topic Re: best card for travel (flight)? in Credit Cards

best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 13:45:10 GMT

I fly southwest airlines usually round trip 2-4 times per year. Until now I have looked into a travel card that could possibly benefit my travel needs. Which card or cards should I be looking at?

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Creditaddict — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 13:54:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I fly southwest airlines usually round trip 2-4 times per year. Until now I have looked into a travel card that could possibly benefit my travel needs. Which card or cards should I be looking at?

If you only frly southwest than I would probably get the southwest card by chase.

otherwise Barclay Arrival is very popular and I belive returns 2.2% on travel rebate.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

ezdoesit — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 13:55:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I fly southwest airlines usually round trip 2-4 times per year. Until now I have looked into a travel card that could possibly benefit my travel needs. Which card or cards should I be looking at?

Chase Southwest card if you fly with them 2-4 times a year.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:26:40 GMT

loving my new amex spg card for domestic travel (it carries a foreign fee if used abroad)

I've always liked the Starwood brand hotels much better than my old Marriott card and the spg program has a ton of airline partners with whom you can transfer making it effectively a hotel and airline card

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:32:24 GMT

Is the southwest card exclusively from Chase? If so I plan on apping for the CSP would I be able to obtain 3 cards from Chase? Or should I not app for the CSP? Decisions?! LOL

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Creditaddict — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:33:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Is the southwest card exclusively from Chase? If so I plan on apping for the CSP would I be able to obtain 3 cards from Chase? Or should I not app for the CSP? Decisions?! LOL

yes With Chase and many people have 3 and 4 or even 5 cards with chase although the 3 range seems to be the easiest.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:47:48 GMT

Chase Southwest card seems like the obvious choice. However, you might want to consider the CSP since you can transfer points (1:1) over to not only Southwest, but United, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, etc. in the event that you want to do some overseas travel or go to a city that Southwest doesn't service. Between United and Southwest, you can get coverage to pretty much any city in the US.

As a lot of folks on the forum have mentioned previously, combining the CSP with the Freedom is cool because it has 5% bonus categories, that you can then transfer over to CSP, so if you can manage to max out those categories, you can build a lot of miles very quickly. Also with the UR mall, you can sometimes find deals of up to 15 pts per $1 spent.

I'm not sure of the bonuses right now for Freedom or Southwest, but CSP is currently offering 50,000 bonus pts for $3,000 spent in the first 3 months. United Milage Explorer is also offering 50,000 miles for $2,000 spent in the first 3 months.

I currently have Freedom, Southwest, United and just got CSP. Also have Ink Cash for business. (My sig is a little out of date.) So multiple cards is definitely not an issue with these guys.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 15:04:55 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Chase Southwest card seems like the obvious choice. However, you might want to consider the CSP since you can transfer points (1:1) over to not only Southwest, but United, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, etc. in the event that you want to do some overseas travel or go to a city that Southwest doesn't service. Between United and Southwest, you can get coverage to pretty much any city in the US.

As a lot of folks on the forum have mentioned previously, combining the CSP with the Freedom is cool because it has 5% bonus categories, that you can then transfer over to CSP, so if you can manage to max out those categories, you can build a lot of miles very quickly. Also with the UR mall, you can sometimes find deals of up to 15 pts per $1 spent.

I'm not sure of the bonuses right now for Freedom or Southwest, but CSP is currently offering 50,000 bonus pts for $3,000 spent in the first 3 months. United Milage Explorer is also offering 50,000 miles for $2,000 spent in the first 3 months.

I currently have Freedom, Southwest, United and just got CSP. Also have Ink Cash for business. (My sig is a little out of date.) So multiple cards is definitely not an issue with these guys.

I fly quite a bit with southwest. Mainly to get my daughter 2-3 times per year so when I do that I have to purchase a 2 round trip tickets for me and one for her then I do that however many times I get her which is usually 2-3 times per year. So even if I get her twice per year I'm still purchasing 6 round trip tickets!

I've always wanted the CSP cause I do dine out alot and most of the time when I vacation in Florida once per year there comes the hotel stay ETC.

I guess I have some reading to do on how the points system works and what a point value is worth cause I have no idea on that yet. Unless someone really nice wants to give me the breakdown lol!

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:14:22 GMT

on chase website i see there is 3 southwest cards. which one should I go for?

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Creditaddict — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:28:20 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
on chase website i see there is 3 southwest cards. which one should I go for?

southwest Premier for personal.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:57:14 GMT

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.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:09:27 GMT

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.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

mongstradamus — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:11:58 GMT

@Anonymous 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.

I don't think that link works anymore ?

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

dilettante — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:14:45 GMT

@Anonymous 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.

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.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:28:20 GMT

Yes link still works

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

TheClub — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:42:16 GMT

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.

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:08:46 GMT

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

Re: best card for travel (flight)?

leegreen — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:15:06 GMT

@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.