What are some of your go-to travel cards?

[notmyrealname23]

OK, I think I get you now. Usually my SUBs are going against unbonused spend (I generate enough of it thanks to college tuition bills or other random things- sports tickets, concerts, event tickets, etc, and not having the US Bank Cash+ card for things like utilities). So 2% cashback, not 5% category bonus spend. I would have a VERY hard time giving up 5% cash back, like you (or 10% if it's Discover during Cashback Match), but 2%... OK, that makes sense.

[Loquat]

While I have a lot of redundancy my primary go-to cards for travel is Citi Prestige/Sapphire Reserve and whichever Marriott card I grab (Bonvoy Business, Brilliant, or Ritz). I do keep my AAdvantage Executive card with me for Admirals Club access although now they store your photo (scary).

Like @K-in-Boston, all of my travel is leisure and I'm loyal to Marriott. Will use UR to book Hyatt if for some reason there isn't a decent Marriott around. Hilton is not an option.

[notmyrealname23]

So now I have to add a Hilton AMEX Aspire to my go-to travel cards.

2H 2020 will be qualifying for bonus spend on that card (it will have to replace some of my AMEX Green/AMEX no-AF Hilton spend, since groceries are 12x until end of July and using Aspire for restaurants/travel isn't a terrible idea, but I just nailed a bonus on the no-AF card, so cooling it off is no big deal). 6 months to do 4k of spend yielding something like 150k-175k Hilton points or so? Two anytime nights good through 2021 + $250 that can be in effect used as a free night (I have target resort hotels this appears to work at)? $500 to use for airfare over the next 18 months (the trick seems to be ticket purchases in amounts under $100, which you can do in conjunction with gift cards or Southwest or Alaska travel funds)? Duh.

Historically Hilton has been the chain I have been MOST loyal to, but it's pretty weak. Hotels.com with effective rebates of 20% between discount gift cards/the dear departed C1 Venture 10x bonus /buy 10 get one free is pretty strong when it means you're not limited to a few choices of American chain hotels. That being said, I'm willing to bend my loyalty to Hilton when Hotels.com doesn't make sense. Hard to beat a week of hotel stays pretty much anywhere in the world that I can redeem between later this year and December 2021.

At some point I am likely to try and double dip Hilton cards, given that I will now have TWO cards, one of which has an upgrade path. Plan would be to sign up for Surpass as a third AMEX Hilton card (collect that bonus too, why not) and eventually use existing cards/PC downgrade or upgrade accordingly to get upgrade offers/etc once lifetime bonuses are played out (while not drawing TOO much attention as a game player).

This reduces my pressure to get Chase Hyatt/Southwest/IHG/BA/UR cards considerably- next is probably AMEX Gold as a "forever" card and then just selectively play the churning game.

[Citylights18]

---

@notmyrealname23 wrote:

---

@imaximous wrote:

---

. My math kinda goes like this, if I were to "sacrifice" $100k of my spend where I'd get 5% or $5k in cashback. Then, the 1% or 1.5% must get me an even better overall value. It's kinda hard to give up $5k in instant cash unless the points and benefits are worth a LOT more -- especially right now. So, I'm still researching...

---

You have cards where you can get 5% cashback on $100,000 (essentially unlimited) spend? Everyone here is drooling over a 3% AOD card and you've got 5% unbonused spend ones? This isn't some kind of MS play (and let's be frank, a 5% unbonused spend card would get smacked HARD on MS because for something like Plastiq, you're at over 2% cashback on top of what they charge)?

Talk about burying the lede... but yes, that would obviously change your math compared to mine if your baseline for unbonused spend is a 5% cashback card not a 2% cashback card.

If I had a 5% cashback card that could handle 100k of spend, I'd probably use it for everything and throw everything else away except for some sock drawer no-AF cards to keep my accounts alive (and in fear that this would get nerfed by MSers). As Homer Simpson put it, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services"- you can literally BUY Avios, United, Alaska and American miles, Southwest points, Hilton and Hyatt points with the proceeds of 5% cashback card unbonused spend and come out ahead of using their cobrand cards to accrue miles. You could occasionally pay for checked bags and come out ahead on a 2% cashback card. There are very few benefits (maybe rental insurance, trip insurance? Elite status if you have brand loyalty, though I think that is often seriously overrated?) that are worth passing up 5%.

---

To me there is a debate between just buying the miles and getting the cards. I don't think the airlines are good to purchase because they want between 2 and 4 cents a mile to redeem at 1.0 ccp. Hotels however like IHG with its 0.5 bonus offering you can flip for 1.25 and Hyatt you can at times at 1.7 and flip to 4.0 seem to be more worth the buying.

The free nights on the hotel cards are a blessing and a curse. Nice bonus perk but it puts you on obligation to use it a limited timeframe. 

I've been in the hotels.com rewards program with a free night every 10. Dosh seems better discount on average and you don't worry about timing a free night around it.

[notmyrealname23]

---

@Citylights18 wrote:

---

@notmyrealname23 wrote:

---

@imaximous wrote:

---

. My math kinda goes like this, if I were to "sacrifice" $100k of my spend where I'd get 5% or $5k in cashback. Then, the 1% or 1.5% must get me an even better overall value. It's kinda hard to give up $5k in instant cash unless the points and benefits are worth a LOT more -- especially right now. So, I'm still researching...

---

You have cards where you can get 5% cashback on $100,000 (essentially unlimited) spend? Everyone here is drooling over a 3% AOD card and you've got 5% unbonused spend ones? This isn't some kind of MS play (and let's be frank, a 5% unbonused spend card would get smacked HARD on MS because for something like Plastiq, you're at over 2% cashback on top of what they charge)?

Talk about burying the lede... but yes, that would obviously change your math compared to mine if your baseline for unbonused spend is a 5% cashback card not a 2% cashback card.

If I had a 5% cashback card that could handle 100k of spend, I'd probably use it for everything and throw everything else away except for some sock drawer no-AF cards to keep my accounts alive (and in fear that this would get nerfed by MSers). As Homer Simpson put it, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services"- you can literally BUY Avios, United, Alaska and American miles, Southwest points, Hilton and Hyatt points with the proceeds of 5% cashback card unbonused spend and come out ahead of using their cobrand cards to accrue miles. You could occasionally pay for checked bags and come out ahead on a 2% cashback card. There are very few benefits (maybe rental insurance, trip insurance? Elite status if you have brand loyalty, though I think that is often seriously overrated?) that are worth passing up 5%.

---

To me there is a debate between just buying the miles and getting the cards. I don't think the airlines are good to purchase because they want between 2 and 4 cents a mile to redeem at 1.0 ccp.

---

With all due respect, if you're only getting 1 cent per mile on your airplane loyalty program redemptions, you're doing a terrible job at redeeming miles, you don't know what you're doing, and should stick with cashback cards that give you better than 1%, or go read some bloggers and FlyerTalk to figure out what you're doing wrong.

I can easily drop a couple thousand dollars purchasing miles from an airline directly and get a business or fist class redemption that would cost at least twice that as a cash price. I've literally been doing this for the past decade. It works exactly the same as buying Hyatt or Hilton points necessary for an award for less than the retail cost of the same hotel room.