tnx From: Travis Johnson Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2016 12:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Same question with a twist
Hi, Business card is the Spark Business VISA from Capital One. No annual fee, 2% cash back rewards on everything (with no limit). Personal card is the Citi Mastercard Double Cash card. No annual fee, 2% cash back rewards on everything (with no limit). Also, I know someone in my hometown that plays the credit card game to gather points and miles. It's basically his hobby and he loves doing it... he opens and closes tons of cards every year to get the "bonus" miles, etc. Last year he took his entire family (6 people) to Italy for two weeks for like $150 total out of pocket (including airfare, hotel, car rentals, etc). I just don't have the patience to play all the card games. LOL Travis On 8/6/2016 12:20 PM, Chuck McCown wrote: So, what are those two cards you use? From: Travis Johnson Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2016 12:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Same question with a twist Hi, This is all great information... but I would still like to see a point value vs cash back. My main business card gets me 2% Cashback (which I have a check mailed to me personally about every six months, so it doesn't appear anywhere on the business) and my personal card also gives me 2% cashback (which I can just apply directly to my balance every 3-4 months). So if you were to spend $5k on a single card that generates points/miles, what is the actual cash value of those points or miles? I'm asking because I would like to see if there is much difference, without playing all the transfer games. At some point you have to factor your time into all this as well... if you spend hours each month trying to move points around, that is costing you something as well. Personally, even when I just started out in the WISP industry, I figured my time was worth at least $100/hour (that would have been 20 years ago). Not to mention trying to track every single purchase and use the proper card for every item is too confusing... and then having to pay 4-5 different card balances each month would be a huge pain as well. :) Travis On 8/5/2016 10:17 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) wrote: This gets somewhat complicated. Let me try to explain, with some background: I have the following for business purposes: 1) Chase Ink. This earns chase miles, at a rate of 1 point per dollar for most things, plus 5 points per dollar for office supplies, cellular, internet, cable, and 2 points for gas stations and either restaurants (ink plus) or hotels (ink cash). The ink plus has an annual fee (I Think $95), and the ink cash doesn't. There's another bonus of the ink plus, I'll get to in a minute. 2) AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card. This earns 1 starwood point per dollar, plus more at starwood hotels (aka sheraton, westin, etc). ($95 Annual fee) 3) AMEX Business Rewards Gold. This earns 1 membership rewards point per dollar for everything, and 3 points per dollar on one of : Airfare from airlines, advertising, gas stations, shipping, and certain computer-related purchases. The remaining categories get 2 points per dollar. $175 annual fee. I use the Amex gold exclusively for shipping, and for everything else I alternate between the starwood and chase ink depending on which type of points I need. Mostly the starwood points, since I'm swimming in chase points right now. For personal I use the following cards: 1) Chase Sapphire Preferred. $95 annual fee. Earns *2* chase points per dollars on travel (hotels, airfare, etc, but not gas) and restaurants. 1 point everywhere else. This has the same bonus as the ink plus above... again, description in a minute. 2) Chase Freedom (original). NO annual fee. Earns 5 points on a different category every quarter, and 1 point everywhere else. The categories so far this year have included grocieries, movies, and right now costco and restaurants. These are limited by $1500 per quarter, BUT gift cards and similar count. So during the groceries month, we stocked up on canned goods, and then bought safeway and albertsons gift cards. Same for the movies (we have a few hundred dollars of gift cards now from the movie theatres). 3) Chase Unlimited. No annual fee. 1.5 points everywhere. I use the sapphire for all travel purchases, business or not. Bonus is that it includes primary auto rental insurance, along with a few other interesting travel benefits (no foreign transaction fee, etc). I use the Freedom for the first $1500 of whatever category it's earning on. I use the Unlimited for everything else. So here's the reason why I use the above cards: They all earn 'transferrable' miles. This means that you can transfer these points to other rewards programs where they can be worth more. For instance, Membership rewards points are transferrable to delta for delta miles, which is the primary reason I continue to earn membership rewards points. Most of the other transfer partners are kinda Meh, but a list is here: http://thetravelsisters.com/amex-membership-rewards-airline-hotel-transfer-partners/. The starwood points are also transferrable to a lot of other programs. See http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/08/12/starwood-transfer-partners-airlines/ for an example list. Personally I use the starwood points primarily for hotel rooms with starwood itself. As an example, I booked the westin Grand in berlin for 5 nights a total of 40,000 starwood points. Booking this same room right now would be $937.13 USD for the stay, which means each of those starwood points are worth over 2.3 cents per point for this booking. If I'm earning them at 1 cent per point, then this is a 2.3% redemption. The chase points are also transferrable, IF you have a premium card. This is the sapphire preferred or the Ink plus. A recent redemption for me was to move some chase points to hyatt, and book three nights in SLC at the hyatt place out by the airport. Total number of points, 15,000. That particular weekend, I couldn't find a decent hotel for less than $120/night, which means this redemption was worth 2.4 cents per point. This multiplication factor is why the transferrable programs are so useful. Without either of the premium cards, you basically get to redeem at 1 cent per point, making the points way less valuable. Chase also has a really nice portal for reserving rental cars, hotels, and airfare, often with prices below what you can obtain elsewhere. You can also use miles to pay for them, but only at 1.25 cents per point, which is fine if you've got more miles than you know what to do with. So, if I was starting from scratch, I would: 1) Get a chase ink plus card. This is no annual fee for the first year, and gives you 60,000 bonus miles after a $5K spend. 2) Get a chase sapphire preferred card. Excellent travel card. 50,000 bonus miles after $4,000 spend. No annual fee first year, $95 after. 3) Get both the sapphire freedom (original) and sapphire freedom (unlimited). Pay attention to signup bonuses. In a year the annual fee applied, I'd call chase and ask them to change either sapphire preferred or the ink to a no annual fee product. (This gets you the bonus, and a year of figuring out if you want to keep the sapphire or ink). Note the above should get you at least $1100 worth of travel at 1 cent per point, or $1375 if you use the rewards portal to book, or probably at least $2K if you are picky about your resumptions. I'd only consider the amex gold card if I knew I was spending enough on one of the categories for it to make sense to pay the annual fee. In relation to the starwood card: Starwood just got bought by Marriott. There are a lot of questions regarding the future of this program. Two final notes: Chase has a rule known not-so-affectionally as the 5/24 rule. This means that if you've opened more than 4 credit cards across ALL providers in the past 24 months you will be denied. So, you'd need to verify the timing of any cards you have applied for (including authorized users). Probably safest to look at 'date opened' on your credit file to determine if you're eligible. And finally, if you don't want to play the points game, I'd probably still recommend the chase ink, and then use either the new costco card or the citi double cash for personal items - or one of the the capital one 2% cards if you want to use your points for travel. Two websites which should become part of your reading: http://www.thepointsguy.com/ - higher end points travel, but good to know about what's going on in travel and earning. http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/ - similar focus, but more about 'budget' travel as opposed to getting high end travel for free. On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 2:34 PM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: A few months ago we had a pretty good discussion about the best deals for credit cards. Today, I am looking for a better deal for company purchases. I like my Capital One Visa that gives good miles. I use the miles and like to store them up for my annual trips to England. But I figured I may as well start getting either miles or dollars or super low interest or something for the company credit card. Anyone have favorites for company use? -- Forrest Christian CEO, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc. Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602 [email protected] | http://www.packetflux.com
