Membership Rewards vs Ultimate Rewards

[Anonymous]

I'm very calculating when it comes to cash/points back on my cards. But I have never redeemed them for travel perks. As I will be starting work shortly in finance and will be travel a fair amount, I am trying to plan my card usage more appropriately. I have an Amex Green and Chase Freedom+Checking so I am trying to decide between MR and UR. I am going to be making 2 trips in the next couple of weeks. One trip, I don't care who I fly and the other flight (LAX -> ORD) I want to fly Virgin (favorite airline, try to fly them whenever possible). The first trip will be reimbursed by my employer, and the other trip is personal.

So, masters of rewards programs (*cough* TannerK *cough*) what do I need to start thinking about in order to make this decision. Through Travelocity, I can get 3pts/$ from UR and on Amex I can get 2pts/$. My inclination is to use UR exclusively because I also plan on adding CSP later this year. Please, help me make sense of all of this!

[Anonymous]

Nobody? Come on...

[FrugalRican]

It actually looks like you already made your decision.

And I think you could ask Open123, he seems pretty well-versed in UR vs MR.

I'm all UR, all the time, and have only used that.

[Anonymous]

Well, I ended up booking through Travelocity for 3x points with my Freedom. However, I'm still interested in hearing some opinions. Surprisingly, I actually am coming to the realization that AAdvantage is by far the best program. Thinking of picking up their Citi card soon.

[FrugalRican]

AAdvantage is a really good program, unfortunately for me... AA tends to be... too expensive for the specific flights that I use, so I end up using a mixture of JetBlue/United.

Once you get the CSP, you'll be better off when booking travel, because you can just transfer the UR points from Freedom to CSP and then get the 20% on booking.

The transfer process is very user-friendly, instant and quite seamless.

[Anonymous]

I know what you mean. I try to fly Virgin whenever possible but their FF program is terrible.

[mwm1212]

Sound like UR is better judging from your previous posts itt. it also depends a lot on your home airport and what airlines service your area. I live near a united hub so have preference to UR.

[SuperKirby]

If Virgin is truly your favorite, then you definately want points to go to Membership Rewards. Why waste points in UR if they can't transfer to Virgin?

Anyways, its been awhile since the last post, what did you end up doing?

[ryanbush]

There have been multiple discussions on this topic over the last week or so, do a little search and you will find tons of reading on each scenario.

Also you might be better off looking around flyertalk, tons of info on the particluar programs over there. 

[HiLine]

Any chance you may have good enough a credit score to qualify you for a PenFed Premium Travel Rewards card? 5% on airfare is unrivaled. It's superior to any other card for your purposes