Questions and Answers

Hi all,

First time poster, long time reader. My husband and I are working with a surrogacy clinic, and our clinic bill is a basically one-time, $45,000 charge. We were excited that we can put it on our card without having to pay a markup to them, and now we’re trying to figure out how to maximize points and thought we’d come here for your advice!

A few relevant things:
– We live in San Francisco, so we’re mostly United / SA flyers, although we have about 100k Amex points currently, and each have small (sub 50k) balances on Delta & AA. We put most of our spend on Chase because of UA transfer.
– We currently have Amex Platinum (shared,) Chase Sapphire Reserve (two individual,) United MP Explorer (just me).
– I took advantage of the Delta Amex 50k offer a few years ago, and we both took advantage of the Sapphire Reserve 100k miles offer
– I closed an old AA card ~ 6 months ago that I’d opened for a previous offer, but hadn’t used in years and forgot about until they called.

My first instinct was to just put everything on the Chase card and maximize our Ultimate Rewards points (for United / SA award booking,) but now it seems like we should take advantage of a bunch of new sign up offers all at once.

For example, it looks like we can open a Chase Business card and get an 80K bonus (we don’t own our own businesses / does that matter?) Similar thing, but 100K points and a higher fee for Amex Business Plat.

Would love advice from the crowed about which to prioritize / if we’re thinking about this right.

I’d get some cards where you can earn more than 1 point per dollar on the spend. You’re going in the right direction.

Maybe each of you can open the Chase Ink biz card to get the 80k. then the Chase Ink card that gets you 1.5x points per dollar.

Or, you can all get a bunch of Citi/Barclays AA cards and get their bonuses. Think about which miles and points you’d want most and see which cards are available and that youre eligible for. Remember, apply for Chase cards FIRST so that you’re not as impacted by 5/24 as you otherwise might be.