Thanks for the suggestions. I've been reading up on both cards and the way bonuses actually work are not very clear to me. It's says earn 60,000 points and then says thats $750 toward travel. Does that mean I have to spend specifically on travel and it's a reimbursement? I'm guessing it's not just 'notify them and they send me a check' (which is how my personal credit card works). Apparently, I am one of the few people on the planet who doesn't particularly like to travel (although I'm taking two big trips this year!), plus I prefer just straight cash back so that we can just put it back in the business rather than something that personally benefits us. The terms don't clarify. Thoughts?
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On the Ultimate Reward (UR) points - You will earn the points for spending the required amount in the required time period. The big block of points is credited typically during the statement period after the period in which you pass the spending requirement (so don't freak out if you don't get the points right away or even for a few weeks).
You have three ways to use your UR points:
1. Redeem for cash/check. Typically $0.01 per point. Easy money but not best bang for your buck/point.
2. Redeem on the UR site for their travel deals. This is how they give you a $xx in travel amount. This conversion is a bit better than option 1 since it is about $0.0125 per point. Good but still not the best option.
3. Transfer UR points, 1:1, to certain other rewards programs. I believe currently there are 4 airlines and 4 hotels points programs eligible for points transfer. The conversion makes it harder to value the points but I would highly recommend Hyatt for hotels and Southwest for flights. I have booked a number of night at Hyatt via points transfer and thought the value was great. Hotel night would have cost $155-200 a night and I was able to get them for 5,000-8,000 UR points transferred. That works out to be about $0.025 -0.031 conversion which handily beats options 1&2 above.
