best card for travel (flight)?

[ForMyBiz]

Looks like you can either get the personal or business version of the Plus or Premiere card.  

The Plus has a lower annual fee of $69.  You still get the 25,000 mile bonus  for spending $1,000 in 3 months.  Your points don't count towards A status.  If you renew (meaning don't cancel before the next annual fee) you get a 3,000 point bonus.

With the premier card the annual fee is $99.  You get 25,000 bonus miles for spending $1,000 in three months.  You're can accumate tier qualifying points toward A status.  If you get 110,000 points in 1 year then you get a companion pass.  If you renew you get a bonus of 6,000 miles.

The business cards are basically the same from what I can tell, except can be used for business expenses.  

Since the bonus is so low right now, you sure you don't want to go for the CSP instead and get 40,000 points (plus 5000 more if you add an authorized user) that you can transfer to Southwest?  If not, you may want to wait a few months and see if they bring back the Southwest 50,000 mile bonus.  They must have just ended that promotion a couple of months ago.  Remember if you apply now and get approved, you can not get that bonus again for 24 months (I think.)  If you do go ahead and apply keep your eye out for the increased bonus.  Chase is really good about honoring better bonuses for up to 90 days after you open the card, you just have to send a secure message and they'll take care of it for you. 

[Juss11]

If you go with the Southwest Air card, dont app for the 25k one at the chase site. There is a link at flyertalk for the 50k. Dont think I can put link here? If you PM me I can send you the link. Im also going to apply for that card in a few weeks.

[mongstradamus]

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@Juss11 wrote:

If you go with the Southwest Air card, dont app for the 25k one at the chase site. There is a link at flyertalk for the 50k. Dont think I can put link here? If you PM me I can send you the link. Im also going to apply for that card in a few weeks.

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I don't think that link works anymore ? 

[dilettante]

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@ForMyBiz wrote:

Looks like you can either get the personal or business version of the Plus or Premiere card.  

The Plus has a lower annual fee of $69.  You still get the 25,000 mile bonus  for spending $1,000 in 3 months.  Your points don't count towards A status.  If you renew (meaning don't cancel before the next annual fee) you get a 3,000 point bonus.

With the premier card the annual fee is $99.  You get 25,000 bonus miles for spending $1,000 in three months.  You're can accumate tier qualifying points toward A status.  If you get 110,000 points in 1 year then you get a companion pass.  If you renew you get a bonus of 6,000 miles.

The business cards are basically the same from what I can tell, except can be used for business expenses.  

Since the bonus is so low right now, you sure you don't want to go for the CSP instead and get 40,000 points (plus 5000 more if you add an authorized user) that you can transfer to Southwest?  If not, you may want to wait a few months and see if they bring back the Southwest 50,000 mile bonus.  They must have just ended that promotion a couple of months ago.  Remember if you apply now and get approved, you can not get that bonus again for 24 months (I think.)  If you do go ahead and apply keep your eye out for the increased bonus.  Chase is really good about honoring better bonuses for up to 90 days after you open the card, you just have to send a secure message and they'll take care of it for you. 

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Agree that you should go for the Premier for the 50k sign up.  Rapid Rewards sent me an email with the 50k offer which just expired but Flyer Talk has links to a current 50k offer and they also stated that some airports have that offer if you're flying Southwest soon. 

Some of the tricks to meeting 110k spend include opening both personal and business versions (if you qualify for business cards).  And for maximum value of the companion pass, they recommend opening the cards late in the year and not meeting spend for the companion pass until January.  That way you will have companion pass for almost 2 years.

Also keep in mind that transferred points from UR do not count toward companion pass.

[Juss11]

Yes link still works

[TheClub]

I would app for southwest and get the roundtrip flight for $1000 spend ($99 Annual Fee) and app for CSP for the sign up bonus and keep it for at least 11 months  to determine whether or not it is for you.

[rootpooty]

Ok so how many points on the southwest card does it take to get a round trip ticket?

[leegreen]

@rootpooty that depends if you are buying a wanna get away fare each dollar of fare will cost you 70 points, making the points worth about 1.4c each. The short answer is average around 25000.

Also, check the energy plus ESCO on the rapid rewards partners sight that can be worth like 15000 points to sign up if you have the cc and 12500 if you don't.