Learning, Sharing, and Teaching > Ask a Mustachian
dipping a toe into milage cards
Eilonwy:
My husband and I have excellent credit. We usually use a straightforward cashback card. But I want to do a big trip within the next year, so I'm thinking about getting a mileage card, preferably one with the annual fee waved the first year.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred seems to be the most recommended, but I'm leaning towards the simplicity of the Barclay Arrival Plus, because you can use your miles for any form of travel expense and redeem them as a statement credit. But I'm a little perplexed by it because it isn't *really* dealing in miles. This is the offer:
"Earn an unlimited 2 miles per dollar on all purchases. Each mile is worth 1 cent when redeemed for travel or 0.5 cent when redeemed for cash back. Whenever you redeem miles, you get 5% of those miles back toward your next redemption. You can start redeeming for travel with 10,000 miles, or 5,000 miles for cash back."
Assuming you redeem everything for travel, this doesn't seem any different than 2% cashback, other than the extra 5% back. Am I missing something? Would I get more value for a card in which miles actually means miles? Or am I being too literal and they all work this way?
Any advice appreciated.
bacchi:
Yes, the Arrival+ is a 2.1% cash back card. Remember, though -- it's the $500 signup bonus that matters. It can be used for airline or hotel or airbnb purchases.
The Chase Sapphire is important because the UR points can transfer to several airlines including United. That's often a better deal than using it for the Chase travel portal.
You can then get the United card for an additional 50k miles and then you're flying across the pond for free.
letired:
The travel cards are all about the sign-on/new account bonus, not the regular earn rate. So for the Barclays card, it's spend $3k in 90 days = 50,000 bonus + 6,000 points = 56,000 points @1 cent per mile = $560 in travel expenses or ~18.6% """cash back""".
People who are better at the game than I am have a 'cash value of points' metric that they keep track of for various kinds of points/miles/whatever. Various blogs will talk about it. Part of the issue is that the cash value fluctuates a lot based on the redemption, so if you're working toward a specific trip, figuring out who has the best points for getting where you are going is a thing that you can do (but is not something I have enough experience to really talk about sensibly).
cchrissyy:
unless you have huge spending patterns, like a card that is for major business use, the miles/points game is all about the signup bonuses. Get a card, make the minimum spending, go on to the next card. Have your husband do it too, separate accounts so you get it twice, as opposed to being authorized users on one shared account.
Vertical Mode:
Usually, I will sign up for either a cash bonus or miles/points bonus when I anticipate a big expense coming, so I do not have to manufacture spending to meet the minimum to receive the signup bonus. As others have mentioned, there are 2 factors in play:
1) The signup bonus. This is where the real value of these things lies, since you can accumulate a LOT of points/miles very quickly in addition to the regular earn rate.
2) The "family" the rewards program belongs to (other rewards currencies you can convert the points into, travel partners, etc.)
I have had good luck with the Chase family (Chase, Hyatt, IHG, etc.). Do not have the Sapphire Preferred because I simply don't have the spending bandwidth to meet the minimum on it, but it looks like a great card and would allow you to convert points to the hotels mentioned above seamlessly.
In terms of value, I've had really good luck with the Chase IHG Mastercard. The $49 annual fee is more than covered by the annual bonus night, as long as you use a hotel once a year it pays for itself. Also, the Hyatt one, except that I find their hotels can sometimes be too fancy for regular old me ;-)
I'd recommend taking a look at The Points Guy, they can offer so much more detail about this and related topics. They'll also have links to the rewards cards themselves if you find you're ready to take the leap.
Hope this helps!
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