Best CC travel hacking strategy for us?

[Genevieve]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to figure out how best to use our CC spending and sorts of sign up bonuses to pursue.

We live in NYC and travel to see family in NC often. In the past, we used the Southwest Companion pass and all of our points to do this cheaply. Now that we have two dogs, the pet fees or the boarding making flying more expensive. This makes renting a car if we're going to NC, or taking the train if it's not as far, cheaper.

We occasionally fly in the US and we're thinking we'll do an international trip in two years.

Once we find a pet sitting exchange situation we feel comfortable with our options open up. But until then, what's the best way to use credit card hacking to save on our current travel/ regular spending?

We each have a Chase Sapphire Reserve currently. I have about 80k miles and Mr. G has about 110k miles. We got them in October of last year so I'm wondering if we should just downgrade the card in October or keep it.

[Mgmny]

I would have both of you sign up for the chase sapphire preffered (one referring the other), and then transfer as many points to the chase sapphire reserve card before October and redeem if you plan to redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards. If you plan on transferring out to airline partners, then just get the CSP cards, and downgrade to the freedom card before april. There is no reason to keep the CSR card for over 1 year. I hope you got the $300 travel credit in 2016 though.

[Genevieve]

Yeah, we got the $300 credit last year.

What are we going to do with all of these points though? Do we just save them up for future travel?

I'm planning to transfer to Hyatt to do cash + points for hotel rooms here and there. What's the best way to get Amtrak points? And there doesn't seem to be a good way to get car rentals.

Just redeeming for cash seems like a waste.

[bacchi]

There's an Amtrak card and, luckily, it's not Chase.

Someone transfers to Amtrak...ah, right, it's SPG. Get the AmEx SPG card. Or you could xfer to Marriott and then transfer Marriott to Amtrak. That might devalue your points some, though; I haven't looked at doing it.

[Alim Nassor]

Yeah, we got the $300 credit last year.

What are we going to do with all of these points though? Do we just save them up for future travel?

I'm planning to transfer to Hyatt to do cash + points for hotel rooms here and there. What's the best way to get Amtrak points? And there doesn't seem to be a good way to get car rentals.

Just redeeming for cash seems like a waste.

Save them for future travel.  We have over a million AA miles and acquiring more all the time.  That will be a big part of our travel budget when I retire next year.

[mxt0133]

Save them for future travel.  We have over a million AA miles and acquiring more all the time.  That will be a big part of our travel budget when I retire next year.

I gotta ask, how did you accumulate that many miles?  Bonus miles or via spending?

[Alim Nassor]

Save them for future travel.  We have over a million AA miles and acquiring more all the time.  That will be a big part of our travel budget when I retire next year.

I gotta ask, how did you accumulate that many miles?  Bonus miles or via spending?

My job required me to travel to Malaysia many times a year for a while, then they moved us there for several years.  During that time we got several trips home a year, plus they sent me to Japan and Italy several times.  Once you get Platinum status, you get double miles for every mile flown.

Plus we have the Citi Advantage card that we continue to accumulate miles with.