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I've never gotten a credit card to use for travel but I just booked a British Isle cruise for next summer so started thinking about it and looking into it. I looked at the Chase Sapphire Reserved and Preferred so far. I currently use a Discover card for all my purchases and just get the cash back benefit. I had a few silly questions I'm sure as I don't know how it works. How would I cash in my points to use for travel? So say I want to book my flight to London on Delta and I go to their website to purchase my ticket, when it comes to paying for it with miles how does that work? I've seen that they have their own sky mile program? Can you use points on any airline or are you locked into one? Can you use it for your cruise? How does it work for a hotel? Are all the "miles" on all the travel CC the same, meaning is 10,000 miles on Chase get you the same thing as 10,000 miles one Capital One?

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If you want to know more check out the points guy website. I started with a United card. Used it for all purchases. Flew 3 adults to Germany with 2 free flights. I have now am using Barclays as it has a great exchange.

I also have the sapphire and used it before Barclays. You purchase travel with the card and then when it shows up on your statesmen you can claim reimbursement if you have enough points.

 

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You have to accrue the points before you can use them.....so that means spending a bundle on that card to get the most out of it... Would the value of the "points" exceed the "cash back" from your Discover card?

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You have to accrue the points before you can use them.....so that means spending a bundle on that card to get the most out of it... Would the value of the "points" exceed the "cash back" from your Discover card?

Yeah that's what I'm trying to weigh out. Am I better off just getting the straight cash back points and using those to book the flights and hotel or do I get a better exchange when I get the hotel or flier points. Some reveiws I've read said that when they tried to book flights/hotel from the Chase Sapphires UR portal the initial cost was higher than if they booked directly with cash. So say a flight was $300 direct from Delta it was $350 on CSP UR portal so not much savings. I wish I could see the "exchange rate" before signing up but no luck there :( Many of the cards have offer/point restrictions so I'm trying to go through a bunch to see how they compare and if they truly are a good option. Some reviewers said that they had difficulty using their points when they wanted too or customer service was not great when they had a problem.

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If you want to know more check out the points guy website. I started with a United card. Used it for all purchases. Flew 3 adults to Germany with 2 free flights. I have now am using Barclays as it has a great exchange.

I also have the sapphire and used it before Barclays. You purchase travel with the card and then when it shows up on your statesmen you can claim reimbursement if you have enough points.

 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Forums mobile app

What is the point to $ exchange? Have you had any problems applying the points to a charge? Can you do it online or do you have to call them to make the reimbursment. I've been looking at "the points guy" website too :D

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For the most part I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve to pay for cruise fare and additional charges. It earns 3 Ultimate Rewards points per $ on travel spend (which cruise charges qualify for) and can be redeemed straight up for $.015 (1.5 cents) each point towards almost any travel, including cruises. That's a bare minimum redemption, you can oftentimes get better value transferring to a travel partner.

 

Note that after the travel credit the CSR still has a $150 fee ($450 - $300 travel credit), so you need to make sure you'll spend enough to reap rewards that outweigh that.

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For the most part I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve to pay for cruise fare and additional charges. It earns 3 Ultimate Rewards points per $ on travel spend (which cruise charges qualify for) and can be redeemed straight up for $.015 (1.5 cents) each point towards almost any travel, including cruises. That's a bare minimum redemption, you can oftentimes get better value transferring to a travel partner.

 

Note that after the travel credit the CSR still has a $150 fee ($450 - $300 travel credit), so you need to make sure you'll spend enough to reap rewards that outweigh that.

 

Do you need to book the cruise through their portal/cruise company? I like to book directly with cruise line this way there is no middleman. If there is a problem I can call them directly.

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Do you need to book the cruise through their portal/cruise company? I like to book directly with cruise line this way there is no middleman. If there is a problem I can call them directly.

 

Yes, you'll need to book through the Chase Portal or via calling Chase Travel, who will act as your travel agent. I don't like this either, which is why I don't do it. I will transfer my ultimate rewards to other travel partners (like United and Hyatt) to get better value. It's a good points earning card for cruises though.

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Yes, you'll need to book through the Chase Portal or via calling Chase Travel, who will act as your travel agent. I don't like this either, which is why I don't do it. I will transfer my ultimate rewards to other travel partners (like United and Hyatt) to get better value. It's a good points earning card for cruises though.

Do you lose a lot of point value when you transfer the UR point directly to companies? Do they have a good selection of travel partners. I tried to look in advance of getting a card but no luck? Do you know which cruise lines do they have?

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Do you lose a lot of point value when you transfer the UR point directly to companies? Do they have a good selection of travel partners. I tried to look in advance of getting a card but no luck? Do you know which cruise lines do they have?

 

That all depends on which partners you transfer to. For example, transferring to IHG can be a horrible value. I use $.015 as my bottom, if I'm not getting better value than that I don't transfer. In some redemptions I've been able to get upwards of $.043 per point, like on United flying to Hawaii. There are no transfers directly to cruise lines, if you want to redeem for cruises you'll need to book through the portal.

 

I would look for articles on redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Lots of info on that. TPG has a number of articles on it.

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  • 1 month later...

Get a credit card through one of those big box membership stores, ie, Sams/Costco. Get 3% back on all travel including cruise lines, airlines, hotels, rental cars, and restaurants. Once a year you get your Cash Back check. Put it in the bank or cash it and put it in an envelope for your next cruise. Very very simple and as good as any other option.

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  • 2 weeks later...
What is the point to $ exchange? Have you had any problems applying the points to a charge? Can you do it online or do you have to call them to make the reimbursment. I've been looking at "the points guy" website too :D

 

Barclay is a cash reimbursement to your account for travel purchases. For example on my recent cruise I was able to reimburse myself $500 to my Barclay card. You can book anywhere. BOA Travel is the same. Sapphire was most beneficial transferring to a partner airline at 1:1 rate as I did find their travel site rates higher.

See below for some info on some cards:

United $95.00 Annual Fee Check your first standard checked bag for free on United-operated flights, Priority boarding privileges. Receive two complimentary one-time use United Club passes each year. Earn 10,000 bonus award miles after you spend $25,000 on your card each calendar year. Earn 1 mile per $1 spent on all other purchases with your card

American Air $95.00 Annual Fee Earn 2 AAdvantage® Miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases. Earn 1 AAdvantage® Mile per $1 spenton other purchases

BOA Travel $0.00 Annual Fee Travel Statement Credit 2,500 points = $25 Gift Card 3,125 points = $25 Cash 4,166 = $25

BOA Cash rewards $0.00 Annual Fee 1% cash back everywhere, every time: 2% cash back at grocery stores and wholesale clubs and 3% cash back on gas for the first $2,500 in combined grocery store, wholesale club, and gas purchases each quarter

Saphire $95.00 Annual Fee Earn 2X Points on Travel and Dining

Chase Freedom $0.00 Annual Fee Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 spent on combined purchases in bonus categories each quarter that you activate. *Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases*

Barclay $89.00 Annual Fee Earn 2X miles on all your purchases.

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As someone stated, check out the Points Guy on Facebook or his website. He details and reviews numerous cards. The big draw to credit cards for points are the sign up incentives. Most have fairly small spending requirements 1k-5k for first 3 months generally) some even have no initial $ amount and just require A purchase. It depends how much you spend and what you are wanting to earn incentives. Also, you need to consider annual fees associated with your card. The incentives for YOU need to outweigh any annual fee. Also, never get a card for its incentives if you do not intend to pay the card off in full each month. We have a Discover that we use during 5% rebate periods for those key purchases, an American Airlines card through Barclays where most of our purchases are made, an AMEX for Hilton points. The Amex earns us Hilton points and get a free weekend night when we spend 10,000 in a year. It has a $95 annual fee. With our spend on it. We end up with at least 2 nights free annually and get upgraded incentives in their program.

The Barclays has a larger annual fee and we get AA points on all our purchases and get 2 companion tickets for $99 each. This allows us to fly across the country. Our flight from CLT to SEA saved us $1000 and bags flew free. The miles also add up. We've redeemed for numerous flights to Caribbean, within US, and to Italy.

The secret is to put EVERYTHING on your card. If a place takes a CC, hand it over and sign up to have your CC auto billed for things like your cellphone, insurance premiums, cable, internet. I've used my debit card a total of 2 times in the last 18 years. Spend 10s of thousands annually on my credit cards and pay 0 in interest. I get paid!

As a matter of fact, about 5 years ago, I opened a Delta airlines AMEX, it offered something like 40-50k in miles after you made like 2 purchases (no $ requirement) and no annual fee the first year AND it gave me a $50 bill credit. The miles were enough for us to redeem (with what we already had in our delta accounts) for 3 tickets to Puerto Rico, our bags flew free, and the bill credit paid off those purchases. They wrote me a check for the balance when I closed the card right before the annual fee was due.

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  • 1 month later...
I've never gotten a credit card to use for travel but I just booked a British Isle cruise for next summer so started thinking about it and looking into it. I looked at the Chase Sapphire Reserved and Preferred so far. I currently use a Discover card for all my purchases and just get the cash back benefit. I had a few silly questions I'm sure as I don't know how it works. How would I cash in my points to use for travel? So say I want to book my flight to London on Delta and I go to their website to purchase my ticket, when it comes to paying for it with miles how does that work? I've seen that they have their own sky mile program? Can you use points on any airline or are you locked into one? Can you use it for your cruise? How does it work for a hotel? Are all the "miles" on all the travel CC the same, meaning is 10,000 miles on Chase get you the same thing as 10,000 miles one Capital One?

 

Forget about points when traveling abroad. Find a credit card with no FX fees. The credit card companies charge about 2.5-3.0% to exchange foreign currency to your own. Some cards have no added exchange fees. Just pay the prevailing bank rate. Always choose to pay your credit card purchase in the local currency of where you are. Sometimes the merchants also try to make the exchange spread. The 2.5% is better than any point rewards but then some of these cards offer decent points too.

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Forget about points when traveling abroad. Find a credit card with no FX fees. The credit card companies charge about 2.5-3.0% to exchange foreign currency to your own. Some cards have no added exchange fees. Just pay the prevailing bank rate. Always choose to pay your credit card purchase in the local currency of where you are. Sometimes the merchants also try to make the exchange spread. The 2.5% is better than any point rewards but then some of these cards offer decent points too.
This is not accurate. None of my points cards charge foreign transaction fees. Any credit will charge fees in cash advances (ie used in ATMs). I have a Citibank (american airlines), a Barclays (american aitlines), an amex (delta), and amex (hilton), and capital one (travel points)

 

All of these cards (except capital one) deposit their points directly into my hotel and airline accounts so when I go to book a flight or room at those sites. I click "use miles or use points). Easy.

 

Capital one, you redeem the points on their website as rebates to your purchase (for the card I have).

 

We tend to use our cards for certain purposes and pay them off in full each month so I have no ide what the interest rate is on any of them. Never get a points card if you intend to carry a balance, it cancels out any benefit.

 

We also have almost perfect credit which means we open and close cards to obtain bonuses with little effort or effect to our scores. If your credit is below "high" YMMV.

 

Using points cards is a game. You have to know when to use them to maximize your benefit. Some offer supplemental travel insurance at no cost but the entire trip must be purchased using that card... a certain amount must be spent to get a sign on bonus within a certain time frame... some have annual spend requirements to get the "annual" benefit.

 

We generally focus on one card at a time until we have fulfilled that card's requirement. For example. My Hilton amex requires 15k in purchases to get a free weekend night annually (basically anywhere in the world). If we stay at a Hilton family property, I get bonus points for having the card, and get bc even more bonus for paying with it while I'm there. This card also provides me free lounge access at a lot of airports with free snacks and beverages.

 

Once that is met, we move onto the AA cards to make sure that we spend the minimums on them to get flight campanion tickets for $99(anywhere in US) , our bags fly free and earn miles on every purchase. Our Barclays card also gave us a statement credit to offset our global entry application so we now have TSA pre check and global entry when going through customs.

 

We put EVERYTHING on these cards and only begrudgingly carry and use cash. This includes when we travel internationally.

 

If your annual spend is less than 5k, getting a points card is not for you, especially. if it has an annual fee. BUT if you can get a card with no annual fee or waiver first year, do your spend. Get your bonus and close it... let the points game begin...

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  • 2 weeks later...
Forget about points when traveling abroad. Find a credit card with no FX fees. The credit card companies charge about 2.5-3.0% to exchange foreign currency to your own. Some cards have no added exchange fees. Just pay the prevailing bank rate. Always choose to pay your credit card purchase in the local currency of where you are. Sometimes the merchants also try to make the exchange spread. The 2.5% is better than any point rewards but then some of these cards offer decent points too.

 

It was a huge factor (among others) when I chose the Chase Sapphire - saves us a lot on those exchange rates!

 

lajbec- that hasn’t been our experience with other travel cards. We found it rather rare that our Chase card offered both no transaction fees (on purchases, unrelated to points purchase) and fairly comprehensive travel insurance. We use this card and not our Amex travel card most of the time for that lovely combo.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Chase Sapphire Reserve is outstanding for travelers. The way you maximize the value is use it to pay for travel, car rental, hotel, eating out - all of these give you 3 points/dollar spend. Each point is equivalent to 1 cent value. You can use it for whatever, not just travel, ,and you DO NOT have to book through their website to get the 3 pts/$ travel bonus.

 

Now, here is how you maximize value:

1. When you get enough points, book your travel through their website. I wouldn’t book a cruise through their website because I’d rather use a TA and get their deals - but if I buy my airfare through them, I could use 50k points for a $750 ticket, and I’m not limited to a single airline alliance, like I would be with air miles. You can also do hotel reservations, and I’m sure rental cars (I just haven’t). Redeeming for travel booked through their website gives you a 50% “bonus”. You can redeem for cash without the bonus but I don’t see the point in doing that.

2. You get FREE TRAVEl INSURANCE up to $10k - but no pre-existing condition waiver. There’s also emergency evacuation insurance, flight delay, minimal medical coverage, etc etc. Read the policy carefully. I’ve more than earned back the $450/yr annual fee just with this alone, in savings over buying cancellation insurance for my trips.

3. No foreign excchange fees

4. Free collision damage waiver on rental cas.

5. $300/yr back on travel paid for with the card. It does not have to be booked through their website.

 

I personally think it’s the best card going. I do have an AA Aviator MasterCard that I aso use because I’m working on elite status, but once I get that everything else goes on my chase.

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  • 3 months later...
On 5/4/2018 at 7:47 PM, styme123 said:

I've never gotten a credit card to use for travel but I just booked a British Isle cruise for next summer so started thinking about it and looking into it. I looked at the Chase Sapphire Reserved and Preferred so far. I currently use a Discover card for all my purchases and just get the cash back benefit. I had a few silly questions I'm sure as I don't know how it works. How would I cash in my points to use for travel? So say I want to book my flight to London on Delta and I go to their website to purchase my ticket, when it comes to paying for it with miles how does that work? I've seen that they have their own sky mile program? Can you use points on any airline or are you locked into one? Can you use it for your cruise? How does it work for a hotel? Are all the "miles" on all the travel CC the same, meaning is 10,000 miles on Chase get you the same thing as 10,000 miles one Capital One?

I have a American Express cash back option.  I use this a lot. I can book my cruise then apply my cash credit to my statement and I use it against my cruise amount paid.  

 

I have switched off and now use my United MilesPlus from Chase.  Love this card.  I accumulate points very fast.  I get TSA Precheck for flights booked on the card, I get free checked bags and I get two United Club passes per year.  I pretty much use this exclusively.  I use my cc for everything so I get a lot of points per month.  It takes a while for them to expire too.

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On 5/7/2018 at 4:50 PM, cb at sea said:

Would the value of the "points" exceed the "cash back" from your Discover card?

This is a excellent point, and I read years ago “never spend more to earn points/miles.” BUT I think the OP needs a card that will work abroad....I don’t think Discover card is widely accepted outside the US? (Or at least it wasn’t years ago when I had one)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/30/2018 at 6:05 PM, erdoran said:

Chase Sapphire Reserve is outstanding for travelers. The way you maximize the value is use it to pay for travel, car rental, hotel, eating out - all of these give you 3 points/dollar spend. Each point is equivalent to 1 cent value. You can use it for whatever, not just travel, ,and you DO NOT have to book through their website to get the 3 pts/$ travel bonus.

 

5. $300/yr back on travel paid for with the card. It does not have to be booked through their website.

 

I personally think it’s the best card going. I do have an AA Aviator MasterCard that I aso use because I’m working on elite status, but once I get that everything else goes on my chase.

Question:  Do you earn 3x points immediately on travel or only after the first $300 travel credit.

To clarify:  Suppose I spend $1000 on travel.  Do I get $300 travel credit plus 3000 points or do I get $300 travel credit plus 2100 points?

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/30/2018 at 6:05 PM, erdoran said:

Chase Sapphire Reserve is outstanding for travelers. The way you maximize the value is use it to pay for travel, car rental, hotel, eating out - all of these give you 3 points/dollar spend. Each point is equivalent to 1 cent value. You can use it for whatever, not just travel, ,and you DO NOT have to book through their website to get the 3 pts/$ travel bonus.

 

Now, here is how you maximize value:

1. When you get enough points, book your travel through their website. I wouldn’t book a cruise through their website because I’d rather use a TA and get their deals - but if I buy my airfare through them, I could use 50k points for a $750 ticket, and I’m not limited to a single airline alliance, like I would be with air miles. You can also do hotel reservations, and I’m sure rental cars (I just haven’t). Redeeming for travel booked through their website gives you a 50% “bonus”. You can redeem for cash without the bonus but I don’t see the point in doing that.

2. You get FREE TRAVEl INSURANCE up to $10k - but no pre-existing condition waiver. There’s also emergency evacuation insurance, flight delay, minimal medical coverage, etc etc. Read the policy carefully. I’ve more than earned back the $450/yr annual fee just with this alone, in savings over buying cancellation insurance for my trips.

3. No foreign excchange fees

4. Free collision damage waiver on rental cas.

5. $300/yr back on travel paid for with the card. It does not have to be booked through their website.

 

I personally think it’s the best card going. I do have an AA Aviator MasterCard that I aso use because I’m working on elite status, but once I get that everything else goes on my chase.

I'm struggling with this.  I have a Costco card which provides 3% on all travel including dining.  It also provides $3K of travel insurance per person.  I have medicare and Tricare for Life (Retired military coverage).  The Tricare covers overseas medical.  My credit score is more than sufficient.   

Would appreciate any advice.

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I got the Sapphire Preferred for travel. It is far better than the Costco one. It has better insurance coverage, it has a very good sign up bonus after spending $4000 within the first 3 months. There is no foreign exchange fee. Lastly, you get 20% more when using the points in travel.

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