Looking to open a credit card with points/rewards. Thinking of the chase sapphire reserve. Worth it? What kind of cards do you recommend?

CSR is amazing and their points categories are pretty broad. If you pair it with the chase ffreedom you can maximize your points.

Depends on where you spend your money. If you travel and eat out a lot, the CSR is a no brainer- the $450 fee is covered almost entirely by the $300 travel credit and the $100 global entry fee, and then everything else is upside. I also have the Amazon card, as 5% back on purchases is pretty awesome.

Amazon visa

I have CSR, Chase Freedom, Chase Freedom Unlimited, and Amazon VISA. Allows me to maximize points...CSR for dining and travel, Freedom for the rotating categories each period, Amazon for Amazon and Whole Foods and Freedom Unlimited for everything else. The. Transfer points to CSR for higher redemption

Ultimately, it all depends where you want to go and which program gets you there cheaper. For my trip, I would’ve needed 153-220k chase points for business and 212.5k-290k for first. A 50k sign up bonus and a single card doesn’t get you there very quickly. That’ll require a lot more spend unless I open multiple cards and I’m also fairly limited on airlines.

On AA, I have access to more transfer partners than Chase (Etihad, Cathay, Fiji Air, etc.) and my awards are based on their award chart from US to my destination. 160k for business or 220k for first. So yes, it takes more cards, but you can do it for only ~7.5k spend if using limited time offers. And for those in the churning game, they’ll know that Citi, Barclays, and Amex will all waive the annual fee on these cards every year with the exception of first year with Barclay card). They’ll also know that 3 card openings in a year have minimal effects on credit score and actually helps to build it. Mine is 832/850 and I have about 10 open cards and open and close approximately 2 per year, keeping my total hard inquiries at 4 every 24 months.

So here it is and I’ve excluded any business cards from this which can offer better promotions.

Citi AAdvatange MasterCard - signup when 60k limited offer, $99 annual fee waived first year, $3k spend in 3 months. Call annually for promotional statement credit or cancel after that and churn it every 2 years.

Barclay Red Aviator - signup when 60k limited offer, points are earned off first purchase, $99 fee in first year, call annually for promotional statement credit or cancel after that to churn it every 2 years.

Starwood SPG Amex - sign up when 75k+ bonus (under new program), $3k spend in 3 months. For every 60k points transferred to American, get an added 15k bonus (note these points transfer to American at 1:3 so 25k points on incoming transfer of 60k). It’s not a “devaluation” as the old SPG program was 1:1 but with Marriott merger, SPG points became 3:1 in Marriott program so the conversion rate remains the same. Only transfer to AA when it runs its incoming transfer bonus of 30%. That results in 32.5k AA points per 60k SPG/Marriott points. Call annually for promotional statement credit or cancel card (I believe the new cards are still not churnable for bonus). I keep this card open due to Amex offers at various retailers which easily cover annual fee such as spend $20 get $20 back at Amazon.

With spend requirements, this gets you to 158.5k points, a round trip to the Maldives in business for less than $200 on an Etihad flight. To the South Pacific, you’d have to spend $1.5k more, but that’ll cover anywhere they fly. Just avoid British Air as a partner because their fuel surcharges are absurd.

I guess since I work in NYC, transportation and food are basically automatically worth it for CSR

I use Delta AMEX (to get the MQD waiver) and the Platinum AMEX (to get skyclub access); yes you could do the single card that gets both but the sign on bonuses were worth it to me

Delta AMEX, non question

Amex plat

I have chase preferred. Don’t want a $450 fee card so $95 is more manageable

^agreed definitely depends on OPs goals. Just think the $ return can be better combining those program points to travel the world in business class. I can’t do 14 hour flights in economy. 😆

@manager 1, chase points are worth whatever the travel benefit is you redeem for. Transferring to travel partners is the best benefit and is what I always do and is what I prefer the preferred card with lower fee because preferred and reserve transfer at same 1:1. We took a trip to Singapore and got Singapore Airlines suites round trip from New York for around ~120k points each which is nice on a 15 hr flight. The suites go for 8-16k depending on time of year and from what I could tell the price when we went was 12-13k. So the chase points you value at only 1800 got us an awesome award ticket and experience. Also, still not sure how you are coming up with 126k AA miles earned with 7k spend (50k bonus for opening + blended rate of 1.5 miles per dollar is only around 60k miles), unless you are coming an opening bonus from 2+ cards which is very deceiving in your analysis.

CSR is great but I would go with CSP in the first year - same signup bonus (plus extra 5k for adding an AU which CSR doesn’t do) and no AF the first year. Once your first annual fee posts after year 1, call and product change to CSR. I also have Freedom with that to get extra bonus categories every quarter. Make sure you haven’t opened 5 or more cards with any banks in the past 24 months or Chase won’t approve you.

I’d also recommend an AMEX that earns membership rewards. Platinum has a great bonus right now if you can manage the spend requirement. If not, the everyday cards are good as well. MR has some nice niche transfer partners

For chase if you plan on transferring points to travel partners for travel, preferred is more economically, especially if you have a second card for your spouse. If you plan to redeem for travel through chase chase reserve makes more sense because you get an extra 25% value for points, but each authorized user is $75 a year so a married couple is $525 a year with only $300 in annual credits (since global entry doesn’t repeat every year) and they have the same categories

SA1: But with $300 in travel credits brings the cost difference to only $150/year. To get my moneys worth after the initial year when I got global entry, I take advantage of the priority pass lounges while traveling.

It depends on what your spend habits will be. CSR is a great all rounder for travel based categories. After which get either the Chase Freedom Unlimited or a 2% cash back for the non-category spend. If you fly a lot then you can look into some other premium cards that give airline lounge access

So lot of people rave about CSR - I’m not as big of a fan. Reason why: domestic travel - get the personal and business southwest cards in the same year and enjoy flying everywhere for $12 with a companion for $12 for essentially two years or until you blow through 125,000 points, which can go a long way. International travel: Citi AAdvantage + Barclays Red Aviator + SPG can get you anywhere in the world in business class for cheap. Did the Maldives and Dubai for less than $200 round trip. The CSR bonus wouldn’t get me $9500 flights for less than $200 and ~$7k spend.

You can also rinse and repeat the Southwest bonuses every other two years, but you have to cancel the cards once your pass expires. If you have a significant other, they sign up after it expires, and wah lah... you fly everywhere for $12 each until they change the program.

@Manager 1 depends on what the user's/OPs goals are. The CSR and CSP are great starter cards or those coming into the game. And since they are UR points they are not locked into one progam and are at least guaranteed a decent cash value for the points.

But I agree that your suggestions are good options.

Personally I've diversified my cards as well, but i still prefer to have transferable/program independent points such as those from Chase and AMEX.

I signed up for the CSR when it was a 100k signup bonus which is roughly $1500. It’s hard to argue against that. CSR is great for flexibility. The closest airport I live near is a United hub so there are a lot of factors