How can downgrading CSR to CSP possibly make sense?

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iced wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Excellent math, you should just get prople+wells visa and it would be better than both csp and csr.

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Better for WF maybe.

For people who travel frequently, points that transfer to airlines/hotels beat out points that don't, and by a signifcant margin. The ability to transfer points to partner is huge and is the reason programs like UR/MR remain the go-to programs with travelers despite the JV-squad banks trying to emulate their point accrual on their cards. When someone gets 4+ cpm value from an airline program, it's going to take a lot more than just 3x earning to win out with points-that-emulate-cashback systems like Wells and Capital One use.

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Travel "frequently" is a bit different from travel "in style".

For people who travel international business, sure, they can put 120k+ MR/UR to a partner and claim 10cpp for a trip.

For people like OP who counts pennies in valuation (myself included), we book round trip ticket with 30k points, transfering to a partner on an economy seat will rarely beat 1.5cpp.

There is nothing wrong with each type of traveler, point is one has to consider what type they are in calculating valuations of these points.

And judging by chase CSR's valuation of UR on CSR, I bet they believe vast majority of people redeem these at about 1.5cpp.

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For budget travelers, considering that one can redeem UR for 1.5 cpp in the Chase travel portal toward cash tickets, the floor for UR on travel redemptions is effectively 1.5 cpp.

I'll agree there is a flavor of frequent traveler who's first, last, and only priority in selecting travel itineraries is price and they will book in a hostel or fly in steerage if it saves them a buck. Even in those cases, I'd still argue there's value in having the option to either redeem at 1.5 cpp via the bank's travel portal or transfer to an airline in the event they find a ticket they like where they can exceed 1.5 cpp in value. Cards like WF Propel will not have that option.

[Anonymous]

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@iced wrote:.

I'll agree there is a flavor of frequent traveler who's first, last, and only priority in selecting travel itineraries is price and they will book in a hostel or fly in steerage if it saves them a buck. Even in those cases, I'd still argue there's value in having the option to either redeem at 1.5 cpp via the bank's travel portal or transfer to an airline in the event they find a ticket they like where they can exceed 1.5 cpp in value. Cards like WF Propel will not have that option.

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I agree, but I'm sure the counter is that the flexibility comes at a cost (the net AF) compared to the no-cost WF solution.

[Anonymous]

Options represent real oppurtunity, so i do agree its good, no matter how "common/rare" a better value may be.

Prople is by no means perfect. It has lot of shortcomings, no perks, no transfer. So yes it won't be good enough for many who want or need lounge access, or want insane redemption value for their luxury travels.

I would simply suggest everyone, who are debating which card to get, to try out award travel themselves for airline(s) and trips they use, see how often they get anything exceeding 1.5cpp.

[CreditCuriosity]

I have a CSR, but with that said which CC's other than amex for a charge offer primary rental car insurance?  Could be a perk alone for a person to hold a CSP vs. a CSR without going into to much more detail if they can't swallow the 450 AF of the CSR?

[kevinindy]

I think there are limited cases, the rental coverage and the person who might be denied for CSR but get CSP make sense.  However in your rental case, (a) that person would clearly use the 300 travel credit, (b) if the rentals were that substantive, their travel spend probably would make the CSR still better.  I suppose I could concoct a scenario where a bunch of one day car rentals in town would be worthwhile for the CSP.  But I don't think it would be realistic that people are doing that many rentals and not incurring other travel and restaurant expenses.

As to the idea there is a narrow band of spend that CSP > CSR, there isn't if you account for the fact that you can get 2% with a no AF card.  By the time you covered the $95 AF on the CSP, you'd have more than covered the $160ish on the CSR.

I guess my overall point is that you have to look at the value vs a flat 2% card to really understand the marginal value.  If you do that, other than qualifying for the CSR and a very improbable rental only spend, the CSP never makes sense.  I still haven't heard otherwise if you you use a 2% card as the baseline.

What I need to do is compare the value vs. our citi costco card.  Basically that ups the restaurant travel baseline to 3%, and I am struggling to see if the CSR makes sense at our spend levels.  I think it does because of the lounge access (albeit crappy), car ins, and precheck.  But it is closer than I would have thought when covering $163 net AF with a marginal 1.5 cpp on the CSR. The break even is close to 11K in that analysis.

[Anonymous]

Some people just want to dip their toes before jumping in the deep end. I would feel much better about throwing away $95 than $450 on an experiment. 

I did my own math the other day to see if I could justify a CSP or CSR without travel spend and they both fall flat against my current deck of cards, especially if I add Marvel or Savor One, but I would still be far more likely to try CSP before CSR although with my income, CSP would be a better bet anyway since even though I have two 10K+ cards, Chase would be extremely unlikely to issue me over half my annual right out of the gate. The $95 risk is just much more palatable to me even if the approval component wasn’t in question. 

[wasCB14]

Re: Throwing away $95 vs. $450...

If someone can't use a $300 travel credit, why would he or she consider either of these? There are easier and better cash bonuses elsewhere, and as good as these cards are for travel, they're not particularly good for anything else.

[Anonymous]

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@wasCB14 wrote:
Re: Throwing away $95 vs. $450...

If someone can't use a $300 travel credit, why would he or she consider either of these? There are easier and better cash bonuses elsewhere, and as good as these cards are for travel, they're not particularly good for anything else.

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I agree and I was only really looking because I was bored and because I am looking at a Chase card as an addition to my wallet in case my situation changes later and I can travel but I really don’t know that there is a place in my wallet for Freedom when I can’t even max out my Disco categories so I was looking at my options. 

I could potentially use the $300 credit if it covers Uber/Lyft. I found conflicting info on that but I simply don’t eat out or travel enough to make the reward system work for me right now. 

[wasCB14]

I got credit for some Ubers in June.

*To clarify, my point was that for anyone who travels, the net AF "at risk" is less than $450. That's without even considering the value of the bonus.