Great explanation, thank you. That does make a lot of sense.
Total Loan Balance: $43k / $65k
Total SL: $78k
2.25 is a floor with the CFU paired with the CSR.
CFU gets the lion share of my spending TBH, tax payment when I am not SUB chasing come to around 20k a year, HOA another 6K/year and a bunch of other random crap that falls to default. Let’s assume 30k annually, and further assume I am just redeeming via the Chase portal for short hop economy tickets or whatever as the bare minimum redemption.
An additional .25% would be 75 bucks, and the AF on that Alliant card is 99 bucks now.
Basically I would have to be spending more than 40k annually to beat the CFU + CSR pairing... that’s a lot to default and if I weren’t massively underwithholding I wouldn’t even be close.
CFU gets the lion share of my spending TBH, tax payment when I am not SUB chasing come to around 20k a year, HOA another 6K/year and a bunch of other random crap that falls to default. Let’s assume 30k annually, and further assume I am just redeeming via the Chase portal for short hop economy tickets or whatever as the bare minimum redemption.
An additional .25% would be 75 bucks, and the AF on that Alliant card is 99 bucks now.
Basically I would have to be spending more than 40k annually to beat the CFU + CSR pairing... that’s a lot to default and if I weren’t massively underwithholding I wouldn’t even be close.
@Revelate wrote:
2.25 is a floor with the CFU paired with the CSR.
CFU gets the lion share of my spending TBH, tax payment when I am not SUB chasing come to around 20k a year, HOA another 6K/year and a bunch of other random crap that falls to default. Let’s assume 30k annually, and further assume I am just redeeming via the Chase portal for short hop economy tickets or whatever as the bare minimum redemption.
An additional .25% would be 75 bucks, and the AF on that Alliant card is 99 bucks now.
Basically I would have to be spending more than 40k annually to beat the CFU + CSR pairing... that’s a lot to default and if I weren’t massively underwithholding I wouldn’t even be close.
My quick math seems to correlate with this, as well.
Seeing as I do plan to use my UR points for travel through the portal, this thread is making me have second thoughts about using an Alliant card for daily spending. It seems like my Freedom Unlimited might actually be the right answer for me. While my spending on the card *might* exceeed $40k/year sometimes, most years it'll probably fall a little short of that.
Glad I asked this question, great advice in this thread!
I can't speak personally about the Alliant Credit Union cards or accounts. However, I've looked into them and read about enough problems other people have had with payments, poor customer service, etc that I decided I didn't want to do business with them REGARDLESS of how much their cash back program pays.
When it comes to my finances, I want trust, good service, reliability, ease-of-access. It sounds like some people who DO have their banking accounts with Alliant might have had a better experience when it comes to things like payment postings. I don't wish to set up banking with them and was only looking for the credit card program. Redemption of Alliant's rewards program sounds cumbersome, even compared to other basic cash-back programs like Capital One Quicksilver or Discover. (Minimum redemption $25? Two statements to get an account credit? Etc.) I read about difficulty with fraud disputes too, which was a huge red flag to me. Over many years, I have had fraud on multiple accounts with Capital One, Chase, UMB, and Discover. Fortunately, those experiences weren't terribly difficult to navigate and some were even impressively proactive about detecting it and notifying me before I had to report it. I can only imagine the nightmare of an unsupportive customer service environment in trying to sort that out. It's just not worth a few bucks a year to me.
I recently completed the Chase Quadfecta (CSR, FU, F, Ink BP). Until recently, I had not paid an AF on a credit card in over a couple of decades. (Before the late 1990's, normally all credit cards charged AFs and many didn't even offer the cash-back or rewards available today!!) Once I did the cost-benefit analysis and decided to go for the CSR for it's premium travel benefits, it made sense to not dilute my efforts among other cards outside Chase when I can magnify my cash-back 1.5x through the UR portal.
Even disregarding the discussions above that explain how UR points can be worth much more than cash-back, why would I want to pay AFs on other cards that would diminish the value I am getting on my Chase cards? I get tremendous travel benefits on my CSR card, in my estimation unmatched by other competitors. Any card that comes close to matching it is also going to charge me a high AF also. So I'm already paying the AF to carry the CSR and I also get the 2.25% on my FU charges for no additional AF! I don't know of any *currently available* card (excluding cards such as closed USAA Unlimited cash-back) that pays MORE THAN 2% on ALL PURCHASES (NO LIMITS) with no AF after the first year. So even if I just roll all my various UR points over to the CSR UR portal and use them as "cash" for travel, I'm getting way more back that I would on other "cash-back" cards.
*And by the way, I never even got the 3% FU SUB the OP referred to, because it was offered long after I carried the card. So that wasn't even a consideration. The Trifecta/Quadfecta stands on its' own, IMO.
To be fair, I think we can all agree a straight cash back strategy has value. The concern is with trying to bridge a comparison of cash back vs travel redemptions.
It sounds like OP got some more perspectives to consider. There is no single best way to approach CC rewards, which is what makes this discussion so perpetually interesting 
@NRB525 wrote:To be fair, I think we can all agree a straight cash back strategy has value. The concern is with trying to bridge a comparison of cash back vs travel redemptions.
It sounds like OP got some more perspectives to consider. There is no single best way to approach CC rewards, which is what makes this discussion so perpetually interesting
Definitely learned some new things to consider! At this point, it seems like my old plan for using an Alliant or Citi Doublecash for everyday spending isn't really the best choice for me. Since I actually do plan to use points for travel, this Chase Trifecta seems like the right answer for me.
As a bonus, I already almost have it Just need to upgrade my CSP to a CSR, and get a Freedom card - both of those things won't be happening for at least 12 months though, so I still have time to do more napkin math!
@coreysw12 wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:To be fair, I think we can all agree a straight cash back strategy has value. The concern is with trying to bridge a comparison of cash back vs travel redemptions.
It sounds like OP got some more perspectives to consider. There is no single best way to approach CC rewards, which is what makes this discussion so perpetually interesting
Definitely learned some new things to consider! At this point, it seems like my old plan for using an Alliant or Citi Doublecash for everyday spending isn't really the best choice for me. Since I actually do plan to use points for travel, this Chase Trifecta seems like the right answer for me.
As a bonus, I already almost have it
Dude just save them points! My goal is to get the CSP then PC to CSR right at the year mark, so it'll be around 18 more months until I finally have a CSR, but worth it! I'm just imagining how many UR's I can have racked up over the next 18 months between SUBs and daily spending, I'll be travelling free for a quite a while!
@NRB525
“ ...To be fair, I think we can all agree a straight cash back strategy has value. The concern is with trying to bridge a comparison of cash back vs travel redemptions. ... There is no single best way to approach CC rewards, which is what makes this discussion so perpetually interesting.”
Exactly.
Members on here debate the virtues of different cards. But what is great for one person or family may not be best for another. It just depends on lifestyle, spending habits, income, and employment situation.
For example, many people travel for work frequently and can claim points or miles for personal use from travel paid for by their employer. They may also qualify for super-high credit lines due to the heavy employer-subsidized or personal business subsidized spend they put on their personal cards. For these people, getting a high-fee travel card is a no-brainer due to the value they can get back from it and they may forget to differentiate how different their situation can be from other people. But for many others, including myself, all spending is just from our household budget and any travel/miles is paid personally. For us, it is more difficult to justify paying $450 to $550 on a super-premium travel card like:
- Chase Sapphire Reserve
- Citi Prestige Card
- The Platinum Card from American Express
- United MileagePlus Club Card
- Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit Card
- Delta Reserve Credit Card from American Express
In my situation, after much cost-benefit analysis, I was able to justify the CSR due to the Trifecta-Quadfecta opportunities to magnify value as well as the generous benefits. I also do a fair amount of personal travel, enough to justify changing my strategy from cash back to travel points.
However, for me, I would never come close to getting enough value from the AMEX Platinum Card. I am sure I would qualify to carry it but I’ve never applied because it just doesn’t make sense for me! I see members on this forum with that card and wonder if they got it because it made sense for them, or because of the Platinum ‘prestige’, or because they listened to other people argue how great a card it was so they thought they needed it too, without any analysis.
There are probably a lot of consumers with premium travel cards whose travel patterns and spending might be better-served with a travel card in the $50 to $100 AF category like the Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture, Bank of America Premium Rewards Card, Citibank Premier Card, NFCU Flagship Rewards, or Barclays Arrival Plus World Elite MC.
Since I don’t have frequent flier status or miles with any airlines, I probably won’t bother to try to negotiate the value of my UR points upward by transferring to hotel or airline partners, but it’s nice to know I can if I want to look into it more and search for opportunities.
@ibebarrett
“...Dude just save them points! My goal is to get the CSP then PC to CSR right at the year mark, so it'll be around 18 more months until I finally have a CSR, but worth it! I'm just imagining how many UR's I can have racked up over the next 18 months between SUBs and daily spending, I'll be travelling free for a quite a while!”
They add up quickly! In one year with SUBs on 3 new Chase cards plus spending, I racked up over 212,000 UR points in 12 months! The INK Business Preferred had an 80K bonus alone!