Help me simplify

[wasCB14]

@Aim_High Thanks for the detailed thoughts!

I had CSP for 2015-2018 before I PCed it to CFU (which I just closed to avoid confusing the two CFUs).

I had CSR for 2018-2020 before downgrading it to be the second Freedom (still an open account). I actually will be eligible (under the current 48-month language) for a new (third) Sapphire SUB in mid-2022. So from a SUB perspective, it's a possibility.

Upgrading to a Sapphire (and not getting a SUB) isn't as appealing.

Generally I have less time than before to micromanage a lot of different rewards programs. For now, Amex works for me, and I have adequate CLs with BofA/Citi/Chase if needed.

I'll look at the Discover dark web monitoring before I close it.

The Citi TY rewards program hasn't interested me since the days of price rewind, Admirals access, 1.6 cpp revenue AA redemptions, and easy 4NF.

The reasons I dropped CSR were:

1. I had a lot of Hyatt and United points, so didn't need further transfers.

2. Amex gives CA residents a good deal for primary rental coverage, paying per infrequent rental.

3. An increasing preference for Delta.

PR and WWFCR fit my non-Amex spend well enough that there's just not enough spend to justify TYs or URs outside of SUB chasing. Maybe that will change with the new "business" CFU. Maybe I'll accrue URs and get a CSR in in 6-8 months.

[wasCB14]

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@Aim_High wrote:

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@wasCB14 wrote:

I just closed the old CFU and the DC. Those were easy ones.

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 ... You posted this while I was composing a response so guess I didn't catch you quickly enough.  

Did you preserve your credit limits with Chase by transferring the limits to another card? 

While you did close the DC and I imagine that can't be undone, it's still possible to product change other cards around so that you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred and a personal Chase Freedom Unlimited along with the one for business spend. 

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I did preserve the CL, moving it to Hyatt, but I'd likely need to request a CLD before applying for a new CSR or CSP anyway. Each of the trusts has its own TIN (and doesn't flow onto my personal return) and I'm already around half my easily-documented income in total Chase CLs.

The DC CL I did not bother preserving. I might SUB chase an AA card sometime.

[K-in-Boston]

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@wasCB14 wrote:

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Since you have BBP and are going to PC to Gold, would it make sense to swap out your Schwab Platinum for Business Platinum, or just add the latter if the coupon book works in your favor already?  If you are ultimately using MRs for flights and you mentioned cash fares out of LAX, unless you are doing better by transferring to a partner it's simple to effectively get 2.1666% per MR through Amex Travel for your selected airline (or J/F on any airline) from the lifecycle of redeem-rebate-redeem-rebate.  That's been my primary strategy since last year.

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It's not out of the question. I had thought the Dell credit was $100 semiannually but the Amex site says it's $200 semiannually so $400 annually...

But at some point that might blur the business/personal use distinction...

And then there's the airline extras credit...

That 2.16 is from those "insider fares" with fewer points needed for flights, right? Combined with the 35% of points back? Even 1.75 or so cpp would be nice...

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[I snipped out sections of your reply to address these specific ones.]

The Dell credit was very recently doubled to $200 in both January-June and July-December when the $100 increase in annual fee this coming January was announced.  (Along with the $10 monthly wireless credit and the Adobe credit which isn't too easy to use since it doesn't apply to more common things like Creative Cloud subscriptions.)

Amex doesn't seem to really be bothered whatsoever with personal/business distinction.

Yep, if you can just use the $200 airline credit (on Delta, paying the remainder of a ticket partially paid with a Delta gift card is still working for now), the $400 Dell credit and the $120 in wireless credits you're already $25 ahead of the upcoming annual fee.  There is a frequent 10% back and/or additional MRs Amex Offer for Dell that stacks as well.  Using it via Rakuten on a 10+% day (since I earn MRs) stacked with those is just gravy.

No, Amex Insider Fares sweeten it even better, though!  I realized that the usual points and miles sites had been making a mistake when doing the calculation on cpp using MRs in Amex Travel with the rebate - they were only factoring in the initial redemption but forgetting about the residual value of the points you will keep getting back every time you redeem this way.  So say you buy a pair of $500 tickets on your chosen airline through Amex Travel and use 100k MRs at $0.01 per point to pay the $1000 total - you then get 35k points back.  Since you really only used 65k points to get a $1000 ticket (because a few days later you'll see 35k added back after you used that 100k) you got 1.54 cpp on that redemption, and 1.54 cpp is the value that's been thrown around.  The mistake is that no one was factoring in the value of those 35k points when you redeem them at 1 cpp again, or the value of the 12,250 points you get back when you redeem that 35k back, or the value of the 4,288 points you get back when you redeem those 12,250 - you see where this is going?  I mean even after the 6th ticket you buy, even though the 35% of the 35% of the 35% etc. is getting smaller, you're still getting a few dollars worth of value from that original 35k rebate. 

So while it's fair to say that redeeming through Amex Travel with the 35% rebate is 1.54 cpp that first time, if your redemption strategy is going to continue being airfare through Amex Travel it's easy to effectively net over 2 cpp.

[wasCB14]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

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No, Amex Insider Fares sweeten it even better, though!  I realized that the usual points and miles sites had been making a mistake when doing the calculation on cpp using MRs in Amex Travel with the rebate - they were only factoring in the initial redemption but forgetting about the residual value of the points you will keep getting back every time you redeem this way.  So say you buy a pair of $500 tickets on your chosen airline through Amex Travel and use 100k MRs at $0.01 per point to pay the $1000 total - you then get 35k points back.  Since you really only used 65k points to get a $1000 ticket (because a few days later you'll see 35k added back after you used that 100k) you got 1.54 cpp on that redemption, and 1.54 cpp is the value that's been thrown around.  The mistake is that no one was factoring in the value of those 35k points when you redeem them at 1 cpp again, or the value of the 12,250 points you get back when you redeem that 35k back, or the value of the 4,288 points you get back when you redeem those 12,250 - you see where this is going?  I mean even after the 6th ticket you buy, even though the 35% of the 35% of the 35% etc. is getting smaller, you're still getting a few dollars worth of value from that original 35k rebate. 

So while it's fair to say that redeeming through Amex Travel with the 35% rebate is 1.54 cpp that first time, if your redemption strategy is going to continue being airfare through Amex Travel it's easy to effectively net over 2 cpp.

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I can see why the old 50% of points back didn't last very long!

I may do this:

BBP: Personal tax payments long-term

Lowes: Real estate stuff long-term

Business Platinum: Accounting professional expenses long-term plus a large personal estimated tax payment to meet minimum spend in the short term, plus credits towards personal spend. Maybe I'd use it for the occasional big-ticket real estate item and get reimbursed by a check. With the 1.5x that actually works pretty well.

So it would basically come down to finding the right SUB on the Business Platinum at a time when a big expense will be coming up - though most of our bigger transactions are negotiated in terms of check-only repeat business. Sadly the cards come too late for a recent $11k purchase where the merchant would have happily taken a CC. That could have been a SUB qualification right there.

The main issue is to avoid having personal spend on a designated real estate business card. But it's easy to identify a few large trust expenses on a personal (or proprietorship) card and seek reimbursement on them.

[FinStar]

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@wasCB14 wrote:

Barclays:

Arrival: As contactless payments become more and more common, is a backup PIN card really relevant?

Jetblue: Got it for the SUB. I may close this soon.

(Side Note: I got the Jetblue card a year and a few days ago with a two-part SUB. I applied on 11/4/20, was approved on 11/8/20, met the first part of the spend requirement quickly, forgot about the card for a while, then spent the remaining requirement on 11/5/21 and it posted 11/7/21. The second part of the SUB has not posted yet. The language is that I had to spend it within 12 months. Did I have to spend it a few weeks earlier to get it into the 12th billing cycle? Should I call? Give it a few more days or until the end of the cycle to see if it posts? Or am I out of luck? Can I at least get the 5k renewal points and them dump it for an AF refund?)

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Not sure this piece has been addressed yet, but mine will be somewhat brief

To be eligible for the 2nd part of the SUB, transactions need to have posted no later than 12 months (or 365 days) from the date you were approved, IIRC. Based on what you shared above, it's likely just a timing situation since the points would usually reflect after your statement generates with those transactions. So, before you make the call, wait for the statement to generate and give it a couple days afterwards to check your TrueBlue account.

You'd have to wait for your anniversary bonus award to post as well.  If your AF posts afterwards, keep in mind you have 30 days to cancel the card so the AF can be refunded. So, you'll need to monitor things.

[wasCB14]

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@FinStar wrote:

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@wasCB14 wrote:

Barclays:

Arrival: As contactless payments become more and more common, is a backup PIN card really relevant?

Jetblue: Got it for the SUB. I may close this soon.

(Side Note: I got the Jetblue card a year and a few days ago with a two-part SUB. I applied on 11/4/20, was approved on 11/8/20, met the first part of the spend requirement quickly, forgot about the card for a while, then spent the remaining requirement on 11/5/21 and it posted 11/7/21. The second part of the SUB has not posted yet. The language is that I had to spend it within 12 months. Did I have to spend it a few weeks earlier to get it into the 12th billing cycle? Should I call? Give it a few more days or until the end of the cycle to see if it posts? Or am I out of luck? Can I at least get the 5k renewal points and them dump it for an AF refund?)

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Not sure this piece has been addressed yet, but mine will be somewhat brief

To be eligible for the 2nd part of the SUB, transactions need to have posted no later than 12 months (or 365 days) from the date you were approved, IIRC. Based on what you shared above, it's likely just a timing situation since the points would usually reflect after your statement generates with those transactions. So, before you make the call, wait for the statement to generate and give it a couple days afterwards to check your TrueBlue account.

You'd have to wait for your anniversary bonus award to post as well.  If your AF posts afterwards, keep in mind you have 30 days to cancel the card so the AF can be refunded. So, you'll need to monitor things.

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Thanks! I may keep it for a second year...not that I really want it, but more as a part of not being too obvious a SUB chaser perhaps? I mostly used the Jetblue miles to fly relatives around without me.

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And I did find a recent targeted? email for the 150k Business Platinum. I've been using free 3rd party PDF tools for editing the real estate lease documents so might look into a proper paid version of Adobe if not too expensive. And then there's the wireless credit I could use personally.

I might apply for it tomorrow...

[wasCB14]

@K-in-Boston 

I don't follow your math. I think ~1.54 cpp actually is correct with the 35% back.

If cents is the numerator, and points the denominator, then 1/0.65 does indeed equal about 1.54.

If you start with 100000 points and keep redeeming and getting 35% back, what are you getting?

$1000 + $350 + $122.50 + $42.88 + $15...which is a series that adds up to about $1540.

But by that time, you've used the almost the full 100000 points. 65k is no longer the correct denominator. You're getting 35% back on almost nothing of the original 100000.

That is: $1540/100000 points is equal to $1000/65000 points. Both are 1.54 cpp.

[K-in-Boston]

Except you didn't use 100,000 points, you only used 65,000.  😉

For 65,000 points used net, you get $1000 redeemed at 1.54 cpp and another 35,000 points.

[wasCB14]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Except you didn't use 100,000 points, you only used 65,000.  😉

For 65,000 points used net, you get $1000 redeemed at 1.54 cpp and another 35,000 points.

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You're saying that after a 100k redemption, the MR point balance goes from 100k to 70k?

100 - 65 + 35 = 70?

[wasCB14]

Here's how I see it: How far does 100k MRs go?

Round 1: $1000 of flights (or a little more with an insider discount). 1 cent per gross point (before 35% back). To my understanding, you can't actually book a $1540 ticket with 100k MRs in your account. ~1.54 is a projection for total value over multiple rounds. It's $1000 only in the first round. $1000 of flight value so far and 35000 points remain.

Then you get $350 in flights in the next round. 1 cpp.

etc.