What airline has the most flight for the airport closest to you? I would prioritize my rewards cards towards those that earn miles directly or transfer to that airline first.
Also it would help if know your travel plans ahead so you can optimize which cards to apply for, after all the Chase cards are done. Basically the Chase cards are very valuable, UR points, United, SW, Marriot, ect. and then once you have done the 5 cards, you can start working on American airlines, Amex cards, Barclays, and Capital one travel rewards.
I'm in Oakland, so Oakland airport, which is great for Southwest and not much else (Hawaiian?), then SFO, which is good for everything and is also United Hub.
I wish I did know more about my travel for this! I have no plans set in stone, but could imagine the year looking something like this:
- 3 trips to Houston (where my family is), Southwest and United are historically good for these
- 1 or 2 other Texas trips (Austin, Houston, or Dallas)
- South Africa in the fall (this is the big one! but from what I've seen all the major alliances have reasonable deals, hard to predict what will be best at the exact time we want to go)
- 1 trip somewhere tropical? Hawaii or Mexico...
- 2-3 other domestic trips (Denver, Portland, Chicago... who knows...)
I travel a lot :) and often unexpectedly! This year I've done 3x Houston (all weddings), Mexico, Boston, NYC, and have Charleston (for work), Seattle, and at least one more Houston planned. The year before there was Denver, Portland x2, San Diego, Houston idk how many times, Austin, Dallas, Vancouver, Melbourne.. wow it sounds crazy now that I'm writing it all out.
My United card is almost 2 years old, so maybe I should just re-do that instead of Delta or Fidelity. I'm starting to understand now that I should probably do my first 5 as Chase, since other banks don't have the 5/24 rule. At that point I can either decide to just keep charging forward (Delta, Fidelity, on and on) and forget about doing Chase again for a while, or slow things down so that in ~2-2.5 years I will have Chase opportunities again.