How do you choose between closing a card and sock ... - Page 2 - myFICO® Forums

wasCB14 · ‎09-27-2020

Which CA and east coast airports?

(Schwab) Amex Platinum works well for me not just for rewards but also the lounge footprint between ONT/LAX, SFO, JFK, and BOS.

Travel has stopped with COVID, but I got a nice retention offer and the card has some "stay at home" value, too.

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

ToxikPH · ‎09-27-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
@ToxikPH wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

Cap One Venture One (5.4k, 08/15) PC to QS if possible as the V1 is terrible
I just checked and have an offer to PC to QS on the website, but I would not be eligible for the signup bonus. Maybe in the future I would want to just get the signup bonus? I have the CFU and Citi DC.
@ToxikPH wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I'm just gonna put what I would do with this line up but your situition is 100% gonna be different then mine. First some points, I main in points but have CB cards as back up. I'm a huge fan of Amex, Delta, and Hilton so Amex points is my main "currency" but do have Citi as backup.
Once I start working (in two years), I plan on doing regular trips from California to the East Coast (perhaps monthly) and the Amex plat would be great for rewards. The Chase UR partners are really great for me though, so it'll be a hard choice. If work sends me on enough travel, perhaps it will make sense for me to get both.

Why are you a big fan of Hilton? I have been using them for a while but thought that their reward system wasn't too great. I coincidentally stayed at Hilton properties in the past and racked up some points. Now, I keep an HH card around because I have 300k points, and I am aiming for 400k for a vacation. I plan on opening an Aspire sometime in the next year to get the signup bonus. After that, I think I'll hop over to Hyatt or Marriott. Is there something really great about Hilton that other hotels are missing?

This was helpful because I was thinking along similar lines. Thanks for your response - I appreciate it.

I'm not sure if you would like the Savor over the QS but C1 does have a two card limit so if you want the Savor card I would PC the V1 to QS as it'll be a little more useful but with F.U. and DC I'm not sure I'd use the card more than padding/age.

I'm a fan of Hilton because of their partnership with Amex and the Aspire card. I started as a fan of Amex which grew into a love of Delta so MR points became my main currency. I do prefer Hyatt honestly but don't have access to Chase cards (lol/24). If you are going MR though your two choices are Hilton and Marriott so I personally would choose Hilton as to me they seem more customer based than Marriott. If you do end up with Chase though Hyatt is a great redemption option (2cpp!) and their hotels are quite nice.

wasCB14 · ‎09-27-2020

Also, one thing I like is to cluster with a small number of lenders. I'm willing to keep CFU despite it being kind of useless since I have 4 other Chase cards and I have to check the Chase site now and then anyway. But I closed my Cap1 QS after PCing because it was superfluous with my other cards and extra effort to monitor.

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

Anonymous · ‎09-27-2020

@wasCB14 wrote:
Which CA and east coast airports?

(Schwab) Amex Platinum works well for me not just for rewards but also the lounge footprint between ONT/LAX, SFO, JFK, and BOS.

Travel has stopped with COVID, but I got a nice retention offer and the card has some "stay at home" value, too.

I would go from SFO/OAK to JFK/LAG/EWR. If I did 6-8 round trips a year, do you think it would justify getting the Plat instead of CSR? I do not think my spending in the next few years would justify getting more than one of those cards. It would be great if I could get rewards for paying off student loans - I'll have $215k when I graduate and plan on living like a college student for a while.

Anonymous · ‎09-27-2020

@ToxikPH wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Citi AAdvantage (3k CL, opened 02/1x) Downgrade to $0 AF card, keep AA miles alive
Cap One Venture One (5.4k, 08/15) PC to QS if possible as the V1 is terrible
Citi Brooks Brothers (2k, 04/18) Never heard of it so up to you
Citi TY Preferred (9.4k, 08/15) PC into a R+ or DC if you aren't using

Potential "burn"
BCP (CFU intro grocery offer) Will be useful after the intro is over, downgrade to BCE then upgrade back later

I PCed Citi TY to DC and Venture One to Quicksilver.

Citi system is "updating" and they couldn't see any PC offers for AAdvantage. AF is in March and they will not prorate refund, so I think I'll just hold onto the card until then. Since the Brooks Bros. is a co-branded card, another dept deals with that so I could not take action there.

I'll close BCP after the next statement cuts because I did an Amex offer and want to make sure that posts first.

Anonymous · ‎09-27-2020

@ToxikPH wrote:
I'm a fan of Hilton because of their partnership with Amex and the Aspire card. I started as a fan of Amex which grew into a love of Delta so MR points became my main currency. I do prefer Hyatt honestly but don't have access to Chase cards (lol/24). If you are going MR though your two choices are Hilton and Marriott so I personally would choose Hilton as to me they seem more customer based than Marriott. If you do end up with Chase though Hyatt is a great redemption option (2cpp!) and their hotels are quite nice.

I "liked" Amex for their CLI. But they cut all of my limits pretty harshly over the summer. Amex cards use to make up my biggest CL but now its a pretty small part. Amex giveth, Amex taketh.

wasCB14 · ‎09-27-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:
Which CA and east coast airports?

(Schwab) Amex Platinum works well for me not just for rewards but also the lounge footprint between ONT/LAX, SFO, JFK, and BOS.

Travel has stopped with COVID, but I got a nice retention offer and the card has some "stay at home" value, too.
I would go from SFO/OAK to JFK/LAG/EWR. If I did 6-8 round trips a year, do you think it would justify getting the Plat instead of CSR? I do not think my spending in the next few years would justify getting more than one of those cards. It would be great if I could get rewards for paying off student loans - I'll have $215k when I graduate and plan on living like a college student for a while.

If you can use the card's other features...airline extras with one airline, Uber credits, Saks credits...then I suggest you get it...at least if you tend to fly Delta or United.

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

SouthJamaica · ‎09-27-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
@ToxikPH wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

Cap One Venture One (5.4k, 08/15) PC to QS if possible as the V1 is terrible
I just checked and have an offer to PC to QS on the website, but I would not be eligible for the signup bonus. Maybe in the future I would want to just get the signup bonus? I have the CFU and Citi DC.
@ToxikPH wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I'm just gonna put what I would do with this line up but your situition is 100% gonna be different then mine. First some points, I main in points but have CB cards as back up. I'm a huge fan of Amex, Delta, and Hilton so Amex points is my main "currency" but do have Citi as backup.
Once I start working (in two years), I plan on doing regular trips from California to the East Coast (perhaps monthly) and the Amex plat would be great for rewards. The Chase UR partners are really great for me though, so it'll be a hard choice. If work sends me on enough travel, perhaps it will make sense for me to get both.

Why are you a big fan of Hilton? I have been using them for a while but thought that their reward system wasn't too great. I coincidentally stayed at Hilton properties in the past and racked up some points. Now, I keep an HH card around because I have 300k points, and I am aiming for 400k for a vacation. I plan on opening an Aspire sometime in the next year to get the signup bonus. After that, I think I'll hop over to Hyatt or Marriott. Is there something really great about Hilton that other hotels are missing?

This was helpful because I was thinking along similar lines. Thanks for your response - I appreciate it.

I have all 3 of those, and definitely prefer the Hilton to Hyatt and Marriott.

But I can't say there's any magic to it, I just find it much more useful.

The Hyatt points are the most valuable, but (a) they're much harder to earn and (b) there are fewer Hyatt properties to choose from.

The Marriott points are worth only slightly more to me than the Hilton points, but are harder to come by.

I seem to always get a free full breakfast at the Hilton properties I've stayed at, but not at the other two.

Recently I had a negative experience with Marriott's points. I was planning a 2-night stay, had 1 free night award, and 37,500 points. I saw that the room I wanted, was 35k one night and 40k the other. So when I called to make the reservation I opted to use points for the 35k night and the free night award for the other. But the representative said my free night award was only good for 35k points, and I'd need to buy points to make up the difference. So I did, and they forced me to buy more points than I needed, because they only sell them 1k at a time, and charged me 1.25 cents apiece even though they were only worth 4/10 of a cent. So I had to pay $37.50 for something that was only worth $10