How Many Credit Cards Do You Have?

[Phil Titola]

just got the 100k Amex Plat. $450 annual fee not waived but comes with lounge access, $200 airline credit, other elite stuff.

http://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/amex-plaitnum-100k-business-gold-75k/

pretty big commitment.  hope it pays off for you.

well, I'm very good at this so I'm pretty positive it will

Thought about this one....I went Citi Prestige due to the airline credit could be used on actual flights...not only BS fee charges.  Were the AA additional miles the draw for you?

[steve dave]

I don't know what you mean by AA additional miles. The using Prestige miles for more value on AA flights? That would have been good but I have over 600k AA miles so I wouldn't really care that much. I like the versatility of the MR points more than the Citi points. Both obviously less valuable than UR but I order them UR, MR, Citi as far as the proprietary bank points go. And this one was for 100k of them so that's obviously a lot of them.

[Phil Titola]

I don't know what you mean by AA additional miles. The using Prestige miles for more value on AA flights? That would have been good but I have over 600k AA miles so I wouldn't really care that much. I like the versatility of the MR points more than the Citi points. Both obviously less valuable than UR but I order them UR, MR, Citi as far as the proprietary bank points go. And this one was for 100k of them so that's obviously a lot of them.

Yeah my bad...I thought the 100k went towards AA. I guess I meant 100k MR vs. 50k thank you....with the prestige you get 1.6 point value on AA. 

[steve dave]

Yeah, I know. With the MR you can transfer points to a lot more carriers directly hopefully getting 2+ CPM depending on what you book. And obviously you're getting twice as many MR points to begin with.

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

For Chase cards, is there an easy way to check the date you received your bonus?

why do you need to know the exact date? look for the year end summary on chase online and it should tell you the month you got the card. go 3 months forward to be safe.

im sure thats a herp derp answer but idk if youre looking for a month/year or what. i assume you dont still have the card?

[michigancat]

For Chase cards, is there an easy way to check the date you received your bonus?

why do you need to know the exact date? look for the year end summary on chase online and it should tell you the month you got the card. go 3 months forward to be safe.

im sure thats a herp derp answer but idk if youre looking for a month/year or what. i assume you dont still have the card?

I want to churn after two years.  I know I am close but wasn't sure of the exact date. Month/year would work.

[Pete]

i have confidence in you, sd.

also, should clarify some of the benefits more. On top of 100k MR points that are worth at least $1k even if you just book flights through Amex (and a lot more if you transfer to the right partner):

Tell me more about the "lot more if you transfer to the right partner" part...

[steve dave]

i have confidence in you, sd.

also, should clarify some of the benefits more. On top of 100k MR points that are worth at least $1k even if you just book flights through Amex (and a lot more if you transfer to the right partner):

Tell me more about the "lot more if you transfer to the right partner" part...

like, if you transfer 9k MR points to British Air you can fly RT on American Air from Kansas City to Chicago. That's probably not an expensive RT flight but say $350 on an average day? That's 3.9 cents per mile. Amex will book any flight anywhere for you at 1 cent per mile but you get real value by transferring to their partners and booking awards that way. There is a much larger pain in the ass factor in doing so though, and you have to make sure award availability is there, etc. I love doing stuff like this so it negates a lot of the PITA factor for me though.

[steve dave]

so pete if you find 4 award seats on a RT flight to Chicago you can transfer 36k of those MR points to BA and fly the entire family to Chicago and back for the weekend. Another great thing about using BA miles to fly AA is the only award cancellation penalty is the taxes which are a few dollars domestic. So you can book some trip way out hoping it fits the schedule and then cancel if something comes up and you'll be out like $20 in taxes for all the flights and they'll credit your miles back (to BA, not to MR).

[steve dave]

Southwest adding OMA to DCA service

[CrushNasty]

Trying to get a friend signed up with CSP.  Bonus is 40k and apparently I can't get any bonus for referring him through my card/account...

Should I tell him to wait for a better sign-up bonus?  I believe 50k was out there, but didn't know how often that was available.

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

Trying to get a friend signed up with CSP.  Bonus is 40k and apparently I can't get any bonus for referring him through my card/account...

Should I tell him to wait for a better sign-up bonus?  I believe 50k was out there, but didn't know how often that was available.

wait for 50K. theyll likely put referrals back up around the same time.

[steve dave]

Trying to get a friend signed up with CSP.  Bonus is 40k and apparently I can't get any bonus for referring him through my card/account...

Should I tell him to wait for a better sign-up bonus?  I believe 50k was out there, but didn't know how often that was available.

50k hasn't been out there for a long time for the CSP, I think 40k with the 5k for an additional card user is the best there has been for awhile (maybe 2013?). That's not to say it won't come back any day now, just that it hasn't for a long time. I can refer him if he's going to get it anyway, send him my CSP link from the first post of the thread 

[CrushNasty]

why wouldn't I be able to get a referral link but you can?

had to order a replacement card last week since I left mine in Vegas...


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[sys]

why wouldn't I be able to get a referral link but you can?

had to order a replacement card last week since I left mine in Vegas...


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why do you think you can't get a link?

don't wait, your friend needs to take the 40 or 45k and get the clock started for the 2 year churn.

[steve dave]

why wouldn't I be able to get a referral link but you can?

had to order a replacement card last week since I left mine in Vegas...


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I don't know. did you try using your old account number to get the referral link?

[CrushNasty]

why wouldn't I be able to get a referral link but you can?

had to order a replacement card last week since I left mine in Vegas...


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why do you think you can't get a link?

don't wait, your friend needs to take the 40 or 45k and get the clock started for the 2 year churn.

because I know how to find where to get links for chase cards and it didn't work


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[sys]

call them up and complain about it.

[sys]

like the chase phone people are really really good.  i called them sat. to cancel my csp and the service rep was like - i could cancel for you, i see you've moved all your points to your other card, but you still have 5k points pending that will post on 9/13, why don't you wait until after 9/13 and then call back to cancel, the annual fee will still be refunded.

imagine a barclays service rep doing that.   

[CrushNasty]

why wouldn't I be able to get a referral link but you can?

had to order a replacement card last week since I left mine in Vegas...


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I don't know. did you try using your old account number to get the referral link?

Old last 4 worked.  hopefully the 5k will transfer to the new account number.

[Pete]

so pete if you find 4 award seats on a RT flight to Chicago you can transfer 36k of those MR points to BA and fly the entire family to Chicago and back for the weekend. Another great thing about using BA miles to fly AA is the only award cancellation penalty is the taxes which are a few dollars domestic. So you can book some trip way out hoping it fits the schedule and then cancel if something comes up and you'll be out like $20 in taxes for all the flights and they'll credit your miles back (to BA, not to MR).

Holy crap, that is great.  I think I am going to do that big biz Amex next.

[Pete]

i have confidence in you, sd.

also, should clarify some of the benefits more. On top of 100k MR points that are worth at least $1k even if you just book flights through Amex (and a lot more if you transfer to the right partner):

Tell me more about the "lot more if you transfer to the right partner" part...

like, if you transfer 9k MR points to British Air you can fly RT on American Air from Kansas City to Chicago. That's probably not an expensive RT flight but say $350 on an average day? That's 3.9 cents per mile. Amex will book any flight anywhere for you at 1 cent per mile but you get real value by transferring to their partners and booking awards that way. There is a much larger pain in the ass factor in doing so though, and you have to make sure award availability is there, etc. I love doing stuff like this so it negates a lot of the PITA factor for me though.

At 1 cent per mile with Amex, how do they compare to "retail" prices with American, for example, using American frequent flyer miles obtained from flight?  Does Chase UR similarly have good value booking through them, or is Amex is the best at this?

[steve dave]

I think they are all about 1 CPM booking travel directly through them. The exception would be the citi prestige which is like 1.6 CPM on American Airlines only. Ultimately this is a convenience only option. To get the real value you want to transfer the points to one of the affiliated programs. UR has the best partners (United, BA, and Hyatt being the best, with SW being great if you have a companion pass).



MR has Delta and BA as well as SPG but the transfer is bad at 1:3 (they sometimes run a special making it 1:2 which is probably decent).




Citi has a bunch of asian and middle eastern carriers that are still great but you have to have the desire to fly international upper class or know how to use their programs to book through their alliance partners.



All will let you just book whatever travel you want at around 1 CPM though for convenience. There is huge value if you want to travel internationally in first class on asian and middle eastern carriers but realistically your better value is transferring to a carrier that makes it easy to redeem for domestic routes on partner airlines.

[steve dave]

But as far as the convenience option goes all three programs have essentially Expedia built into their websites where you just book whatever the hell you want and you can cash in your points at like 1 CPM (maybe a bit less or a bit more, I don't ever do this so I can't tell you for sure).

[steve dave]

Pete, I know this all sounds incredibly confusing but it gets really fun/easy once you figure it out. And then you'll kick yourself in the balls for not doing it your entire life.