Best rewards card for flying United exclusively

coreysw12 · ‎05-23-2019

I fly United, exclusively, for both business and leisure. I'm a 1k member, and typically book $15k-$20k in United airfare each year.

I'm only just now getting into the credit card points game - so I'm curious what people think is the best way to rack up points considering my travel habits.

For a long time, I always assumed one of the MileagePlus/Chase card offerings would be the best deal, but now I'm not so sure. It looks like even the best one only offers 2 points / dollar for United purchases, which seems weak to me. For example, the Sapphire Preferred offers the same reward for the same annual fee, but applies to ALL hotels and travel, not just United bookings.

Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum offer, obviously, even better travel rewards (with higher annual fees).

So the question is, what's the best card for maximizing rewards from $15-20k in annual United airfare purchases?

Total Loan Balance: $43k / $65k

Total SL: $78k

United 1K - 725,000 lifetime flight miles | Chase Status: 4/24

Anonymous · ‎05-23-2019

You would likely be better off with the CSR @ 3X points per $1 spent, and just transfer URs into United Miles. As it comes with the $300 Travel credit that would offset the AF.

Instead of limiting yourself to Miles only spend on the Explorer card.

wasCB14 · ‎05-23-2019

Upgrading to CSR eventually would be good (if you can spare the CL from CFU or from a new 5x Freedom as your credit improves).

In addition to the 5x Freedom card, there are the Chase Ink business cards (Ink Cash and Ink Preferred) for non-United spend. There's also Ink Unlimited, but you already have CFU.

As you probably know, with Amex Platinum things would get a little more complicated. You'd have to go MR-Marriott-United (not very efficient) or book via a partner airline program like Aeroplan (or whatever replaces it).

Personal spend: Amex Gold, Amex Schwab Plat., BofA PR+CCR(x2), Costco
Business use: Amex Bus. Plat., BBP, Lowes Amex AU, CFU AU
Perks: Delta Plat., United Explorer, IHG49, Hyatt, "Old SPG"
Mostly SD: Freedom Flex, Freedom, Arrival
Upgrade/Downgrade games: ED, BCE
SUB chasing: AA Platinum Select

K-in-Boston · ‎05-23-2019

Alternately, using Amex Platinum for 5x on airfare and then using their portal to book revenue flights through Amex Travel would get you 5% back on your flights + the United miles you'd earn from a revenue flight and you'd still earn elite-qualifying miles and dollars. Paired with an Amex Business Platinum, you'd get 35% of those points back, too. Combined those are some hefty annual fees, but there are many credits/perks to offset them.

For straight United miles earning, certainly CSR + Freedom Unlimited + Freedom would be the biggest bang for the buck outside of signup bonuses.

NRB525 · ‎05-24-2019

OP that is a lot of travel, implied by the status and airfare spend.

Do you utilize any airport lounges?

Do you redeem United miles for trips? How are you handling the UR points you earn from the Chase cards?

What is your other travel spend for hotels, restaurants, rental cars, parking, highway tolls and such? Do you stay at specific hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt?

Are you traveling within the US primarily or to other countries?

High Bal Jan 2009 $116k on $146k limits 80% Util.
Oct 2014 $46k on $127k 36% util EQ 722 TU 727 EX 727
April 2018 $18k on $344k 5% util EQ 806 TU 810 EX 812
Jan 2019 $7.6k on $360k EQ 832 TU 839 EX 831
March 2021 $33k on $312k EQ 796 TU 798 EX 801
May 2021 Paid all Installments and Mortgages, one new Mortgage EQ 761 TY 774 EX 777
April 2022 EQ=811 TU=807 EX=805 - TU VS 3.0 765

coreysw12 · ‎05-24-2019

@NRB525 wrote:
OP that is a lot of travel, implied by the status and airfare spend.

Do you utilize any airport lounges?
Do you redeem United miles for trips? How are you handling the UR points you earn from the Chase cards?

What is your other travel spend for hotels, restaurants, rental cars, parking, highway tolls and such? Do you stay at specific hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt?
Are you traveling within the US primarily or to other countries?

I travel primarily to other countries, and with my 1k status on United, I get free access to any Star Alliance (United, Lufthansa, etc) airline lounge. So I don't need a credit card with lounge access, as I already have it.

I do redeem my United miles for trips. I'm not exactly sure yet how I'll be handling my UR points, both cards are brand new. But probably I'll use them to book travel through the Chase portal. I think I'll probably keep them seperate from my United miles, as they're worth quite a bit more like that than if I combined them.

I also spend almost as much on hotels and rental cars, probably $10-15k. And maybe $2-5k on restaurants. I don't currently have any hotel loyalty, I tend to stay at IHG properties when I can, I guess, but 2/3 of the time I just stay at whatever hotel in the area makes the most sense (factoring in price, convenience, ratings, etc). Often it's just a "Ma and Pa" kind of hotel. I book through Hotels.com a lot.

Total Loan Balance: $43k / $65k

Total SL: $78k

United 1K - 725,000 lifetime flight miles | Chase Status: 4/24

851 · ‎05-24-2019

When I was living that airport/hotel lifestyle I actually prioritized hotels over airlines. It was so easy to maintain airline status (I was top tier on 2 airlines at the same time for a couple years), and in my situation, I could fly home or travel on the weekends. So using points for flights was moot, and I had enough from flying for all the upgrades I could use.

But hotels were another thing, and I always wanted to count on a place to sleep (think stuck due to delays). Again in my situation, I didn’t even maintain a home address and would just fly places and sleep at friends places or hotels.

Accommodation > Transportation for me

iced · ‎05-24-2019

As a former 1K myself (now most flying is on DL), my one-two punch was CSR + MP Club. Dining/travel was 3 UR/dollar and MP Club was 1.5 per dollar for everything else. That means the Club not only gave me UC membership, it acted as the FU in the Chase trifecta you hear people talk about around here. The remaining benefits on the Club were largely redundant/useless at a 1K (checked bag/group 2 for example), but if you are a domestic 1K having UC access for all flights and not just international was a pretty big deal to me, particularly when I wasn't in one of the overelite airports.

With the new mileage-earning structure United put out 3 years ago or so now, this actually resulted in me earning more miles via CC spend than I did via flying. If you haven't already, also look into MileagePlus Dining and MileagePlusX - I've had some restaurant outings that were 8 miles/dollar on dining out (5 Dining + 3 CSR), which really augments the miles you're already accumulating.

iced · ‎05-24-2019

@coreysw12 wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
OP that is a lot of travel, implied by the status and airfare spend.

Do you utilize any airport lounges?
Do you redeem United miles for trips? How are you handling the UR points you earn from the Chase cards?

What is your other travel spend for hotels, restaurants, rental cars, parking, highway tolls and such? Do you stay at specific hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt?
Are you traveling within the US primarily or to other countries?
I travel primarily to other countries, and with my 1k status on United, I get free access to any Star Alliance (United, Lufthansa, etc) airline lounge. So I don't need a credit card with lounge access, as I already have it.

I do redeem my United miles for trips. I'm not exactly sure yet how I'll be handling my UR points, both cards are brand new. But probably I'll use them to book travel through the Chase portal. I think I'll probably keep them seperate from my United miles, as they're worth quite a bit more like that than if I combined them.

I also spend almost as much on hotels and rental cars, probably $10-15k. And maybe $2-5k on restaurants. I don't currently have any hotel loyalty, I tend to stay at IHG properties when I can, I guess, but 2/3 of the time I just stay at whatever hotel in the area makes the most sense (factoring in price, convenience, ratings, etc). Often it's just a "Ma and Pa" kind of hotel. I book through Hotels.com a lot.

I'd look into Marriott as your hotel chain. They partner with United so you'll get free Gold right out of the gate (no CC needed), their international footprint is vastly larger than either Hilton or IHG (Helsinki and Strasbourg are the only cities I've been to recently that did not have any Marriott property). The points add up fast, and because of that same footprint you have redemption options basically anywhere you want to go. The cost isn't that much higher than IHG in most locations (it's Hilton internationally that tends to price their properties too high).

iced · ‎05-24-2019

One last thing to keep in mind on the cards...

If you don't think you'll use the UC membership for domestic flights, and depending on your award redemption patterns you may want to consider the MP cobranded as a backup card for nothing more than award bookings (if you're redeeming miles with any frequency).

Unless you live at a hub, only fly internationally on award and/or only book FC/Polaris award tickets, the card bestows your status on award tickets as if they were revenue tickets. Again though, if you are never flying any route (even as a connection) that's CPU-eligible, this doesn't mean much but if you do it's something to consider. Both the Explorer and Club have this benefit.

Sorry for the barrage of posts.