The reason for opening this thread is to help each other with credit card offers/ signup bonuses…. How to maximize earning points/miles etc….
I know there is a lot of websites and resources on the internet but some folks here has more real life experience and no one is getting any kickbacks from the card companies to push their products so hopefully the knowledge we can gather from each other will help the community and to be frank i spend so much time in this site reading I don’t even use social media 
any how I’m going to start with Amex platinum 150k points sign up offer my wife just got last week i know the perks is good but $695 annual fee is steep! On the fence about it!
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The bonus will outweigh the fee. Hopefully the perks will outweigh the fee as well (saks, clear, global entry, centurion lounge, uber, airline credit, FHR credit, digital credit etc). See if you can find the bonus with shop small attached. I was able to get that and the 150k bonus and get a total of 400k points after 25k in spend (had a remodel going on that was considered small business).
Also take some time to learn what transfer partners work well for you to maximize the points.
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I think the small business 10x points is gone now
I enjoy the Uber, clear and equinox credits
Other than that it’s mostly a charge card
Amex does tend to give the largest credit lines
Also underwriters tend to regard amex as a plus on the credit report
Young females also like Amex
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I’ve gone deep down the rabbit hole of credit card churning for many a sign up bonus. Almost as fun as hacking leases. But you can’t drive a credit card. Or flip one.
This resource is the best I’ve found to optimize your choices https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/s07cfp/credit_card_recommendation_flowchart_jan2022/
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what do you guys do with chase sapphire points? is there a better way to use them?
Pay yourself back for Sapphire points (assuming you have the reserve card) has been great the past year or so, 50% bump in valuation. Before that the 50% bump for travel redemptions was pretty sweet too. But I’ve cleared my points out every month paying for dining and entertainment at 150% of the value of points.
that stopped on the preferred last year.
Yeah if you put a lot of spend through Chase the reserve pays for itself between the $300 travel credit an increase value of sapphire points vs the preferred. But chase only allows one Sapphire signup bonus in 48 months if you got one for the preferred. Preferred isn’t a great daily spending card so you’re often better spending on other chase cards like the freedom cards in the categories that make sense (like 5% bonus categories) then use your sapphire status for higher rewards.
The best play is to get the reserve and the preferred within a day of each other (assuming you don’t have either card and haven’t had a signup bonus for them in the past 4 years). This is called a modified double dip in the churner crowd and it gets you both signup bonuses. Most churners do Chase signups ever 3-4 months alternating with their business cards and keeping their new personal cards under 5 in the last 24 months.
But there’s a lot of value for those with good credit in the offerings from Chase, Amex, BofA, Barclays and others even if what I just said seems confusing. Even basic churning can get you a lot of freebies.
If you travel, I generally transfer them to partners. Hyatt or Southwest seems to be the best value for me. You often can use 25,000 Hyatt points for rooms that are $500+ per night. They transfer at a 1:1 ratio from Chase UR
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Save them for SQ First Class.
unfortunately the last vacation i went on was in 2018.
/r/churning on reddit has so much content on there for credit card hacking that it’s difficult to find any new info anywhere.
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25% more on travel. Works nicely on airfare.
Hyatt can be a good sweet spot for transfers. I am a big fan of transferring to British Air to take American Air flights (look at the redemptions but non stop flights are really good). AMEX will have 40% bonus transfers to BA on the regular- I have seen chase offer 30% bonus points on the transfer as well.
Thank you for this. I am still going through this Flowchart.
Capital One Venture X card seems pretty nice. $395 annual fee.
Benefits:
- Earn 100,000 bonus miles ($1000 worth) once you spend $10,000 on purchases within the first 6 months from account opening
- Up to $300 Capital One Travel credit
- 10,000 miles anniversary bonus
Up to a $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck - Unlimited free access to Capital One Lounges
- Complimentary Priority Pass™ membership
Rewards:
- Earn unlimited 10X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
- Earn unlimited 5X miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel
- Earn unlimited 2X miles on all other purchases
Doesn’t this look too good?
How good is access to Capital One Lounges and Priority Pass™ membership?
I would love to have access to them. The rewards look pretty decent too. I feel like I’m sold on this card. Is there a better one?
Venture X is a solid card. There aren’t many Capital One lounges yet but they’re trying to compete with the Amex centurion lounges… Priority pass is available on a few other cards. Lounge access is nice but usually you want it to align with whatever airline you travel a lot on. And some of these lounges aren’t in the terminal you’r flying out of. So if you fly Delta a lot getting a card with Delta lounge access can be nice.
The Venture Card is designed to go toe to toe with the Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve. All have great perks designed for big spenders. If you make sure to use those perks they pay for the annual fee.
We did this last year with just cashback cards (though everything was discussed)
Any THers want to copy/merge from the long-running private discussion on this?
Maybe @trism will share his Priority Pass spreadsheet
Reminds me, I need to check my 2021 cashback total…
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Some good advice on that thread… mainly the Alliant cash back for 2.5%, Discover miles effectively 3% back in year 1 and some of the others for category bonuses.
In my personal opinion the most non-biased site that aggregates this data along with bank account bonus is www.doctorofcredit.com
Useful info / datapoints in the comments on each thread that is user generated, similar to LH. If they have a recommendation, they lay out the reasons & same if they recommend against.
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