Best Travel Credit Card

[docholliday]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times. But which is the best travel rewards credit card. Although with cards like the Barclaycard Arrival Mastercard and the Chase Saphire Preferred Card, and the Ventures Capital One you earn 2x miles on purchases. The amount of miles that you need to redeem awards is much high than the some of the airlines for example the Citi AAdvantage platinum select credit card. 

For example lets look at if you wanted to redeem miles for a flight from Dallas, TX to Los Angeles, CA. The cheapest ticket price would be $447 for a round trip. This translates into 44,700 miles needed for Chase saphire preferred, Barclaycard Arrival, and Capital one Ventures. Which means that even at the 2x miles $22,350 would have to be spent to redeem the flight.

Now lets look at if you used the Citi AAdvantage credit card that only give 1x on most purchases but 2x on american airlines purchases. You only need 12,500 miles to redeem for any round trip flight in the continental U.S. So even if you only spent the card on non american airlines purchases, you would only have to spend $12,500 to get the free flight from Dallas, TX to Los Angeles, CA. Of course if you only used the card for american airlines purchases, you would only have to spend $6,250 in comparison to $22,350 using barclaycard, chase, capital one.

Am I missing something or calculating something incorrectly. Why would anyone go for any of the others? As far as hotels go it looks like Starwood preferred also has lower minimum point standards to redeem hotels. It seems going with starwood preferred american express and an airline credit card like Citi AAdvantage would be the best way go to.

[Anonymous]

*edit* according to AA its: As low as 12,500 miles each way. If your plans are flexible, MileSAAver Award is right for you.

So its 25k miles round trip

[docholliday]

Ahah. So they all basically suck. So you would have to spend either $25,000 with citi AAdvantage for a free flight or $12,500 only on american airlines flights in compairson to the others of $22,350. Thanks john398. Now I see the advantages.

[docholliday]

I get way more miles from just being a frequent flyer.

[Anonymous]

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@docholliday wrote:

Ahah. So they all basically suck. So you would have to spend either $25,000 with citi AAdvantage for a free flight or $12,500 only on american airlines flights in compairson to the others of $22,350. Thanks john398. Now I see the advantages.

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nbut don't forget the bonus 50k signup miles you can find

[IWOL]

Just wanted to give you my experience with an airline card vs. the arrival.

I have the United Explorer which gets me 1 point per $1 spend and the Arrival which get me 2 points per $1.

United Explorer had 35k bonus and Barclays 40K bonus.

For United you need 50K points for an LA to NY round trip ticket, so that would take $25K in normal spending regardless of what the ticket price may be.

It seems that the purchase price of that ticket is usually around $500 so your getting close to $.01 per mile.

If I spent 25K on Barclays I would get 50K points. Lets say I used the 50K points to purchase the same United ticket with the Arrival. The $550 charge would earn me 1100 points for the actual charge plus when redeeming the 50K points I would get back 5000 points, so the net effective cost for the ticket would be 44,000 ponts for a $500 ticket so .0113 per point, so just slightly better than United. But.....the big differnce is, I could use the points on any airline and with no blackout dates at all.

I think the airline branded cards make the most sense when used for international business and first class travel.

I booked  a flight a few weeks ago from LA to Shanghai on Delta, First class round trip. That cost me 185,000 points but the purchase price of that ticket was $15,000. In that case the point value jumps to $0.08 per point.

[Anonymous]

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@IWOL wrote:

I think the airline branded cards make the most sense when used for international business and first class travel.

I booked  a flight a few weeks ago from LA to Shanghai on Delta, First class round trip. That cost me 185,000 points but the purchase price of that ticket was $15,000. In that case the point value jumps to $0.08 per point.

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Right.   This, premium international flights, is the classic advantage of frequent flier programs (whether direct like Citi or transfers like UR/MR/SPG).   Another sweet spot can be short haul flights on AA using BA Avios.   If neither of these are for you, programs like Arrival, or real cashback cards like Fidelity Amex might be better.  (But airline cards also have things like free baggage in some cases, priority boarding etc, which may or may not have much value to you.)

The other question that arises: yes, that ticket values at 8c per point, but if you didn't have those points, would you have paid $15K for the ticket.   If not, some people feel that the valuation isn't right, it's worth whatever you would have been willing to pay.  On the other hand, you really DID get a flight that would have cost $15K.   Still in two minds about this analysis!

[IWOL]

I totaly agree with the airlines overpricing those tickets at $15k. Im guessing very very few people actually purchase those tickets.

Our business has revenues in the 10s of millions and we could never justify spending $15k on a ticket. Maybe fortune 500 companies might spend $15k on a ticket for an executive.

My guess is that less than 5% of First Class International tickets are purchased outright and 95% paid for with straight miles or upgrades from economy purchase. Even very wealthy people who wouldnt bat an eye at $15K would in most cases have millions of miles to use anyways....so whos buying tickets for $15K.

In that case the real value of these tickest is not really $15k.

[nachoslibres]

The one thing you are missing about the Chase Sapphire Preferred is that you can transfer the miles to various hotel and airline programs.  So you earn 2.14 miles/$ for travel purchases (since the CSP offers a 7% yearly dividend) and you can then transfer those miles at a 1:1 ratio to a program like United.  Unfortunately, AA is not a partner so if you have to fly AA then yes an AA branded card is probably best.  But the CSP gives you the flexibility to transfer to a variety of airline and hotel partners which you don't have with a specific branded card.

For someone like myself who doesn't usually fly and instead would like to use their rewards to offset the cost of cruises and the occasional hotel stay the Arrival just seems to work better.  I haven't found any card that gives a better return for redeeming against Disney cruises than the Arrival.  I also do occasional hotel stays but I'm not tied to any brand and find good deals online which I can use the Arrival for.

If I was doing more flying and hotel stays I would definitely go with the CSP - it gives a you a lot of flexibility and if you combine it with the Freedom and a Chase Checking account you can earn 1.1 miles/$ for non-categorized purchases, 2.14 miles/$ for travel and restaurants, and 5.5 miles/$ for the quarterly cateogrized spending (up to $1500).

[Anonymous]

Where would you guys place the AMEX PRG in comparison to the Explorer, CSP, and the AAdvantage?