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 <ch...@wbmfg.com
<mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com>> 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
forre...@imach.com <mailto:forre...@imach.com> |
http://www.packetflux.com <http://www.packetflux.com/>
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/fwchristian>
<http://facebook.com/packetflux> <http://twitter.com/@packetflux>
