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Originally Posted by ambitious207
I am planning a long weekend in NYC towards the end of June. I am interested in acquiring a card for a hotel chain that ideally will help us get a night for free or at least earn us the best rewards on our booking. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Lots of options here, Chase Hyatt gives 2 free nights, Citi Hilton Reserve gives 2 weekend nights + gold status (free wifi and breakfast), US Bank Club Carlson gives 85k points (1-9 nights depending on redemption, probably 1-2 nights in NYC) + gold status + 2nd night free redemptions (if you book a 3 day award stay you pay points for 2 and the 3rd is free, if you book a 2 day award stay you pay points for 1 and the 2nd is free, etc).
Compare the spending requirements and do a little research on how quickly the reward certificates / points are paid out, as June is fast approaching.
If the timetable is too tight, get one of the cards that will give you status at your hotel to at least make the stay a little better with wifi or breakfast or similar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Ames
Cliff's on changes
Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeezNuts
Great thread, I've found slogging through the FlyerTalk and FatWallet threads to be a bit cumbersome.
I've been casually playing the CC game the past couple of years, started with the Citi AA 75k bonus offer + Capital One "Match Your Miles" promotion (this combo was awesome), but wanting to play it a little more heavily.
My current rotation:
Chase Freedom Visa (5% rotating categories, $100 signup bonus) - Maxed out drugstore in Q1, as I found some Vanilla Reloads, but decided the effort wasn't worth it given that VRs are getting more and more difficult to find. Finding it tough to max out restaurants in Q2 (need $500/month spend to hit max 5x rewards). Q3 and Q4 categories are pretty meh outside of Q4 Amazon.
Citi ThankYou Preferred (5% drugstore/grocery/restaurants for a limited time): Had this card since 2002 and was dormant until I heard about the bonus categories. Called and got them applied until end of June. I think max is only 2500 pts for me, so basically just $500 spend to get, which I've already done. Going to go back to dormancy once points post.
Capital One Ventures (basically 2% on every dollar spent): Use for all other purchases, pretty easy to have the wife just use this one. $59 annual fee is a burn; they usually credit it back, but this year they said no. I got this one during the 100k miles promotion a few years ago and it was totally worth it.
Thinking of having the wife get the Blue Cash Preferred for the 6% groceries. Just had a baby, so the restaurant/groceries ratio is being strongly slanted back to groceries. My wife is credit-averse, but I'm going to have her get the Target Red Card (5% off all Target purchases) because we are spending a lot more there recently.
Any other suggestions? Not sure if the Cap One card is optimal, but it is pretty easy to use and translate to statement credits. I have very good credit and can probably take in a couple more cards over the next year. Looking for a some good sign-up bonuses; probably should have gotten on that Southwest one, but I had and cancelled the Southwest card in 2010 and I don't think I could have gotten it anyways.
Figure out how much you actually spend on groceries because I did the math earlier in this thread with the BCP / BCE (6% vs 3%). I think it came out to needing to spend at least $2500 to make the two cards breakeven since the BCP has an annual fee and the BCE is Fee free. If you spend much more than $2500 in grocery stores a year than go with the BCP. If you don't, or want to avoid annual fees in general, get the BCE. Make sure to get an authorized user account for your wife so you will have 2 cards for Small Business Saturday this year.
To be perfectly honest, the best returns will always be on dollars spent to reach spending requirements to unlock bonuses. For example, you get 2 pt/$ in restaurants on the Sapphire preferred for every day spend. But if you signup for a new card that gives 50,000 points after spending $2k, that card "earns" you 52,000/$2000 = 26 pt/$ on the first $2k spent. 26 obviously >>> 2.
Alternatively, there are cards that for example earn a free night in whatever brand hotel after spending $10k in a year on that card. This card may only earn 1pt per $ spent and is pretty bad in terms of regular earning, but if you can use that free night in a hotel that costs $200, you are actually earning $200/$10k = 2% back plus the 10,000 points for the spending. If you use that free night in a hotel that costs $800, then that's a 8% "rebate".
So in my opinion, if your credit score is good, you may be better off signing up for X new cards per quarter to earn bonuses rather than worrying which card gets 3pts or 2pts or 1% cb and which is a better deal. (X is a number that you feel comfortable with where the total spend requirements are an amount that your family is comfortably spending in the time period anyway).
Lastly, if your wife doesn't like credit or credit cards, you can always look into the Target Debit redcard instead.