Maximizing Mac Pro purchase earning, please help!

[impinth_llq]

I am going to purchase the new Mac Pro, the 8 core+32GB+1TB PCIE vesion will cost roughly $6600. All of my cards are listed in my signature, except the UA explorer  is now the Club card.[All cards listed have sufficent CL to make purchase by their own. The Freedom & Citi dividend rewards have been maxed out already.]

Can anyone help me chosing the best way in order to maximze rewards. I was thinking use Marriott card at Shopmyway MacMall store for the 3x points. However, I do have education discount which makes apple store (.com) purchase $200 cheaper comparing to MacMall....

May be I should just go with CSP for 1 extra point/$, since UR points worth more with 7% dividend. Or, I can use the UA club card at Mileage reward more for 1 extra mile/$ + x1.5 mile/$ spent with this card.

Any ideas?

[scenery_guy]

You laid out good options but you failed to tell us what rewards are more important to you. Don't bank points long - earn and burn. Devaluations across the board have taught us that lesson. What reward is most usable to you soon? Do that. 

For instance I recently had to have major AC repairs at my house (getting ready for another Florida summer). Total cost was about $6,400 all in and they took any credit card. I am planning a few trips overseas and was looking at the best use for the purchase and points I would earn. I decided to have my DW apply for the Club Carlson Visa and to put the purchase on the new card. That purchase fulfilled the requirements for the signup bonus plus more (50K points after first purchase and 35K points after $2,500 total spend). In addition to the 85,000 bonus points we earned another 32K points for the total spend so the total haul for one swipe was 117K points. Those points will allow us to spend 4 nights free at any Club Carlson hotel. 50K points per night plus having the card allows for second night free! Will be booking 2 separate stays of 2 nights each.

So look at the best use of the points you would earn - and how to apply them quickly. 

By the way nice machine. I would love to purchase one but can't justify it for what I do at work. I can wait for my Cinema 4D renders for Vectorworks overnight.

[wHiTeSoL]

Buy Best Buy gift cards @ the nearest grocery store (6%), then order through bestbuy.com (after clicking through from big crumbs 3.6% shopdiscover 5% or upromise 4% portal) and select pick up in store. When you go to pick it up price match it to apple with your student discount. ( Dont forget 2% back via best buy's reward zone program.) This would forgo getting the extended warantee from your credit cards though. 

[rlx01]

I bought 2 of these. Best computer ever made.

With regards to which card: the one with the best purchase/return/extended warranty. Most cards only provide extended warranty for items under $1000. The AMEX Plat and the Chase Ritz both cover up to $10,000. It's possible your Club card does, too, but you'd have to read the fine print.

This is basically what the AMEX Plat was meant to buy!

[Anonymous]

I would go with AMEX. The extended warranty is worth more than any extra cash back you may get with other cards.