Spending Strategies: Where You Can Earn More Than 1 Mile Per Dollar Spent, Sorted By Category.

When you say “Chase Ink Bold Exclusives Program” is that any IB with a Chase account, or is that only the old IB?

@Chaikel:
Excellent question. The old Ink Bold cards were automatically upgraded 2-3 months after opening the card and having any Chase checking account to Ink Bold Exclusives.

The new card is less than 2 months old, so it’s too early to have any reports to see if it’s possible to get switched from the 5/2/1 program to the old Chase Exclusives program.

A) Dan, why would you use any of those cards for a car rental, if they only conver liability? Doesn’t a card like continental also cover CDW?
Isn’t that more important factor than points?

B) Of all those kickbacks you mention for gas, the maximum you get is 2%. Is that still worth more than for example the BP card where you get 5% back?
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C) You have on the list the Discover card, weren’t you just earlier in the post lamenting the Capital One cards because the mileage cards are worth more?

D) Regarding those “open savings”, all the other cards in also have they’re online mall (including Chase), where you can get up to 20% cash at various online stores!
Isn’t that worth quite a lot?!

Good job as usual! Thanks so much! Keep it up.

@yidel:
A. You’re a bit confused here. No card gives free liability. Almost every card gives free secondary CDW to your own car insurance if you have any.
The Continental/United cards give free primary CDW insurance.

Ideally you rent with your Continental/United card and assuming you return the car accident-free switch the card at the end to Sapphire Preferred.;)

B. 2 UR points at a value of 1.9 cents each is 3.8 cents. And you’re not limited to BP then.

C. Capital One gives you 1% or 2% back at most for travel.
Freedom with Exclusives or Starwood will beat that on any purchase anyday.
The highlight of the Discover is for the 5% categories, which beats everyday purchases on mileage cards. Plus it has fee-free and APR-free balance transfers.

D. Open Savings is automatic and a very different program. Walk into Fedex or Officemax or Hyatt, etc, and use your card and you automatically get the cash rebate and the regular points for the purchase. No hoops to jump through at all.

Thanks
I appreciate your clarifications.

I think the discover card has balance transfer fee of 3%, no? Only the slate is fee free right now for limited time.

Also dan, does chase freedom current quarter 5% category include amazon payments or is it just amazon?

Dan,
I took your advice and was able to open up 4 starwood cards. 2 on my name and 2 on my wife’s name. I tried opening up more but i was told that you can only have one preferred and one business per person. Is that correct?

Additionally, can all these points be on the same account w/ starwood?

Thanks.

@Dan: The new card is less than 2 months old, so it’s too early to have any reports to see if it’s possible to get switched from the 5/2/1 program to the old Chase Exclusives program.

I just activated my New ink bold 5/2/1 card, I begged them to convert it to the old INK Bold, they wouldn’t budge, no matter what. They said its not available anymore.

for gas you should mention the penfed visa which gives 5% gas cashback

Thanks. A great summary.

How much do annual fees play a role in determining the percentages? What percentage of years are you able to get the annual fees waived or reduced?

capital one has a 2% on everything card. if you are not flying first class, i think it generally beats out the others.

If I have the Sapphire Preferred to what hotel programs do they transfer and whats the minimum amount for transfer.

dan do you place virgin americas elevate program anywhere near your current list? if i only fly domestically and i can get a rount trip ticket say jfk-lax for 10k points doesnt that sound pretty good?

@steve:
The link that I provided has no BT fees and 0% APR.
Slate does indeed do this as well: http://www.dansdeals.com/go/slatebt

@steve:
The 5% is good for:
Amazon.com
Amazon.com Magazines
Amazon Digital Downloads (from Amazon.com and Kindle)
Amazon Fresh Orders
Amazon.com Gift Cards (purchased at Amazon.com)
Amazon Local
Amazon Marketplace

It does not appear that it will work for Amazon peer-to-peer payments Payments.

@mann:
Lol…never advised such a thing, sorry!
I do advise opening up 2 or 3 cards from the same bank at the same time with multiple browsers, but that’s for different cards!
It’s extremely difficult to get approved for 2 of the same exact card at the same time.

You can call Starwood to transfer points for free between anyone listed as living at the same address.

@Zevi:
Good data point, but not conclusive yet.
Did you try calling, sending a secure message, and talking to a bank manager yet?

@eli:
That card is simply unsustainable in my opinion.
They’ve chipped away at every benefit that card used to have over the past year or 2 to the point that they just sent out letters that any purchase besides gas will only earn 0.25% cash back. With everyone using that card now only for gas, offering 5% is simply an a money losing situation and impossible for it to continue very long. I’d be surprised if by this time next year the 5% was still around.

If you have the card use it out, but I don’t think it’s worth applying for as a new card, especially without any signup bonus like other cards give.

@Oren:
I’m able to get retention to waive the fee or give enough points to make the annual fee worthwhile most of the time.
See here for more info: http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=1572

If I can’t then I open a new card and move over the credit line from the old card to the new card so that my credit score doesn’t get hurt.

@capital one:
I humbly disagree. Even when flying coach or staying in hotels it’s not hard to beat 2%.
In my example in the post a last minute flights from CLE-NYC would run me $1,130.
That would require 113,000 Capital One points but just 9,000 Avios.
Plus 7,000 Membership Rewards turns into 9,100 Avios right now (and 20,000 Starwood always turns into 25,000 Avios).

Same thing for any other last-minute ticket, which is when the miles are really useful as the sky is the limit.

For hotels Starpoints can reduce the rates of hotels cheap and expensive to as low as 2K points a night. With Capital One that same hotel can be many times that.

And yes, in business or first class, miles will obviously beat capital one hands down.

@avi:
Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, etc.
Hyatt points are the most valuable, a $1,000/night hotel costs no more than 22,000 points.

1,000 Chase UR points=1,000 hotel points.

@yanky:
I’m not very familiar with the program, but from what I understand the rates track with the current price, so there’s a set value for points that you can’t exceed which isn’t my preference.

Another gas option for consideration could be the Costco Business AMEX, it gives 4% back on gas at any station that takes AMEX versus the 3% on the standard Costco AMEX.

@Dan: Is there a minimum transfer and is it instant

Dan in your response to Oren about annual fees you said:
“If I can’t then I open a new card and move over the credit line from the old card to the new card so that my credit score doesn’t get hurt.”

This doesn’t solve the annual fee problem though does it? Even if your credit line is down to 0, the card is still open and opened cards will get charged the fee. Or am I mistaken?

@avi:
As I said, 1,000 and yes it’s instant and can be transferred to anyone.

@redbull3:
I mean that I close the old card in the process of getting a new card from the reconsideration folks and have them take the entire credit line from the old card to the new card.

As long as it’s done within 30 days of the annual fee then they will refund the annual fee.

@Dan: Thank you

Dan,

Can you post again the best way to convert starwood points into AA points into other airlines to get to israel with the cheapest option in terms of using the least amount of points?

@Dan:
Per the link you provided for Discover More: “Balance Transfer
Intro fee of 3% of the amount of each transfer for transfers that post to your account by 7/10/2012 with the 0% intro APR balance transfer offer described above. After that, either $10 or 5% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.”

@mann:
Slightly out of date: http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/15417

@Shmelly:
Fixed the link, try again now.

Dan,

My apologies that this is only tangentially related but your input is very much appreciated.

I applied for the INK Bold as per your recommendation. I got denied. When i called they told me i have no credit history with Experian. Ive had Credit cards for years. I dont know how this is possible. I also have the Saphire Preferred (Approved for $35k) and regular Saphire approved for $8k. They said i dont have those long enough.

What could have happened to my credit history?

Is it worth another hit on my credit to have them look at Transunion?

What do i do to find out what happened to my credit history? I checked my FICO score 6 months ago and i had an 800 rating.

FYI I also bank with Chase for 4 years-personal and business- and have been a good customer keeping high balances in the accounts, as high as $100k or more.

Finally, i intend to apply for three more Chase cards that you recommended. How does that play into all this? it seems that the personal and business are completely separate vetting processes. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance.

@Mark & Stella:
You should have called back. Most reps will take $5K off an existing card to approve a new card.
Plus there are multiple different reconsideration numbers you can try calling. I don’t give up until I find a good rep.

can i just call up sapphire preferred and have them take some of my credit line to the ink bold card or do i need to start a new app for ink bold? i got my 50 for sapphire and i want to get it now for ink bold..thanks dan

@yehuda:
You need to make a new app and then “reconsideration” or “credit analyst” departments can move credit lines around to approve a new card if you don’t get approved automatically.

discover card gives 5% back on gas till april

@Dan: thanks Dan! enjoy the BreakFast

@moshe:
I wrote that in the post.

@yehuda:
Counting down the minutes!

i am not sure why you dont unclude thank you points in any of this.
officially their points are worth 1.3 cents but u get an additional point per $ spent from flying points. and thats besides bonus points in certain categories. on top of that when u redeem the miles u are still getting miles for ur trip.
for ex. i recently looked up a flight from lax to johannesburgh. it was around 89,000 points or to purchase $1200. so besides that that is 45,000 points doubled. u get all the mileage and that includes all fees. u dont pay any taxes or fuel surcharges.

@capital one: Capital one is the worst and very misleading. They call double miles with the venture, the cash value of their miles is .5 cents per mule, so basically you pay a yearly fee for 1% cash back (get the bank of America cash card, or many others, and you’ll be able to redeem your points for straight up cash).

They do however offer their miles at 1 cent to the dollar (mile), but only when redeeming for travel. I booked a flight through them, and they actually charged a fee and wouldn’t allow me to add money to get the flights I wanted (was $15 more and they wouldn’t budge, I even offered them $30, but they said they couldn’t take it).

Capital one officiallly sucks!

@Dan You can not get a ticket for today with Avios. BA only let you book award tickets 24 hours in advance. When did you buy a ticket for same day last time? :)))

@DaBomb Capital One Venture card gives you 2 cents back on every purchase. You can redeem them on all previous travel. For example, book a ticket on United for $200 and when it posts to your statement redeem 20000 points to get your $200 credited back. It’s a great program for people who don’t fly Business/ First class and don’t buy last minute tickets. One can argue that spg point is worth over 2 cents, but it’s only if you are after luxury. If you are ready to stay in Motel 6 and fly Spirit you will not get 2 cents return on an spg point.

@me:
The points are only worth 1.3 if you have a Premier card.
Either way 1.3 doesn’t excite me that much.

@al613:
Not true, plenty of DDF’ers have booked BA within 24 hours and I went all the way until the last page and nothing stopped me as well.
Even if they do give you the 24 hour rule, just book it outside the 24 hours and then do a date change.

Just tried it again now and it works fine:
http://www.dansdeals.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ba.png

@al613:
Still disagree. Even if you don’t want to fly business or first and don’t ever need a last minute ticket you can still do better with miles.

There are plenty of SPG category 1-2 hotels in most cities that are much nicer than a motel dive that will cost just a few thousand points. I’m talking about anywhere from the Sheraton Gateway LAX or Cleveland to the Le Meridian Dead Sea Israel or Chiang Mai Thailand. The values you can get with SPG even in basic hotels can far exceed 2 cents, you don’t need to be chasing luxury.

You can fly to Israel for as low as 20K Starpoints with surcharges or as low as 40K Starpoints without surcharges, again far exceeding 2 cents without aiming for luxury.

Just look at flights like CLE-YUL that are typically $600 even in advance that can be had for 17.5K AA or 20K Continental round-trip.

The versatility alone that SPG and UR gives you for hotels and flights, luxury or otherwise, beat Capital One hands down.

The spreads only get much larger when dealing with luxury or last-minute.

@al613: I personally bought 4 tickets on the way to the airport back in august when i was going cle-lga. It always works!! I suspect you are doing something wrong!!

itdan, why don’t you state that the Sapphire preferred has 20:25 transfer to airlines when done throuh Chase booking online?

@creditor:
Because it doesn’t.

You can use it for 1.25 cents towards travel, but that would be downright criminal as the miles or points are worth more than that.

I hate to disagree. I have the capital one Spark business, It gives me 2% cash back (not for travel)on all spending, Its available instantly. I don’t fly a lot so it beats all the other point cards. I did need to fly a few times this year and I got cheap tickets that wouldn’t be worth using miles for. I also have the American express blue that gets me 5% cash back on grocery’s, Drug stores and pharmacies (after spending $6500.

@Chani:
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions 🙂
But the next time you want to take a well deserved vacation or need to book a last-minute ticket somewhere and the airlines want $$$$ you may be sorry that you never banked real airline miles that can be worth far more than 2%.

“use 20% fewer points when you redeem for travel. Just book your flight, cruise, or other trave through Ultimate Rewards(SM)” doesn’t that mean 20:25 into mileage

Hi Dan.
I have 85k starwood points is there any chance of squeezing 2 tickets out of it from YYZ to TLV for succoss?
Thank you

dan,

i have a buisness and we spend approx 75,000 – 100,000/yr i have several employees. and in the past used a regular wells fargo busness card. we fly, use hotels and make office purchases. what card do you recomend

Hey dan, How’re you?
Wondering, how come you don’t usually mention the Amex “zync”?
Aren’t the 10,000 points worth $25(which prob will be prorated)?

when it comes to cash back on supermarkets, do those purchases have to be at one of the large chain supermarkets, or will i still get that back at my local kosher supermarket

how does the British Airways card fit into all this?
1.25 points on everything?

May want to caveat the biz card advice for rental cars. There are coverage issues if the rental is not business use.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credit-card-programs/1254433-business-vs-personal-cards.html

is there an updates list?