Was asking starwoods preferred or Mariotts rewards card for a new card

starwoods points are some of the most valuable points. Get it for the 25k sign up bonus.

I'm curious about this. We have a Hilton card but the points are becoming useless, 2 changes in the last year on tiers. How many nights can 25k get you in, say, Vegas?

NM, Starwood appears to be much more upfront about their points than Hilton and I was able to get the info pretty easily. Hilton's change depending on all sorts of things.

25k will get you a night, at least. Looks like 32k for 2 nights (says 12 to 16k a night).

Much more bang for the point than the Hilton points.

Ah. Well, do you have a hotel preference? Starwood points are almost always considered some of the most valuable points so a lot of people use their SPG amex for regular (1x) spending. The cash and points options can really stretch the points and they can be considered a flexible currency since they can be transferred to a huge number of airlines with a 5000 mile bonus per 20000 points xferred.

If you know someone with this card they can refer you and earn 5000 points when you get approved. Typically 2x a year the signup bonus goes from 25000 -> 30000, it's usually at the same time each year so do some googling. One is in sept/oct though.

Unless you have a large Mariott preference, I wouldn't get that card as there are so many better cards from Chase! Check out FM's recent post about the Marriot card.



And make sure you research "cash and points" redemption!

One of the Westins in vegas is a Cat3 which means you can get a room for 6000 points, so 4 nights if you use straight points and no C&P redemptions.

Check here: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/corpor...ty=las%20vegas

Also if you have a pile of HHonors points do some searching, there are a lot of recommendations of locations to book before 3/28 when the points will be hugely devalued. I personally have 115k HHonors and have 75k Hawaiian miles that were supposed to become 150k HHonors but won't be doing that anymore...

I prefer Starwood. Probably not worth waiting til sept/oct for 5k pts right?

Just unload on that now...

No it's not worth waiting imo. Just get the card, if you know anyone else who might want it, you can get 5k bonus points for referring them anyway.

Starwood points are getting less valuable, they have recently made changes to their redemption options/values.

True but they are still far and away more valuable than marriot

If not Starwood then what for travel rewards?

discover miles?

I'm getting ready to use a bunch of miles I have on mine for travel credit. Not a horrible card, aside from being a discover and not accepted EVERYWHERE

I just applied for both the personal and business versions of the Chase Southwest card. Auto-accepted on the personal, the business will most likely get declined and I'll have to call the reconsideration line.

That will be 100k Southwest points, which is $1600 worth of Wanna Get Away fares. More importantly, it guarantees a Southwest Companion Pass. I plan on abusing that thing as much as possible until the end of 2014.

you already have 10k rapid rewards I'm assuming?

Chase is pretty much the only bank that you don't need to be patient with. You can call the business reconsideration line right now (1-800-453-9719) and say that your decision was pending and you just wanted to make sure that you provide them with whatever information they need to process the application. Just be prepared for the business questions like what your business is, what do you do, how long its been around, what revenue you earn etc.

It sounds like you have a good idea what you're doing but for the onlookers itt, you can get a personal and business version of the same card. When asked why, just say you really like the card for benefits x,y,z, but want to keep your business and personal expenses separate.

JL, I has 6000 points already. I need to spend $2000 + $2000 in the next two months to unlock the 100k bonus, which should incidentally provide the last 4000 points. Does the Amazon Payments 1k/mo. still work?

Yep Amazon Payments still works fine.

So are you implying that you can lie about your income and there is no way for this to be verified?

I'm not really implying anything. I've read that when they say "household income" they usually further define it as money available to pay off debts. Read the fine print to figure out what is allowed to be claimed. If you put an outrageous number like $1,000,000 they have every right to ask you to prove it.

Wanted to bump this thread and mention that I am moving across the country. My GF and I are traveling by train from NY to CA a four day trip and I upgraded our coach tickets to a roomette. We are leaving in less than a week and due to the close-in cost of travel, this trip priced out at $1400. Instead of paying that, I used 35,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to get the tickets. When I signed up for the Sapphire Preferred and met the spending requirement they gave me 40k UR points. So one credit card signup saved me $1400!

If you respect your credit and make sure to establish good history, you can leverage it for great values.

Welcome to CA.

Bump for a random question.....

I recently signed up for a chase southwest card hoping to cash in on one of there deals once i met the spending requirement. For some reason i got flagged by their fraud department and was ultimately they declined me. I suspect that since i just moved this raised some eyebrows and my ID had my old address. Anyways.....

Should i avoid trying to get other Chase cards for the time being?

I suppose i should follow up with them to see why but i kept going back and for with them i just gave up once i got their last letter that they denied me.

Typically it's good practice to wait 90 days between Chase applications and almost every one of their landing pages asks if you've been denied a chase card in 6 months. I would call their reconsideration line (888-245-0625) and talk about your application and find out exactly why they denied you. Tell them you are interested in giving them whatever information they need to be comfortable approving you, then do that.

Will do....in the mean time are there any other suggested cards to apply for?

My wife's parents added her as an authorized user on their card when she was 16. She is now 28 and recently found out that her father let that card get 3 months behind on the payment (didn't pay in Nov-Jan, Capital One card). Now she has this ding on her credit report of being 3 months behind on a payment, even though she received nothing about it being behind. Is there anything she can do to get this cleared? The card has since been paid and cancelled.

Really depends on your goals, preferred airlines, location, and whether you fly domestic or internationally.

My understanding is that you can dispute with each of the CRA to have the account removed from the report with the reason being "not my account", which should be one of their drop down items.