Questions and Answers

Hi,

I currently have Chase Sapphire Preferred, and just chose to cancel my Barclays World Arrival after they wouldn’t waive the fee the 3rd year. (I was successful in getting it waived once, so figured why not) Anyways, I’m looking for another card(s). As far as trips are concerned, I’ll be traveling to Europe next April and another 2 domestic flights the rest of this year. I can meet the spend amount for any card, just looking for 2 good ones to start with. Based on the readings, I’m led to believe Starwood Preferred AMEX and Carlson would be good, but I’m open to other suggestions, based on the information I have provided. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Will D.

[USER=896]@Will D.[/USER] – Welcome!

There’s a special on the Chase British Airways card right now where you can get 100K Avios for spending $20K on the card in the first year. You can find the offer on the Chase website. You may not want to use those miles for your trip to Europe but it’s a limited time offer and Avios might be a good deal for your domestic flights.

Other than that, the SPG Amex is absolutely a great card to have. Lucky values Starpoints at 2.2 cents apiece just because they can be transferred to so many airlines as well as at SPG hotels.

The Carlson card has its uses but isn’t great for everyday spend. Club Carlson properties overseas are usually pretty decent though they’re not great here in the US, except perhaps for some Radissons. If you choose to apply for this card, I’d make it your first application because US Bank can get a little strange about allowing people to have the card if they have several others or have had quite a few credit inquiries.

You could also apply for a card from Citibank, which would give you one from each of the major issuers. I’d start out with a points-earning card – like one of the AA cards or the Hilton card – and then you can downgrade it to a Double Cash card after the free year is up.

Except for the BA card, Lucky has application links for all these cards on the pages under the Best Credit Cards tab.

[USER=896]@Will D.[/USER] Are you looking for hotel points for your Europe stay or for airline miles? If hotels have you checked to see if there are hotels in SPG or CC for your destinations? The SPG does offer great flexibility and bonuses when transferring to airlines as well so it may be a good back up card for non-bonused transactions where your CSP does not earn any bonus points. Club Carlson does have a good footprint in Europe and though it is not as attractive as it was since the devaluation, you might get good benefits from it.

Thanks for the responses so far! That British Airways deal seems amazing. I found a 50k deal, but no 100k.

I think I’m sold on SPG AMEX as being one of the two cards, but can’t seem to find the card that has as good of benefits as those other two.

Ideally I would like the card to pay for a large portion of the plane ticket. So what is the best card that you would recommend for flying from DC to Brussels/London/Bristol?

The Citi Premier Thank You card seems pretty solid, but so does AmEx everyday preferred. Is this a general consensus on the preference of these two?

[URL=’https://creditcards.chase.com/credit-cards/british-airways-credit-card.aspx’]Here’s the BA 100K deal[/URL]. Note that you don’t get the 100K all at once.
50K after $2000 spend
+25K after $10,000 total spend
+25K after $20,000 total spend

When you say “I would like the card to pay for a large portion of the plane ticket” do you mean you’re buying a revenue ticket and would like for the card to offset some of that? Or that you’re seeking an award ticket and you’d like the card to provide enough miles for that?

The Citi Premier card *is* a very solid product but is somewhat duplicative of the CSP. If the primary rental coverage provided by the CSP or the specific list of transfer partners is not important to you, the Premier might actually be a better card in someways because of the greater bonus categories including gas.

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] asks a valid question about your intentions. If you are buying a ticket the 3x bonus of the Citi Premier or AmEx Gold would be great. If miles then we’ll need more information on what you already have, cabin preferences etc.

[USER=896]@Will D.[/USER]

Ditto [USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER] and [USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] that what you intend to do with the miles are important.

The following math assume you are a single traveler.

Have you had the Alaska private and businesses card lately?

Sign up for 50K Alaska on the 2 cards combined. 150$ in annual fees for both cards plus a pack of gum or a coffee charged on both cards.

Buy miles before the promo end Oct 6, 40K miles plus 40% bonus=56K miles for 1182.50$
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/08/27/bonus-alaska-miles-deal/[/URL]

Take Emirates First to Europe one way with a stopover in Dubai?
[URL]https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/award-chart/award-chart-europe.aspx[/URL]

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] i meant I would like an award ticket and the miles from a sign up bonus to cover the flight. Is there a card that in conjunction with the sign up bonus from the CSP, that could cover an intl round trip?

The SPG card partners with a large number of airlines and overlaps with the CSP. Some of the other cards mentioned also have overlapping airline partners.

What might make it easier to determine which card would would best is to look at the [URL=’http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2014/06/24/transfer-partner-master-list/’]Frequent Miler’s Transfer Partner Master List[/URL]. While the post itself is old, the spreadsheet he links to is kept up-to-date. There you can see which airlines CSP transfers to and easily see which other card’s points transfer to the same airline.

Hopefully that will point you in the right direction but if you’ve still got more questions just let us know.