@Niner wrote:
I don't churn cards, so this would only be for a single card. I might be looking at a large mortgage soon for an investment property, so my credit needs to stay relatively close to where it is. This would be only for hotels, since we drive everywhere.
@Tarantado wrote:
That’s just my specific philosophies on credit card rewards: minimal annual fees, optimum rewards/cash back accrual.
@Niner wrote:
Which Hilton American Express do you recommend? There seems to be a few
@callinectes wrote:
In that case, I'd definitely stick with a general Chase or Amex card. You can transfer those points to a lot of different hotels instead of being married to one chain group. The only reason I would get a hotel card would be for status but they only give you gold status which doesn't really give you much.
@walesmaven wrote:
Some of the really crazy road warrior MSers swear by the Choice rewards program. They run stay 2 nights get one free specials quite often, so you can really move up quickly.
@Niner wrote:
Which Hilton American Express do you recommend? There seems to be a few
@iShop123 wrote:
I have IHG as well since it bumps you to Platinum and you get a free room every year. I think mine is $95, though. Unfortunately, they've gone and changed the terms to limit the rooms to a 40k one, and they've devalued the points so all of the previously tied auto-payments are going to be switched soon. No more mattress runs for Accelerate bonuses.
@callinectes wrote:
*cracks knuckles* You are singing my song here. Don't get a hotel or airline co-branded card unless you are chasing sign-up bonuses and have exhausted better cards first. The best all-purpose, entry-level, points earning card is Chase Sapphire Preferred. Chase has a sign-up bonus of 60k points which you can easily transfer for at least 2 RT domestic flights or one round-trip international flight. With Chase you get 2x points on hotels, dining, and transportation. Chase has the most transfer partners closely followed by AMEX. On the Amex side, the Everyday Preferred is a great card too. Delta is king here in the SE so I use Amex a lot more since the two companies have a close relationship. Another factor with Amex is they have excellent offers that oftentimes allow you to double-dip on MS jobs. For example, a $60 statement credit or XXXX points for a stay at Hilton. I've even seen points offers for 5 Guys. If you decide to sign up for either of those let me know and I will send you a referral link.
Now, if you want to do some hard-core points earning there is a whole method that is too much to go into on this post. If you are interested I can point you towards some excellent resources. I churned cards for a year and got enough points for 2 biz class tickets to Europe and 11 hotel nights. I'm working on points for a trip to Asia now.
@bgriffin wrote:
@callinectes wrote:
In that case, I'd definitely stick with a general Chase or Amex card. You can transfer those points to a lot of different hotels instead of being married to one chain group. The only reason I would get a hotel card would be for status but they only give you gold status which doesn't really give you much.
For hotels only I would recommend Chase over Amex. Transferring from Amex to a hotel partner is generally a poor value. The same is true for Chase except in the case of Hyatt, which can yield about twice as much in value.
I have Global Entry; my partner does not. I didn't see Accelerate for the last quarter, and my previous two were lousy. Hope you're right about it coming back, and hopefully will be better than the must-complete-all-offers-for-the-bonus ones I've been getting. The Points Breaks keep creeping up, and the hotel that I most frequent is now 50,000 points -- but it's less than $125 regular cash rate. Feels devalued to me. Even the HIE is 30,000 now (or 15k + $100). Will have to scour FlyerTalk and SlickDeals to see what's better..@bgriffin wrote:
Your IHG card has Global Entry Credit. Also why no more Accelerate bonuses? New one should be released next week. And I haven't seen a point devaluation unless you're strictly attempting to redeem at the top levels. I find MUCH better value in the lower levels. Most sites value IHG points at $.005 per point and consistently get twice that. Your credit card gives you a 4th night free on redemptions, which bumps that even further.
@iShop123 wrote:
I have Global Entry; my partner does not. I didn't see Accelerate for the last quarter, and my previous two were lousy. Hope you're right about it coming back, and hopefully will be better than the must-complete-all-offers-for-the-bonus ones I've been getting. The Points Breaks keep creeping up, and the hotel that I most frequent is now 50,000 points -- but it's less than $125 regular cash rate. Feels devalued to me. Even the HIE is 30,000 now (or 15k + $100). Will have to scour FlyerTalk and SlickDeals to see what's better..
@bgriffin wrote:
@Tarantado wrote:
That’s just my specific philosophies on credit card rewards: minimal annual fees, optimum rewards/cash back accrual.
I have to disagree on the minimal annual fees. For instance take the Hilton Amex Cards. The base card at $0 fee gives you 7x on Hilton stays. The Surpass gives you like 12x?. Sure it has a $95 annual fee but you get a free night that's worth that. So basically by paying for a night up front (in the form of the annual fee) you earn almost 2x the points on your actual stays. Or you could move up to the Aspire for 14x and a $450 annual fee. Sure that sounds like a lot but you get a $250 credit for certain Hilton properties, a $250 airline incidental credit, and a free night. So basically you prepay at a discount and earn even more points on your stays. Low annual fee isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Plus you would have to pry my $550 Amex Platinum card out of my cold dead fingers.
@iShop123 wrote:
The Points Breaks keep creeping up