No credit card required
Browse credit cards from a variety of issuers to see if there's a better card for you.
Of these three, which in your experience is the easiest to earn and redeem for travel? On the face, they seem so incredibly similar. There's gotta be a catch. What is it??
I have all 3
CSP - Easy to redeem for a statement credit, but that's not the best use for the miles. Best value is transferring to a airline or hotel partner. That part is easy, but it takes a fair amount of time and dedication to get maximum value.
Venture - When I redeemed my "miles" I couldn't partially redeem against a charge. For example I had 46,000 miles, it wouldn't let me reddem against a $700 charge. But the work around was I redeemed against airfare and it allows you say you purchased multiple tickets on a charge, so I redeemed for "5 tickets out of the 9 on the charge". Sounds more confusing that it is.
Arrival - Easy to redeeem, only hurdle is the $25 minimum redemption
@sillykitty1 wrote:I have all 3
CSP - Easy to redeem for a statement credit, but that's not the best use for the miles. Best value is transferring to a airline or hotel partner. That part is easy, but it takes a fair amount of time and dedication to get maximum value.
Venture - When I redeemed my "miles" I couldn't partially redeem against a charge. For example I had 46,000 miles, it wouldn't let me reddem against a $700 charge. But the work around was I redeemed against airfare and it allows you say you purchased multiple tickets on a charge, so I redeemed for "5 tickets out of the 9 on the charge". Sounds more confusing that it is.
Arrival - Easy to redeeem, only hurdle is the $25 minimum redemption
Last month I redeemed for a partial charge with my Venture card, so this policy must have been changed. To OP the arrival and venture cards are similar. The CSP is NOT similar. If your willing to put in some effort and you want to redeem with chase travel partners then the CSP is a decent move. If you are just going to redeem for cash back/statement credits then don't get the CSP and look at Venture or Arrival. Cap 1 is an easier approval then Barclays I believe. You can PC the venture card or maybe get the AF waived. Not sure what the options are with the barclay's card. Redeeming travel expenses on Arrival card gives a little more value back than Venture. The value of the arrival card drops once the AF kicks in unless your doing a significant amount of spend per year on it.
In terms of easist to get, I would say the Arrival is easiest, then CSP and Venture I would say are close.
Thast was my experince atleast. I think the Venture is Cap 1's top tier card so more stringent requirments than their other cards.
As far as travel redemption goes, I think it depends entirely on where you wanna go and how you wanna get there.
If your a jet setter and your want to travel to Bora Bora first class then you need a card that can transfer points to airlines such as CSP and/or SPG.
For example I just booked a first class round trip ticket on United from NY to Johannesburg for 180,000 points. The retail price of that ticket is $9653.00. That would take $450,000 in spending on Arrival to get that ticket, only around $150,000 spend on CSP. Ofcourse that doesnt factor in bonuses and miles earned other ways but just shows you the large disparity for first class travel.
If your just staying local (somewhere in the US) an dbooking domestic flight then the Arrival will probably be more valuable since you get 2.2 points per dollar spent on everything.
I think the Arrival beats the Venture in almost all ways.....2.2 instead of 2, Chip and Pin, Travel Blog for earning points, rewards boost mall.
@IWOL wrote:In terms of easist to get, I would say the Arrival is easiest, then CSP and Venture I would say are close.
Thast was my experince atleast. I think the Venture is Cap 1's top tier card so more stringent requirments than their other cards.
As far as travel redemption goes, I think it depends entirely on where you wanna go and how you wanna get there.
If your a jet setter and your want to travel to Bora Bora first class then you need a card that can transfer points to airlines such as CSP and/or SPG.
For example I just booked a first class round trip ticket on United from NY to Johannesburg for 180,000 points. The retail price of that ticket is $9653.00. That would take $450,000 in spending on Arrival to get that ticket, only around $150,000 spend on CSP. Ofcourse that doesnt factor in bonuses and miles earned other ways but just shows you the large disparity for first class travel.
If your just staying local (somewhere in the US) an dbooking domestic flight then the Arrival will probably be more valuable since you get 2.2 points per dollar spent on everything.
I think the Arrival beats the Venture in almost all ways.....2.2 instead of 2, Chip and Pin, Travel Blog for earning points, rewards boost mall.
I don't have the Arrival card, but I can specifically tell you that the CSP is harder to get approved for than Venture card. I was outright denied CSP card when I first apped and then right afterwards I was instant approval for Venture card with the same profile.
On a side note, Cap1 has been giving out pretty good starting limits
You might be right about CSP but I was approved for the CSP before I got the Venture. I was denied for the Venture a few months back but my scores had improved drastically since my firts app.
Out of curiosity how did the starting limits compare for you between Venture and CSP.
Chase only gave me $7k on CSP and Evnture gave me $15K. I apped for the Venture about a month after the CSP.
@IWOL wrote:You might be right about CSP but I was approved for the CSP before I got the Venture. I was denied for the Venture a few months back but my scores had improved drastically since my firts app.
Out of curiosity how did the starting limits compare for you between Venture and CSP.
Chase only gave me $7k on CSP and Evnture gave me $15K. I apped for the Venture about a month after the CSP.
I got a starting limit of 5k with my venture card. After 6 months I got a CLI to 10k. A month later I got an instant approval for CSP at 17k. Also, as a further datapoint I got a freedom card right after my venture card with starting limit of 3k. It was auto cli to 3.7k a few months later. So chase saw me handling a larger credit line on the venture card plus they had 7 months of payment history with one of their own cards to look at when I took my second shot at the CSP.
@IWOL wrote:
If your just staying local (somewhere in the US) an dbooking domestic flight then the Arrival will probably be more valuable since you get 2.2 points per dollar spent on everything.
I think the Arrival beats the Venture in almost all ways.....2.2 instead of 2, Chip and Pin, Travel Blog for earning points, rewards boost mall.
But if you are just staying local, then you need to consider, after the first year, cards like Fidelity Amex and Citi Double Cash, where the lower reward rate beats the annual fee until about $40K a year.