topic Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both? in Credit Cards

UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 12:21:39 GMT

I’m fairly new to the points game and a lot of information out there seems to be biased due advertising even though they claim sponsorship doesn’t affect their reviews.

I’ve chosen the Chase path first b/c of 5/24 and from I’ve seen the UR is pretty useful for with my spend and travel goals. Currently have the FU and will be applying for the CSR next month and then the Freedom down the road.

But looking at the MR offers they seem to be pretty similar. Anyone have any real life experience comparing UR and MR? Does it make sense to have both reward systems if you spend a lot? After I get my chase cards I was going to get a charge card from Amex.

Also, if you do use both rewards shatters how do you split the spend? Monthly? Quarterly?

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

redpat — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 12:56:17 GMT

I accumulate and use both reward progams. I'm lucky that I have business spend to give me a ton of points in both programs.

Since Amex has made changes to the plat cards and most recently gold my CSR is now in the SD'd other than their shopping portal and international travel. I'm only using my ink+ card for 5x categories.

Remember you can get points by other methods, Amex MR offers and Chase's UR shopping portal.

Spend is strickly based on the most points I can get per $$$$$. This is why now biz and personal dining spend is on amex gold rather than CSR.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 13:36:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I’m fairly new to the points game and a lot of information out there seems to be biased due advertising even though they claim sponsorship doesn’t affect their reviews.

I’ve chosen the Chase path first b/c of 5/24 and from I’ve seen the UR is pretty useful for with my spend and travel goals. Currently have the FU and will be applying for the CSR next month and then the Freedom down the road.

But looking at the MR offers they seem to be pretty similar. Anyone have any real life experience comparing UR and MR? Does it make sense to have both reward systems if you spend a lot? After I get my chase cards I was going to get a charge card from Amex.

Also, if you do use both rewards shatters how do you split the spend? Monthly? Quarterly?

It depends on your goals as well. Before the PRG/Plat got improved, it could make sense to put all spend on the Chase system, but use the Amex Plat for perks. But certainly if your spend is enough (e.g. red's biz spend making it easier) then spending on both systems can work. As red suggests, rather than arbitrarily splitting per month or so, you can just choose whatever maximizes that transaction (assuming some valuation of MR/UR). But if you have an award goal in mind (e.g. I need 400K UR for ....) then it might make sense to focus the spend on (in this case) UR until the goal is met, and then decide what to do next.

But before diving in to one or more systems, make sure that you can use the points in an effective way!

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

iced — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 14:31:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I’m fairly new to the points game and a lot of information out there seems to be biased due advertising even though they claim sponsorship doesn’t affect their reviews.

I’ve chosen the Chase path first b/c of 5/24 and from I’ve seen the UR is pretty useful for with my spend and travel goals. Currently have the FU and will be applying for the CSR next month and then the Freedom down the road.

But looking at the MR offers they seem to be pretty similar. Anyone have any real life experience comparing UR and MR? Does it make sense to have both reward systems if you spend a lot? After I get my chase cards I was going to get a charge card from Amex.

Also, if you do use both rewards shatters how do you split the spend? Monthly? Quarterly?

I have both UR and MR. The decision to go towards one or the other was not made by a website or advertising, but rather by my personal travel patterns.

From 2011 to 2017, I did a majority of my flying to destinations served by United or one of their partners. This meant that I was already raking in hundreds of thousands of United miles every year, so adding UR to that made a lot of sense. At the start of 2017, my entire CC spread was either UR or United miles for rewards, so literally every dollar I spent on a card was going toward growing my pot of miles.

In 2017, my flying pattern shifted toward Delta, and I also started using a corporate card (American Express) for a few charges. This meant that I could either abandon the free MRs via my corporate card, or I could embrace the Delta change and move some spending toward MR. I would do the same thing with MR that I was doing with UR, except they would add to my Delta pot rather than my United one. My Delta:United ratio this year has been about 5:1, so it also made sense to get the Platinum for SkyClub access.

At this point, my breakdown is that all dining and non-airfare travel goes to CSR for 3x. Flights and the occasional pre-booked hotel goes to Platinum for 5x. The remaining goes mostly to United/UR, though I'll put the occasional random purchase on MR as well.

When it comes to redeeming miles, I do it in blocks of about 300,000 at a time. This usually happens around once per year for me. I use UR/MR to supplement my pots of DL/UA miles. If I were only to use UR/MR for rewards, I probably wouldn't change my system, but it would mean that I'd need to spend at least $15,000/month (and that's optimized for dining/travel multipliers on cards) to maintain that rate. If I were diluting across two programs, that number would double to around $30,000/month.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 15:36:09 GMT

Great points. I think I will stick with the UR for now unless my travel plans change. I live in the NY Metro area and have the following hubs:

JFK: Delta, AA, and JetBlue

LGA: Delta

EWR: UA

Where I leave usually depends on the price and my desire to travel to NJ lol. I have been using Delta or JetBlue a lot because traveling to LGA is easier for me. JetBlue is a partner of both UR and MR if I am not mistaken. I can also transfer UR to Air France which in turn can be transfered to Delta but a one way ticket could cost triple the miles if I do this. I also do not think there are any transfer bonuses for UR. I also have about 30K Sky Miles and a companion pass each year with the Delta Plat. I think I will tray the Chase cards as they are tougher to get with their 5/24 rule and see how it goes. I am thinking of getting the Gold Card just so I can rack up some points and try it out. I have a lot of dining coming up with the holidays for both personal and business.

My initial thought was to use MR for flights and UR for hotels and spend on what gives the best value. Also having both programs I will be able to shop for the best value on both rewards systems. Those were my initial thoughts but I have to make a sheet and guesstimate my monthly spend but I think I will start with the Chase cards as stated above then get the Amex Gold when I apply for the CSR.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

jdbkiang — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 23:41:50 GMT

UR has been devalued a bit recently, but is still very strong. I’ve maxed out 5/24 and have started to dip into the Amex world as well. It really comes down to which transfer partners you want. Chase has also had more versatile earning categories so far, while Amex seems more targeted towards a more specific group of people. But the value of MR vs. UR is almost exactly the same with the only difference being which transfer partners fit you better.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

UpperNwGuy — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 02:37:46 GMT

Unless you travel one heckuva lot, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

mongstradamus — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 03:01:32 GMT

@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Unless you travel one heckuva lot@, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.

The only issue with that strategy is one of them gets nerfed pretty hard. I personally try to earn both because of the fear of putting all my eggs into one basket

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 04:06:54 GMT

@mongstradamus wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Unless you travel one heckuva lot@, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.
The only issue with that strategy is one of them gets nerfed pretty hard. I personally try to earn both because of the fear of putting all my eggs into one basket

Do points (as compared to cards) get nerfed? I know there there is "inflation" where an airline increases the points needed for certain awards, but that would potentially impact both UR/MR. I guess Amex could cut their bonus offers they have from time to time, but again to me that's not a real nerf. I guess if they made UR no longer worth 1c as cash, that would be real nerf (even if it didn't impact travel redemptions). (Or if the Amex Scwarb stopped supporting 1.25c per MR, but that would be a card nerf).

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

jdbkiang — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 04:09:52 GMT

I think that the rewards systems can get nerfed, such as when Korean Airlines was no longer a transfer partner of the UR system. But regardless, cards getting nerfed is still an issue as far as which system is easier to take advantage of for redemptions.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

mongstradamus — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 04:22:11 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@mongstradamus wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Unless you travel one heckuva lot@, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.
The only issue with that strategy is one of them gets nerfed pretty hard. I personally try to earn both because of the fear of putting all my eggs into one basket
Do points (as compared to cards) get nerfed? I know there there is "inflation" where an airline increases the points needed for certain awards, but that would potentially impact both UR/MR. I guess Amex could cut their bonus offers they have from time to time, but again to me that's not a real nerf. I guess if they made UR no longer worth 1c as cash, that would be real nerf (even if it didn't impact travel redemptions). (Or if the Amex Scwarb stopped supporting 1.25c per MR, but that would be a card nerf).

When i was referring nerf like if airline partners get removed and replaced with one that is no where near as good. KE is a good example. Another example of a nerf would be if the 1:1 points to miles transfer is removed.

I may be in the minority but i would rather diversify my points between reward programs if i had a choice.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

redpat — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 04:28:40 GMT

Nerfed or not nerfed, it is what it is and why worry. Sometimes having a bank of points works out, such as Amex current 40% transfer bonus to Avios. Hell, I took 200k of my MR point bank for that offer. The same was the case for UR points when CSR came out and their travel portal redemption went to 1.50x, it was thrilled with some redemptions.

It is what it is and we win some and lose some. I thought my loser was cat 8 Marriott air package but I got 30k points back, I brokeven.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

UpperNwGuy — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 09:47:03 GMT

@mongstradamus wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Unless you travel one heckuva lot@, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.
The only issue with that strategy is one of them gets nerfed pretty hard. I personally try to earn both because of the fear of putting all my eggs into one basket

Neither of these two point systems has ever been nerfed. Even when they make minor changes to their programs, Chase and Amex give ample warning, usually months in advance, giving you the opportunity to either redeem your points or transfer them over to one of the partners.

Spreading your points across two systems means you have to work twice as hard to earn enough points for a meaningful redemption. Frankly, that's not worth the time and trouble for the average cardholder. But, as I posted earlier, a person who travels a lot (usually a "road warrior" whose job involves extensive business travel) would have a high enough volume of travel spending to make it work. That kind of person, however, can afford to let points collect randomly in different systems.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

redpat — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 11:25:48 GMT

@UpperNwGuy wrote:
@mongstradamus wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Unless you travel one heckuva lot@, you should pick either UR or MR and stick to one of the two programs. As to which of the two to choose, the post by @iced above explains it well.
The only issue with that strategy is one of them gets nerfed pretty hard. I personally try to earn both because of the fear of putting all my eggs into one basket
Neither of these two point systems has ever been nerfed. Even when they make minor changes to their programs, Chase and Amex give ample warning, usually months in advance, giving you the opportunity to either redeem your points or transfer them over to one of the partners.

Spreading your points across two systems means you have to work twice as hard to earn enough points for a meaningful redemption. Frankly, that's not worth the time and trouble for the average cardholder. But, as I posted earlier, a person who travels a lot (usually a "road warrior" whose job involves extensive business travel) would have a high enough volume of travel spending to make it work. That kind of person, however, can afford to let points collect randomly in different systems.

You don’t need to be a road warrior, just a lot of spend will do it. As I said before I’m lucky with biz spend but one thing I will tell you is that by using MR offers, Chase’s shopping portal and most recently Rocketmiles can allow someone to use both reward programs without much difficulty.

My office manager logs into my UR shopping account for all our staples purchases where I get 2x more UR points with my 5x UR points on my ink+.

We dumped Amazon 2 yrs ago and all our personal shopping is done on AA or Chase. The only time we go to the mall is to make returns.

So get a little creative and points can really stack up.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

wasCB14 — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 16:30:29 GMT

If the Hyatt (and to some degree, United) award charts were nerfed, it would feel to me like a UR nerf...in terms of value, even if Chase didn't actually do anything.

It's natural to think of a program in terms of our favorite parts of it.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

K-in-Boston — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 20:13:54 GMT

@redpat wrote:
You don’t need to be a road warrior, just a lot of spend will do it.

Exactly. I never travel for business, but have a lot of spend and do a fair amount of leisure family travel. I spread out with SkyMiles, MRs, URs, TYPs, and Marriott points, and burn through them for redemptions all the time and it works well for me.

Re: UR vs MR: Worth Having Both?

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 20:47:46 GMT

Fair point K. I am still two cards away from my Chase Trifecta so I think I’ll stick with Chase. Still may pick up the gold card along the way because it offers things Chase doesn’t. I’ll have to assess my spend over the course of the next year and put the numbers through a formula to see if there is indeed a difference. I’ll make another sheet showing the actual value I got with the redemptions.