfer to Iberia, what do you figure the point value was when compared with the ticket price? I'm asking because I used my points from my CSP in what I thought was an efficient way, but maybe transfering to an airline would have been better.

 

[dixonge]

Most important is to pick one or two cards that fit into your style of travel and stick with them. 10,000 points here, 15,000 points there, and 12,000 points in the other place don’t add up to many free rooms or flights. OTOH, 37,000 points may get you a free room or a free seat on a plane if concentrated in the right rewards program.

OR - just cycle through various cards for the sign-up bonuses. There is a large group of travel hackers and card churners out there doing this on a regular basis. Much more efficient than only getting points from purchases. I will be getting 150,000 points from AmEx within the next 30-60 days, at which point I will probably apply for a Chase Sapphire card. Will be using the points for minor seat upgrades first, then eventually business class.

https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/airlines/beginners/

 

[audreyh1]

My card churning days are over, thank goodness!

 

[OldConch]

For the point transfer to Iberia, what do you figure the point value was when compared with the ticket price? I'm asking because I used my points from my CSP in what I thought was an efficient way, but maybe transfering to an airline would have been better.

There was a 30% transfer bonus to Avios when we transferred so the 68k needed to book the 2 flights cost us about 52,308 Chase UR. Cash price at the time of booking was about $12,000. 12,000/52,308 = 0.229.

With the transfer bonus, the Qatar flights were $16,000/150k = 0.10666.

I personally don't value the points at 22 and 10 cents each because I would never pay that much for flights. I do know that 22>10>1.25.

 

[pugmom]

Thanks again to all. DH and I have an appointment Friday at the Chase branch, where they said the bonus will be 90,000 points.

 

[Scuba]

DH and I got the Sapphire Preferred cards almost 2 years ago now. I think I just have too many other priorities to get the real benefits of a card like this. We did get the 100K points for signing up, but haven’t used them as I found the quotes for pricing on the Chase portal to be marked up substantially. I guess I could transfer the points to an airline but haven’t done that.

I greatly prefer using our 2% cash back Fidelity card. The money just shows up in our checking account monthly without our having to do anything special.

We thought we’d use the Chase travel insurance benefit, but found that the $10K limit and also trip length limitation don’t fit with our spending and duration of trips. It is nice that there are no foreign transaction fees but many cards offer that benefit.

Bottom line - maybe I’m too lazy for a card with any benefits other than cash rebates that happen automatically. YMMV

 

[Sunset]

DH and I got the Sapphire Preferred cards almost 2 years ago now. I think I just have too many other priorities to get the real benefits of a card like this. We did get the 100K points for signing up, but haven’t used them as I found the quotes for pricing on the Chase portal to be marked up substantially. I guess I could transfer the points to an airline but haven’t done that.

I greatly prefer using our 2% cash back Fidelity card. The money just shows up in our checking account monthly without our having to do anything special.

We thought we’d use the Chase travel insurance benefit, but found that the $10K limit and also trip length limitation don’t fit with our spending and duration of trips. It is nice that there are no foreign transaction fees but many cards offer that benefit.

Bottom line - maybe I’m too lazy for a card with any benefits other than cash rebates that happen automatically. YMMV

I also found the Chase portal useless for our recent road trip when looking for hotels.
If you aren't going to use the points for travel, then the next best thing is to just buy gift cards at 10% off when offered.
Or just convert them to cash.

 

[athena53]

We did get the 100K points for signing up, but haven’t used them as I found the quotes for pricing on the Chase portal to be marked up substantially. I guess I could transfer the points to an airline but haven’t done that.

I greatly prefer using our 2% cash back Fidelity card. The money just shows up in our checking account monthly without our having to do anything special.

Thanks for confirming what I suspected about buying travel through the Chase portal. That's why I use Fidelity for almost everything!

We thought we’d use the Chase travel insurance benefit, but found that the $10K limit and also trip length limitation don’t fit with our spending and duration of trips.

Most credit card companies have cut way back on travel protections- too many losses, I guess. I ignore them and purchase what I need dor each trip.

 

[PatrickA5]

My card churning days are over, thank goodness!

I'm working my way there! Been doing this hobby for almost 20 years and have taken a lot of vacations primarily using points.

I think I have one more round of various bonus offers that I'll do this year and next and "retire" from the hobby in 2025.

I have detailed spreadsheets calculating what value I'm getting using these travel cards beyond what I get with the 2% Fidelity card. At some point, I'm just going to decide the added value isn't worth the effort. Not quite there yet. We put around 70% of our spending on the Fidelity card anyway.

 

[BlueberryPie]

We use preferred and I can confirm that it was easy (less than 2 minutes on the internet) to transfer card points to United points (1-1 ratio). I think you can only transfer one card to one United account. at the time we had 2 Sapphire preferred, both the wife and I signed up to get 2x the sign up bonus, but Sapphire allows you to connect your account to your spouse and transfer reward points (I think it took a phone call the first time), so we consolidated all her points to my visa, and transferred to my United account.

Providing Primary insurance for car rental is the other reason I like the card.

To redeem points for travel dollars (not going through airline points) you need to use Chase's travel site. that an extra step/hassle, and several times they didn't offer the cheap flights I could see on the airline itself

you also need to log onto their travel site to get the 5x(?) travel credit, doesn't;t work if you buy directly from the airline

Same with the $50 yearly hotel credit, I usually have trouble using that, the chase prices are always higher than the hotel.combooking.com/direct-with-the-hotel prices for me, and I find it a pain to remember.

If a reward point is less than 2c in travel (that's been my experience so far), I'm thinking I might be better off with Citi 2x cashback? I did get amazing low mileage points trips on United last year, but I was United Gold and and I lost status this year and I'm finding that points travel on United seems much more expensive now, I think I was getting special status deals.

 

[samcat]

I'm a member of a Facebook group called Travel on Points. They are a wealth of knowledge about accumulating points and traveling for free. Very friendly group.

I jumped on the band wagon in October and have over 1.5M Chase and Amex points.

 

[Markola]

^^^^^ That’s great! I have a friend who’s really good at it, too.

What are the real-world trade offs? I dabbled with it and my credit score plunged, due to opening new accounts.

It started to seem like w*rk to keep up with all the promotions and then using various points programs to pay for things with various card travel programs.

Some of the cards have large fees, which seemed like defeating the purpose. I have kept the Chase Sapphire card, because it has the best car rental insurance I’ve found.

It seemed difficult to accumulate the millions of points, as you have quickly, off household income and without a significant personal business to charge everything to. Am I wrong?

In the end, I decided for myself to use the Wells Fargo 2% cash back card, which produces about $2K/year for us, and call it a day.

 

[samcat]

^^^^^ That’s great! I have a friend who’s really good at it, too.

What are the real-world trade offs? I dabbled with it and my credit score plunged, due to opening new accounts.

It started to seem like w*rk to keep up with all the promotions and then using various points programs to pay for things with various card travel programs.

Some of the cards have large fees, which seemed like defeating the purpose. I have kept the Chase Sapphire card, because it has the best car rental insurance I’ve found.

It seemed difficult to accumulate the millions of points, as you have quickly, off household income and without a significant personal business to charge everything to. Am I wrong?

In the end, I decided for myself to use the Wells Fargo 2% cash back card, which produces about $2K/year for us, and call it a day.

I started following a FB group called Travel on Points. I used to get cash back for all my purchases thinking that I can afford to travel so why do I need to bother with points.

I have opened a lot of credit cards since October for both me and my spouse. And, it is a lot of work. My credit score took a hit but my husband's is fine. We have a paid off house and will never take a loan for a car so I guess I really don't care about my credit score. I know it affects other costs but since my score is still over 720 and will go up, I don't care.

An example of why it is better to take points instead of cash - Chase Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to Hyatt hotels 1:1. Low end Hyatt Hotels can be rented for as low as 5,000 points. With the current Chase Sapphire Preferred Sub, you could rent 16 nights of a 5k point hotel room which is worth way more than $95.

The cards with the high annual fees have a lot of bonuses that help make up for the fees. The Amex Platinum Business is $695 a year. But, it also has a $200 Dell credit (2 per year) and a $200 airline fee credit, plus the points...we bought presents with the $200 Dell credits and used the $200 airline credit to buy United Travelbank credits.

We don't have a business that charges a lot but we are bookkeepers and I do buy gifts for clients to give to vendors and charge them to my credit card which helped get us started. I learned that I can charge my property taxes without paying a fee through Paypal Bill Pay (along with my gas & electric). Never knew that before. I also charge our estimated income taxes which I would never have done before but I've decided it is worth it for points (the fees are less than 2%).

With our points, we can travel around the world for free and probably pay for almost all our hotels for free on that trip. We can stay at a Hyatt for free anywhere we go. We also have status with Avis, Hertz, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt through the cards so get upgrades, etc.

It is a lot of work though to keep everything straight. I don't always pay with the best credit card to get points (i.e., groceries to get the most points on a certain card) because it is the SUBs that pay the most. I have a whole spreadsheet that I got from the FB page and have modified it to what I need. It keeps track of opening dates, fees, closing dates, bonuses, due dates, etc.

Credit card points are my new hobby!

 

[erkevin]

Sapphire reserve holder here; wife broke her foot in Puerto Vallarta in January. CSR reimbursed us for the medical bill ($1300) and for our flights ($1000) using their medical and trip interruption insurance.

 

[Chuckanut]

^^^^^ That’s great! I have a friend who’s really good at it, too.

What are the real-world trade offs? I dabbled with it and my credit score plunged, due to opening new accounts.

It started to seem like w*rk to keep up with all the promotions and then using various points programs to pay for things with various card travel programs.

Some of the cards have large fees, which seemed like defeating the purpose. I have kept the Chase Sapphire card, because it has the best car rental insurance I’ve found.

It seemed difficult to accumulate the millions of points, as you have quickly, off household income and without a significant personal business to charge everything to. Am I wrong?

In the end, I decided for myself to use the Wells Fargo 2% cash back card, which produces about $2K/year for us, and call it a day.

FWIW, my auto insurance company charges me a bit more because it thinks people who open a lot of new Cc accounts over the past few years are more likely to have an accident.

 

[athena53]

FWIW, my auto insurance company charges me a bit more because it thinks people who open a lot of new Cc accounts over the past few years are more likely to have an accident.

That could be a concern. Progressive was the first company to discover years ago that insurance losses and credit scores were inversely correlated- people with lower credit scores tended to have more Auto and Homeowners claims. Some states prohibit rating on that basis because there's no direct causal relationship and/or because it hits poorer people disproportionately hard.

I started playing the credit card churn game this year and my score dropped after adding 2 cards (have 2 others plus a small mortgage and a perfect payment record) but not by much. I use Fidelity 90% of the time. I use Costco for restaurants, travel and gas because I get a higher % back. Now that I've spent enough to get the sign-on bonus for the Hilton Amex I use it ONLY for Hilton. Same will be true for the AA Executive MasterCard. Only that last one carries a fee so I'll continue to renew the others, at least.

According to my calculations, the biggest bang for the buck is from using the AA and Hilton cards only for purchases through that brand- otherwise cash back is king. Your calculations may vary.

 

[Chuckanut]

You CAN book through the Chase portal. You can also transfer to their transfer partners and book direct. We transferred 68k points to Iberia then booked 2x ORD MAD flights in business class. Transferred 190k points to Qatar then booked 2x CPT DOH SEA flights in business for the ride home. I agree that it's best to book direct when possible.

Good point. If you use their partners that’s a big plus. I also have the Chase Freedom card which allows 5x point on certain categories. But, I am not that big of a spender to rack up $3000 a month spend on any card or combination of cards. MY biggest expenses (property tax, homeowner fees, etc) don’t play well with credit cards.

 

[samcat]

Good point. If you use their partners that’s a big plus. I also have the Chase Freedom card which allows 5x point on certain categories. But, I am not that big of a spender to rack up $3000 a month spend on any card or combination of cards. MY biggest expenses (property tax, homeowner fees, etc) don’t play well with credit cards.

If your agency is listed on PayPal's bill pay, you can pay your property taxes with a credit card.

 

[BlueberryPie]

I just read that United devalued their points to Europe.
I'm still on the fence whether a 2% cash back like Citi would be less headaches.

Most purchases on my Sapphire Preferred warm earn me 1 point which is worth 1c if I "pay myself back" or 1.25c if I use it on their travel portal.

I can't seem to find the right deals with partners. I just proved a theoretical flight to Scotland in October:
United points would be 84,000 miles + $225
Chase travel would be 66,0000 UR which is way better (and cover $840 for the flight)
Direct with the airline looks like $840, same price as the portal.

If I had a city card with 2% cash back I would need to spend $42K to earn the points to pay the airline directly at 2% back.
With sapphire preferred I need to spend $67k to earn the same $840 in travel dollars at 1.5c/point
Transferring to united cost me $84k to earn the points and I still need to add over $200 cash.

And Citi is free and I can do what I want with the 2% cash.

I realized once again I didn't use the $50 hotel credit on my sapphire. It only applies if you book through the chase portal and I never think about it and on the few times I did, booking.xom was roughly $50 cheaper than the chase portal anyway.

 

[BlueberryPie]

Another example:
- I spent $39,500 to date on my sapphire preferred this year (yikes! A couple large medical, home improvement and a cruise on top of every expense I can stick on the card).
- those netted me $53,500 points, because of a smattering of dining and things recognized as 2x points travel
- If I spend those on the chase travel portal, they are worth $535x1.25 or about $670 towards a flight.

If I had used Citi, those $39500 spent would be worth 2x$395 or $790 that I can apply to anything including travel

As above United would require 84k points and additional cash, and British Airways would require 66K points plus another $600. I'm not retired yet, I don't have time to spend hours looking up obscure airlines deals.

I think I'm talking myself into trying to get a Citi card

 

[audreyh1]

Another example:
- I spent $39,500 to date on my sapphire preferred this year (yikes! A couple large medical, home improvement and a cruise on top of every expense I can stick on the card).
- those netted me $53,500 points, because of a smattering of dining and things recognized as 2x points travel
- If I spend those on the chase travel portal, they are worth $535x1.25 or about $670 towards a flight.

If I had used Citi, those $39500 spent would be worth 2x$395 or $790 that I can apply to anything including travel

As above United would require 84k points and additional cash, and British Airways would require 66K points plus another $600. I'm not retired yet, I don't have time to spend hours looking up obscure airlines deals.

I think I'm talking myself into trying to get a Citi card

I don’t know which Citi card you are referring to, but my Costco Citi VISA gives 3% cash rewards for dining and travel including hotels, and 4% for gas/electric charging. No foreign transaction fees either. Because of all this it is my most heavily used card (plus 2% back on Costco)