I love credit cards so much!

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I think I finally got my Marriott account linked to a Twitter account with the same email address so I’ll get the points. We’ll see. I had linked it to my normal Twitter account (which is under a different email address) but wasn’t getting the points. So hopefully this works now. Figures it’s the last one of the season.
 
Wow! This is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for; thanks! I'm amazed at what you've been able to do; I think it's absolutely extraordinary. As I get older the thought of "lie flat seats on international flights" sounds very appealing. When my husband and I retire I would like to experience more of that kind of travel. In the meantime, as a family of four with a child at home for at least 9 more years, my current goal is to get us all wherever we're going as cheaply as possible.

I'm a non-traditional (which means "old") grad student so my husband currently earns the vast majority of our income. We have discussed taking a year (or maybe slightly less) to travel once I'm done with school, before I find a job. This will be approximately 12 to 18 months from now, so any points I can accrue in that time would be very helpful. My husband works partway across the state from where we live and flies back and forth about half the time (sometimes he drives) so he has quite a few ff miles, and he stays in a Marriott while he's away (3-4 nights a week) so he has a ton of Marriott points and is a lifetime Platinum member. This is all a good start, but there is so much I don't know about how to maximize our credit card use for the best benefits.

So let me see if I understand this correctly. I should probably hang on to the AmEx Blue Preferred because I've had it for a few years and longevity counts toward your credit score, correct? This card has a $95 annual fee, but pays 6% cash back for the first $6000 worth of groceries annually. So if I use this card solely for groceries for the first 7 months or so (until I hit $6000) I'm still coming out $265 ahead. I guess I should also figure out which of my cards pays the most back for gas and use that one for that. I also spend quite a bit of money on Amazon. Beyond these three things, I don't spend a lot of money.

Well, I do spend a fair amount at Disney. I'm not sure what the best card for that is. I've thought about getting a Disney Visa (the free one) just for the special meet and greets and few other perks, but every time I've checked over the last year the signup bonus has been uninspiring. I read that a lot of you buy Disney gift cards though avenues that garner you points (or at Target with the 5% off red card) and then use them for your Disney expenses. Is this preferable to just using a card with good "travel" cash back/points rewards? What's the best way to do it?

Regarding churning, I should get up to 5 Chase cards per 24 month period, get the bonus, and then cancel before I have to pay an annual fee? Is this too simplistic an explanation of this? I still have a lot of reading to do! With cards that have an annual fee, when do you pay that? Is it up front or after the first year? So can you sign up, get the bonus, and cancel before the year is up and avoid paying the annual fee? I'm getting offers from AmEx to upgrade to Platinum for 60,000 rewards points, but I have to spend $5000 in three months and membership is $550 a year. I'm not sure what 60,000 points even translates to in miles or dollars so I'm not sure if it's worth it, but it might be if I could avoid paying the annual fee. It's all very confusing to me still.

I could never get on board with the extreme couponing to save money on groceries/household items--I just wasn't interested enough. But I find all off this really intriguing and feel that getting to vacation more and possibly better would be entirely worth the time and effort put into it.

You’re welcome. @1GoldenSun I’m going to likely answer this in segments. I’m going to start with spending a fair amount with Disney. Here is our spending with Disney so you can use as a gauge for yours. We have 1300 DVC points which means we spend $8,000 per year in annual dues. Add 2 annual passes per year for $1300. Then add at least one Adventures by Disney trip for 2 each year which is somewhere between $8,000 - $14,000 per year. Then add 1 to 2 short Disney Cruises each year which is between $3,000 - $6,000. So conservatively speaking we likely spend $20,000 per year at a bare minimum on Disney trips. So I’m going to use $20k as the number to work with.

If I use a no fee Disney Visa I would earn 20,000 points and might get a $200 bonus for a sign up in a new card. So that’s $400 for my spend. I’d get the same on a 2% no fee cash back card. If I use my CSR which is 3x on travel and all of these code for travel I’d get 60,000 points which I could transfer to airlines and hotels. I could also use them to purchase travel on the CSR UR portal and they’d be worth $900. That’s way better than $400 but still isn’t good enough for me. Instead, I pay for my Disney expenses with Disney gift cards. I can purchase Disney gift cards at an office supply store with my Ink business card which has a 5x spending bonus category for Office Supply stores. I will also use my Freedom card to do the same thing when the bonus category is a place that sells Disney GCs. At a bare minimum my $20k in Disney spend will earn me 100,000 UR points every year. But I take it a step further. For example, next quarter the Freedom bonus category includes Chase Pay. So, I will purchase $1500 in Walmart gift cards online and use Chase Pay to get my 7500 UR points. Then, I am going to use those Walmart gift cards to purchase Disney gift cards at Sam’s which sells them for nearly 5% off. So now I get a discount on top of the UR points I earned. But I’m still going to take it another step further. I would access Sam’s dot com through the American Airlines shopping portal (AA is the airline I use most since Miami is a hub) so that I can earn an additional 1 AA mile per dollar spent at Sam’s with my gift cards. So now, I would have earned 7500 UR points, bought $1500 in Disney GCs for about $1431 and earned 1431 American Airline miles. This is called stacking. Sometime I alternate with Amex Membership Rewards if there’s an Amex offer on one of my cards that makes more sense than using Chase. More answers later but hope this helps.
 
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special meet and greets and few other perks, but every time I've checked over the last year the signup bonus has been uninspiring. I read that a lot of you buy Disney gift cards though avenues that garner you points (or at Target with the 5% off red card) and then use them for your Disney expenses. Is this preferable to just using a card with good "travel" cash back/points rewards? What's the best way to do it?

So glad to see you're asking questions :) I know I've made a few mistakes without having a strategy!

So first, I'd look at any of the Chase cards that do fall under the 5/24 rule such as United, Southwest, Marriott. If your DH is lifetime platinum and uses a Marriott credit card, I'm sure the return on every dollar (point wise) would be very good. Also, since Marriott and SPG are together now, you can transfer points between the hotel chains (currently at a 1 SPG to 3 Marriott ratio). I guess I'm trying to say-max out the hotel and airline use cards since you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred and it'a a very solid flexible point earner.

I'd encourage you to ask questions about redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards for Disney vacations-there are a few people who have done this quite successfully.

I'd avoid the Chase Disney unless you find just a great sign up bonus, at least until you've maxed out Chase cards under the 5/24 (it doesn't currently fall under that so save your spots for the ones you're really interested in).

Target has a debit card and a credit card...I have a debit card and it's nice if I can't find other Disney gift card deals to know I can get at least 5% off!

I have been on two "big" Disney trips this year and part of each were funded by using Discover and Chase Freedom 5% categories. In a quarter, 5% cash back is returned on up to $1500 spend in certain categories (as previously described). I have 2 Chase Freedom cards plus a Discover card so I can potentially have 3x $1500 x 0.05% on $4500/quarter. Many categories include stores which will have Disney Gift cards---my favorite category is Warehouse Clubs because if you're a member (say at Sam's Club), Disney gift cards are already sold at a 2-4% discount (depending on the card amount) so the savings are increased a bit...which makes me :)

Discover also has rotating bonus categories similar to how the Chase Freedom works, but I don't have any Discover cards so can't comment.

I love my Discover (I believe it's technically DiscoverIt) because:

1) no annual fee
2) rotating 5% cash back categories
3) first year the 5% cash back is matched at the end of the year (eg, I've earned $367 so far and I'll have another $367+$72-73 in Feb)
4) their rotating categories are useful for me -this year Q1 is gas and warehouse; Q2 is grocery; Q3 is restaurants; Q4 is Amazon and warehouse

So I know that beginning tomorrow I can purchase $1500 worth of Disney Gift Cards at Sam's Club for $1443, (or so, don't quote me on this since I can't remember whether the $500 card retails for $480 or $481) receive $72 back from Discover (5%) and since my year isn't over, another $72 cash back in Feb. Even after the year match is over, I'll take 5% off groceries, restaurants (especially local ones without mass gift cards) and Sam's. It's definitely a keeper for me since there's no AF.

And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, post your questions to this board or the subreddit before making any big decisions like applying for a credit card! We're all glad to help, and we all hate to see a new member make mistakes.

Yes-very well put! I have never encountered a nicer group than the DiSers on this thread!
 
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Id say, hit SPGs right now. Those cards are rumored to go into extinct mid next year. Citi cards are pretty good too but there isnt any bonuses there. Maybe Amex cards would be a nice hit.

I have the AmEx SPG business but will be cancelling soon - I got it when I was trying to stay under 5/24 by applying for a business card but not worried about 5/24 right now. What other SPG card should I look at?
 


Hmmm...I think I need to browse through and find some of these "pointer" posts. Is there a list of acronyms somewhere? I really can't even read a lot of posts.

My goal is mostly just to be able to make travel cheaper so I can justify traveling more.

I've had the American Express Preferred card for a few years. I got it because of the cash back on groceries but I pretty much never use it anymore and probably should cancel it. I've had a Chase Sapphire Preferred card for about a year and a half and it's the only card I really use. i signed up for it because of the signup bonus and have around 100,000 points, but I don't really understand how to get the most mileage out of redeeming them. I also recently signed up for an American Airlines AAdvantage Aviator card. I don't remember exactly why I got this one except that the signup bonus was supposed to be good. My husband was getting it and he suggested I do so as well and I didn't have the time to look into it myself so I just went ahead and signed up. I probably should read up on that one.

So these are the only cards I have besides a few never-used store credit cards I got for a one-time discount and should probably cancel (Home Goods, Lowe's, etc.). I always pay my balance in full every month and would never charge more than I could pay when the bill comes due.

Why can you only apply for 5 cards within a 24 month period? Also, is the way people maximize points just to apply for cards, get the signup bonus, and then cancel the cards at some after they get it? Does this affect your credit? I don't really see how having multiple cards is helpful beyond the initial bonus. What are sending categories? Is that where some cards award more points for specific purchases?

I think that's probably enough questions for now! I'll look into Million Miles Secrets and Points Guy. Thanks!

My only thing to add to the advice that others have given is that in my experience, a lot depends on whether there is a single airline that you often use. Many years ago, when we lived in a Delta hub, the Delta card was very useful. Now, we live in a city that isn't a hub to any airline, so that makes it harder to know which airline's points I should try to accumulate.
 
I have the AmEx SPG business but will be cancelling soon - I got it when I was trying to stay under 5/24 by applying for a business card but not worried about 5/24 right now. What other SPG card should I look at?

did you do the spg personal yet? if your under 5/24, the Marriott business card may be a good idea too.

edit: also, u should try to see if they would give u a retention bonus instead of cancelling. Keep the business card, personal card, u can get rid of. :]
 
Wow, so much great advice! I want to address each person's input individually but there are so many of you!

This is a lot more involved than I realized, so I'm going to take some time to read all the sources people have suggested before I bother you all with questions that can probably be answered with a little research. I have to say, I almost can't believe how nice and helpful everyone here is! Calypso, you are very good at explaining things; you could be a consultant on this.

One question regarding airport hubs. I fly out of Tampa, or sometimes Orlando, Miami, or Ft. Lauderdale if the money saved is worth the drive. What airlines should I be focusing on?
 


Wow, so much great advice! I want to address each person's input individually but there are so many of you!

This is a lot more involved than I realized, so I'm going to take some time to read all the sources people have suggested before I bother you all with questions that can probably be answered with a little research. I have to say, I almost can't believe how nice and helpful everyone here is! Calypso, you are very good at explaining things; you could be a consultant on this.

One question regarding airport hubs. I fly out of Tampa, or sometimes Orlando, Miami, or Ft. Lauderdale if the money saved is worth the drive. What airlines should I be focusing on?
With Tampa, Orlando and Miami available I think pretty much any airline is going to have a lot of great options for you! It probably more depends on what destinations interest you and maybe doing a more focused search from there.

I'm a big Southwest advocate if you're looking at domestic travel. Their points are VERY simple to understand and use. Also very flexible with cancellations too! I haven't paid for a Southwest flight in 4+ years and we fly 3-4 times a year as a Family of 4. If you have questions about other airlines I'm not your guy haha.
 
With Tampa, Orlando and Miami available I think pretty much any airline is going to have a lot of great options for you! It probably more depends on what destinations interest you and maybe doing a more focused search from there.

I'm a big Southwest advocate if you're looking at domestic travel. Their points are VERY simple to understand and use. Also very flexible with cancellations too! I haven't paid for a Southwest flight in 4+ years and we fly 3-4 times a year as a Family of 4. If you have questions about other airlines I'm not your guy haha.

SouthFayetteFan or others,
I have just gotten my Southwest Companion pass this summer so it expires Dec 2019. For our travel this is a very valuable option. How do you maintain your Companion Pass with so many applications?
 
Wow, so much great advice! I want to address each person's input individually but there are so many of you!

This is a lot more involved than I realized, so I'm going to take some time to read all the sources people have suggested before I bother you all with questions that can probably be answered with a little research. I have to say, I almost can't believe how nice and helpful everyone here is! Calypso, you are very good at explaining things; you could be a consultant on this.

One question regarding airport hubs. I fly out of Tampa, or sometimes Orlando, Miami, or Ft. Lauderdale if the money saved is worth the drive. What airlines should I be focusing on?

Thank you. I wish I had someone that would have done the same for me when I started :rolleyes: That is what I like best about the group here. Everyone is super helpful and super non judgmental. Honestly, it sounds far more overwhelming than it really is. I could never be a consultant though. I have barely scratched the surface of this hobby and know enough so that it works pretty well for us. If I did more research or dove into manufactured spending regularly I could be earning way more points and getting far better redemptions than what I currently get. This hobby can be far more involved and the pros are the bloggers who make it a full time job. They are the ones that really know what they're doing. I'm not in the same league and I'm ok with that. I've still been able to do some pretty cool things.

Well, again it depends on your travel goals. TPA, MCO and FLL are all hubs for Silver airlines. MCO and FLL are focus cities for Jet Blue. MCO is a hub for SouthWest.

The only legacy carrier with a hub in Florida is American Airlines (AA) in Miami. Currently Citi and Barclay both issue AA credit cards and both are reasonably churnable. So I will pick up one or two a year and so will DH. The majority of our flights wind up on AA or British Airways (BA) which are both partner airlines in the One World alliance. My focus tends to be on ways I can earn points or miles that I can use on One World carriers. Chase UR points from my various Chase UR earning cards that I transfer to the CSR account can then transfer to BA. Starwood Preferred Guest points from my SPG Amex transfer to AA (and over 30 other airlines) and Membership Rewards from my various Amex cards also transfer to BA.

The majority of my online shopping is usually through the AA shopping portal to get extra AA miles. DH and I both utilize the AA dining rewards network to get extra AA miles for dining. He maintains VIP status by purchasing Earl of Sandwich gift cards at Disney Springs (using the CSR card) in separate transactions. This will earn 3 UR points/$ and 3 AA miles/$. We visit WDW a lot so they don't go unused. The rest of the time is more passive earning unless we come across a new restaurant we want to try. that we notice is on the dining rewards network. This is a passive way to pick up AA miles if you aren't sure you would be flying AA often. I do more or less the same thing with United by using the United Mileage X App to purchase gift cards.

If I did a lot of domestic travel and didn't care about lie flat seats, I"d be all over SouthWest and that companion pass as well as Jet Blue. SouthWest is the only Chase airline card I have never applied for and never will simply because it doesn't meet my travel needs. But I will happily be the first to sing high praises for the SW airline, card and the benefits of the companion pass. Fortunately, we have folks here who are really good when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of the SW cards and companion pass and can give you excellent advice if this meets your goals.

It seems like we are in the same boat with airlines. I fly mostly out of Miami and FLL. However, I will drive (or fly on a separate ticket) to Tampa or Orlando if the award I want is worth the drive or extra flight. I'd say check out the airlines closest to you, think about the places you'd like to visit the most and which airlines fly there the most. You can always worry about positioning yourself for an award later. This is my 5th year travel hacking but the first year I've used positioning for specific flights.
 
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Regarding churning, I should get up to 5 Chase cards per 24 month period, get the bonus, and then cancel before I have to pay an annual fee? Is this too simplistic an explanation of this? I still have a lot of reading to do! With cards that have an annual fee, when do you pay that? Is it up front or after the first year? So can you sign up, get the bonus, and cancel before the year is up and avoid paying the annual fee? I'm getting offers from AmEx to upgrade to Platinum for 60,000 rewards points, but I have to spend $5000 in three months and membership is $550 a year. I'm not sure what 60,000 points even translates to in miles or dollars so I'm not sure if it's worth it, but it might be if I could avoid paying the annual fee. It's all very confusing to me still.

I could never get on board with the extreme couponing to save money on groceries/household items--I just wasn't interested enough. But I find all off this really intriguing and feel that getting to vacation more and possibly better would be entirely worth the time and effort put into it.

I couldn't be bothered with extreme couponing either. Way too much effort and what do I do with 20 boxes of whatever.

Don't worry this is confusing to everybody at first. You're asking questions and for clarification which is good!

Ok, if you were to get 5 Chase cards every 24 months, you would be unable to get any other bank cards and still get those same Chase cards. For you to be approved by Chase on an application for the following cards: CSP, CSR, CF, CFU, Ink, Marriott (personal) and United you must not have opened 5 or more new credit cards from any bank (not just Chase) over the previous 24 months. Let's say over the last 24 months you opened a new Amex card, Citi card, Discover card, Capital One card, and Bank of America card or became an authorized user on any of those cards and today you decide to apply for any of the Chase cards I listed, you will receive a denial letter from Chase on your application.

Some cards are worth keeping even though there is an annual fee. For me, I need the CSR so that my UR points are worth more and can transfer to airlines. I also spend enough on the CSR in 3x categories to justify the extra $150 fee after getting the $300 travel credit. For others a CSP fee would make more sense to keep. DH and I each have a Marriott card and use our free anniversary nights each year which to use outweigh the fee. We also have IHG cards and the anniversary nights outweigh the fee. I have a number of cards that I keep for the benefits and don't use but have no problem paying for the fee because the benefit they offer is worth more than the fee.

I am very kindly going to advise you do not accept that Amex offer. Wait until there is a 100k offer and also wait until you have the Chase cards you want and are past 5/24. I picked up an Amex Schwab Platinum card for 60K points last month and I will be cancelling that card when the fee is due. I just got it in November and used the $200 airline credit via gift card purchases. I will use the airline credit again in January. So that brings me down from $550 out of pocket never to be seen again to $150 since I will use those gift cards at some point. 60K points can be worth 60k miles when transferring to an airline. It can be worth $600 when redeemed for a statement credit. However, since I also have the Amex business Platinum card I am able to get 50% off my miles back when I use them to pay for airfare in business or first on any airline or in economy on my preferred airline. Well at least until January and then the benefit goes down to 35% of my MR points back. I hate that they did away with the 50% back.
 
I thought it expired in December the year after you got it.....so shouldn’t it have expired 12/31/18??

I earned mine in March 17 and it expires theN.
You're correct. DH earned his in March 2015 and it will expire tonight :( Luckily, mine should come through in early Jan and then will be good through 12/31/19. So almost 2 years I will have use of it.
 
I couldn't be bothered with extreme couponing either. Way too much effort and what do I do with 20 boxes of whatever.

I used to love couponing, though I would never get more than I could use because that's pointless unless you are going to donate it. It's really only worthwhile if you have grocery stores that always double coupons under $1 then will sometimes triple those or super double and double coupons up to $2. This combined with sales would make it so I never had to pay for things like dental floss or I could buy things I may not normally because of budget. CVS is also a good place to coupon and roll their extra bucks. Now that I'm back near Seattle we don't have stores that do this and have very few grocery options compared to what I had in Charlotte. And CVS is too far to make a weekly trip worthwhile. I still coupon but nothing like before. I was sad when I finally used up the last of my floss stockpile. You will do better with CC churning and swagbucks than couponing though.
 
SouthFayetteFan or others,
I have just gotten my Southwest Companion pass this summer so it expires Dec 2019. For our travel this is a very valuable option. How do you maintain your Companion Pass with so many applications?
I earned my first CP in Jan'14 before 5/24 existed. My wife earned her first in Fall '15 and 5/24 was just on Chase's cards (no co-brands yet). Rumor of 5/24 extending to SW came out in spring '16 so I went ahead and earned another CP myself.

So we had 1 CP in '14, 2 thru much of '15 and '16, 1 in '17. We are now without a CP For the first time in a long time. Honestly tho for me the CP is nice but the value of the SW points is where it's at.

In that time, We've flown our family of 4 to Florida 14 times, Cali once, and wife and I have done weekends in Nashville, Boston, Connecticut all while paying $5.60 per flight and we still have $7,500 worth of Southwest points left. Of course the CPs have saved a lot of points but overall I just found SW points simple to earn and simple to use so I've made them a focus.

My wife will be under 5/24 in April and we definitely plan to get another 2 SW Cards and re-earn a CP. 2 player mode makes it a little easier to maintain a CP. Another thing I have in my back pocket is about 1 million Marriott points which can be transferred to SW if I wanted also.

I also like having the stash of SW as in an emergency they could be redeemed for Target GCs at $0.01 per point which gives me a little $5,000 emergency fund if we were without an income for a time or something.
 
My 21yo daughter is ready for a card. She's a recent college grad (2 weeks). We're trying to get a credit score for her. Credit karma doesn't like her, in the past they couldn't verify her. Creditscorecard can't seem to pull up anything on her. I'm waiting to hear back to see if her Navy Federal account shows a score. She is an AU on my oldest Navy Federal card, I should have done that sooner than I did, I only did that in the past year.

I don't know if I should just have her give Chase a try or just start with NFCU. I'm pretty sure she'd have no issue getting approved with NFCU. I don't know if Chase will approve her and with little to no history, and which Chase should she start with? Travel goals for her are a trip to Japan with her girlfriend to visit the girlfriend's brother sometime in the next 2 years I think, and Tokyo Disneyland. Other than that, they have no big travel plans. Someday they want to road trip, they do little stuff around here. She just wants to start building her credit mostly. When I mentioned maybe being able use some points for Japan she became interested. Hitting minimum spends will be hard for her.

Then the next part of my question is income. Can she use her roommate/girlfriend's income? They split the bills, each paying half.
 
You're correct. DH earned his in March 2015 and it will expire tonight :(

Mine expires tonight too.:sad: I will re earn it either this summer if I can make good use of it in the 2nd half of 2018, or what and pick it up next Jan. Our 2018 travel plans are up in the air right now.

We do still have DH's CP thru 2018, so at least we have one.
 
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