Help with the Chase Long Game

[Anonymous]

Greetings

Thinking about the long term I figured I’d reach out to the wonderful people of MyFico.

In short it took a year plus to build up my score over 700 which I did not apply for a new card. Recently I have acquired three excellent cards that has fit my needs perfectly.

9/25/2018 CFU $5600 SL
11/1/2018 CSP $7000 SL
11/1/2018 BCP $2000 SL (moved $5k from Delta Card after I was approved)

I also received the BBP card with a $20k SL a few days ago but it doesn’t report to the 3Bs.

A week ago I PC’d my CFU to a CF because I realized you can link Chase Pay with Samsung Pay and I would get the most points using the Freedom even if it means missing out on the SUB if I were to get the CFU again.

I used Chase pay to buy $300 worth of luggage from ebags which gave me an additional 7 points. So that purchase alone gave me 3600 UR points which is about a 15% return when redeemed for travel.

If Chase pay is in most of the quarters like this year I can clean up. I don’t have a General UR spend card now but have the BBP although I’m hesitant to use too much personal spend on it for fear of AA.

After evaluating my spend I would much be better served with the CSR. I want to upgrade it after a year but I was also considering changing my CSP to another CF or CFU card then immediately applying for the CSR. Two product changes in less than a year may be risky, no?

Either way I don’t plan on doing any applying for at least six months after my last personal card approval. I don’t spend enough on my side gig to justify an Ink Card unless I use it for personal expenses which I don’t feel comfortable with.

My big expense is groceries. I spend about $120 a week just for myself. My parents are a bit older so since in a while I’ll go for them and put it on my BCP. I realize I am going to max out the grocery threshold relatively fast so at least if there is a chase pay or phone wallet pay option for the quarter I can spread it out.

I do have 5 late payments on my CR. 4 30 day lates and one 60 day late. All from August-October 2016. Working on getting them removed via GW. So upgrading the CSP may be my only ticket to the CSR. I put about $3500 through the CSP in the month I had it with all organic spending. Probably put another $4k through the other chase card. Paid most of the balance on both cards so maybe after six months my internal score should improve. After the CSP reported my Ex score went from 717 to 710. The BCP hasn’t reported yet so I’ll be lucky to be over 700 when it’s all said and done which is I why I want to wait at least 6 months or even a year. I could go the business card route to save my AAoA but I do t spend a lot for my side gig.

What strategy do you think will work for me?

[Anonymous]

First, im not sure you can get CSR by PC CSP to FU just after you got CSP.

Second, I am not sure just over 700 FICO score is enough for CSR.

Maybe best to wait 12 months and see if you can upgarde CSP to CSR.

Why would CSR fit you anyway? How much you plan to spend on travel? Are you going to be redeeming flight from Chase travel portal?

[Anonymous]

Dining and travel. Figure about $1000 a month between both cats. I use my personal cards for my 9-5 job and get reimbursed.

I applied for the CSP because I knew I couldn’t get the CSR. It’ll be safer to just wait a year and upgrade it and get a CFU eventually.

[Anonymous]

POST edited:

I found my old thread, the information is that you won't get SUB of CSR until 4 year has passed since you opened CSP. But for upgrading from CSP to CSR w/o SUB, probably just 1 year in between (thats what Sapphire CSR told me on the phone).

For me personally, I have since moved on to acquire WF prople + WF Visa signature. This is a better deal than CSP or CSR for my situation (8k per year on air travel, not much else).

[Anonymous]

I was looking at the propel card. How do you like it so far?

[Anonymous]

So far so good. I have yet to get the SUB, but I did try the WF travel portal. The price of flight I found on the portal is the same as those listed on delta website. So purely reward value wise, I think propel+WF visa signature is a superior option (its 4.5% without AF).

Still, CSR/CSP have other features that Propel doesn't offer, like easier cash redemption, transfer points to airline programs (especially if you fly united all the time), primary rental insurence, etc.

Extra info: not entirely sure if you can apply for propel and visa signature together (we applied and got two under two names in our household and will pool reward together for travel, WF has very generous reward pooling and gifting policy). TPG says you have to wait 6 months even if you forgo the SUB of the second application. However, when I was on the phone with WF CSR, they seems to think you can apply for two cards together.

[Anonymous]

Yeah very true. Was thinking of adding those cards in a couple of years. I got about 2.6 CPP when transferring to United the other day so I was stoked about that. I like the extra perks the reserve gives like the travel insurance and delay insurance.

[Shadowfactor]

Don’t be in fear of AA for personal charges on Amex business cards. Amex small business reps even encourage if based on my DP’s that I’ve seen

I almost exclusively use my BBP for personal spend. Most of my business expenses occur overseas and since BBP has foreign transaction fees I don’t use it and use a different Amex card

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Dining and travel. Figure about $1000 a month between both cats. I use my personal cards for my 9-5 job and get reimbursed.

I applied for the CSP because I knew I couldn’t get the CSR. It’ll be safer to just wait a year and upgrade it and get a CFU eventually.

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With 4 lates lurking in the past, I would be inclined to sit tight, run charges through your existing cards. Particularly since the BCE is yet to show up on your reports.

Even if you were to optimize the CSR keep in mind you are already getting 2 of those three UR points for the same spend. So your delta is only 1,000 UR per month. You are also gaining a lot of points with Freedom, on Chase Pay. If that continues, the situations where you may use Freedom Unlimited are, well, limited. CFU is also only 0.5 UR more than you get as base spend on CSP, CSR and Freedom, so CFU really only makes a difference in some situations.

I second the note that you can't go to CSR within the first year of CSP. I am waiting until January 2019 when my PC will be eligible. The CL of the CSP is also a hurdle, needs to be higher to qualify for the CSR. A legit strategy might be to downgrade the CSP to Freedom Unlimited, then app the CSR, but then you have the expectation that Chase wants to increase their overall exposure to you by something more than $10k. Taking more time for this enables you to further improve your internal score. No one (certainly not me) can predict what your apping experience would be, it only becomes obvious when you take those steps, but given the background, I'd be slow to push for more credit with Chase.

Those are good cards, and so you are certainly on a good path to earnings, and travel rewards. You have already covered a large part of the possible UR earning, so enjoy that and look for upgrades later.

[Anonymous]

Good point about the 1 point and .5 difference. I’m going to sit tight for a while. Linking chase pay to Samsung pay was a game changer and I can easily max out the CF categories.

If I don’t get a CLI by the time my 1 year comes around I may shift some of my CF limit over to the CSP. From the data points I have read Chase is likely (not guaranteed) auto increase those who put a lot of spend through their cards. I have the BBP card for general spend and I get to diversify my points.

One card I really want next is the IHG card. The free night, low annual fee, and diamond status is too good to pass up. I can get status match with other brands like Wyndham which I can get a Total Rewards match which is valuable to me in AC and LAV.