Seeking advice - CSR or Prestige? Lemme explain...

[ntenseone]

Hi, everyone!
I'm new here, so bear with me.

I'm not what you'd consider a frequent traveler, per sé, but I my wife and I have some travel plans in the future for our 10th Anniversary that we're using my CSP to build points on. We bonused easily and therefore wouldn't get any extra bonus from a CSR, but we could accumulate points faster, we'd bet better redemption when the time comes, and the $300 annual travel credit would be used regularly. I'm not sure how I feel about not getting my 3x points until the travel credit gets met, either. I'm not concerned about the protections and my CSP is pretty close to the same there.
Personally, think I'd benefit from the Prestige advantages more. I know that everyone seems to value the CSR over the Citi Prestige, but for my personal uses, I think the Prestige is the right one for me., and here is why:
With my hotel stays twice a year I could easily use the free night, and as I mentioned about the $300 from CSR, the $250 offered from Citi would get used. Aside from that I would use it as a daily for the 5x and 3x categories through my regular spending and split that spend with my CSP to keep my utilization down some, as that's been the only thing in recent history that's been hurting me since the CSP is my daily driver and we put everything on it and PIF each month, so I need to cut that down to grow my score.

I do have extra questions, however that I'm hoping you all can help answer.
1. If I'm using my 4th night, do the other 3 nights go towards my $250 reward?
2. Since my wife has a Shop Your Way card and I have a Best Buy card, the way I understand the ThankYou points sharing system is that you can share and transfer points between accounts to maximize your rewards, but what I need to know is, while you can send points from Thankyou cards to the Shop Your Way card for 12SYWpts/1 TYpt, can it be done the other way around and transfer from SYW to TY? (I'm hoping someone has a good answer this)

Anyhow, thanks for your help, guys.
Let me know if I'm just crazy or if this seems justifiable to you.

[CaptJOB]

It's really only worth it if you make sure to use both 4th night stays at competitive rates AND you value Thank You Point transfer partners. Otherwise I think the CSR would be a better move(possibly even the Premier as it has a higher sign up bonus and I believe that you can still redeem those for 1.25 cents through the Citi portal?). I'm in MR and UR right now and I don't think I really have enough spend(probably like 50k a year) to try and use two points systems indefinitely. The SUBs were nice but we'll see how this goes long term.

As for sharing TYP I have no idea how that works but someone here should. I also don't recall seing Citi Prestige in the approvals board since I started lurking here which makes me think there are only about a dozen regular contributors here who still have that card...

[Anonymous]

@CaptJOB makes good points. Personally, if I were already in the UR ecosystem, I’d probably consider the CSR, as it would make more sense (to me at least).

If you value the TYPs over UR, and can gain better usage and benefit from the Prestige, that’s what you should go for.

As you may know, some of the benefits for the Prestige have changed. Here is a link regarding the Prestige. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thepointsguy.com/news/dwindling-appeal-citi-prestige-other-premium-card...

[wasCB14]

Prestige is great if you're using 4NF for two $200-before-taxes rooms. For rooms that are $80 before taxes it's less appealing.

I switched to CSR 1.5 years ago. I didn't have a good use for TYs since Prestige dropped the 1.6 cpp AA revenue redemptions.

[Anonymous]

Although it does earn 5x now, so even at 1cpp, it is still even with CSR's 1.6cpp for 3x earning.

[wasCB14]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Although it does earn 5x now, so even at 1cpp, it is still even with CSR's 1.6cpp for 3x earning.

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I'm not sure if "restaurants" includes all dining, but on the travel side 5x is just for flights...while CSR's travel and dining categories are very broad.

[Anonymous]

That is true. Lol

I have given up on TYP system and didn't learn enough of it.

Now I have run out of subs in UR, MR (sans green), AA, I may need to re-examine TYP sometime before 2021.

[Loquat]

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@wasCB14 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Although it does earn 5x now, so even at 1cpp, it is still even with CSR's 1.6cpp for 3x earning.

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I'm not sure if "restaurants" includes all dining, but on the travel side 5x is just for flights...while CSR's travel and dining categories are very broad.

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I have the Prestige and restaurants include just about anything you would normally consider dining with the exception of places that use POS systems such as Square or the other variations but that applies to Citi, Chase, Amex, etc.

The ThankYou systems is a bit more complicated to an extent than Chase or Amex.  You have to be willing to put in a little more work but the points can be as valuable as any other.  My biggest complaint with TYPs is the time it takes to transfer.  The biggest plus for me is that you can do really well with a small setup and low annual fee. 

If you're willing to spend $95 you can set up an ecosystem with the Premier, Rewards+, and Double Cash can pretty much cover just about all basis and have the ability to transfer to partners.  This is something you certainly can't do with Amex for as little as $95 bucks.  Citi can be a cheap ecosystem for someone new to the credit card travel hobby. 

[Anonymous]

How do you book AA and delta flights in TYP system? For direct flight, and connections?

[ntenseone]

So my thought in starting this thread was this...
Get a Prestige for my hotel stays/travel and regular spending where protections aren't a real issue. (I feel like I would see a larger return on investment this way vs. a CSR.)
Use the CSP for any additional spending or when I need to make a purchase that I might have concerns about protections, such as airline flights, etc. and utilize the Shop Your Way card some here and there to help supplement my points earning capabilities, then transfer them over. (I just need to find out if that is allowable first, and if so, at what rate)

Hopefully this clears up my questions some.