The Citi Double Cash card is excellent for cash-back purposes. Can’t argue with 2% across the board.
Depending on how you are traveling, and how your expenses are lining up, could be a good opportunity to open up a free or low annual fee hotel chain card. They usually have solid sign-on points incentives, and if you’re doing a road trip, you can plan around a particular hotel chain and pile up some points (or maybe score some free nights for during the trip). Depends on your budget and travel plans though, and what your spend/lifestyle habits will look like after the move.
Also, FWIW, I also moved cross-country after grad school, from GA to OK. Made for a great one-way golf trip thanks to some solid advice from the refuge hive mind.
Thinking about a CC change. Currently have the Delta Amex Gold SkyMiles card but my wife and I have a Platinum of the same and I rarely fly separate (meaning we booked our travel using the platinum card) so the benefits of the gold card are duplicated by the platinum. So, looking for a travel rewards card to replace my Gold Delta Amex SkyMiles.
Any suggestions? Delta hub so SkyTeam loyalist and don’t have hotel preferences. Was sort of thinking a card that just give general points and can be transferred to airlines or hotels?
Amex Gold could be a nice addition, get lots of points for non-travel-related spending like restaurants and whatnot.
Edit: The Amex Gold has a $250 annual fee, and you get $120 of that back in Uber credit. But possibly a better option right now is The Amex Everyday Preferred card, which has a $95 annual fee and gets slightly less points per dollar than the Gold (Ex: Preferred gets 3x at supermarkets vs. 4x for the Gold). HOWEVAH: if you make 30+ purchases in a month with the preferred card, you get 50% MORE POINTS for all your spending that month. So all of a sudden those 3x points are 4.5x points, out-earning the Gold at less than half the annual fee.
I have been eyeing the Amex Gold. Essentially looking for a way to transfer points/miles to SkyTeam partners (or other airline partners) given SkyMiles redemptions are meh.
Alright - I think i’ve narrowed it down between the Amex Gold and Capital One Venture Card. Mostly looking to transfer any points/miles to partner airlines for international travel. Anyone with first had experience using either of these for that purpose?
Depends on if you have a particular airline or travel alliance you want to be able to transfer to.
I’ve redeemed AMEX MR for Skymiles and Chase UR for AirFrance/KLM/Flying Blue as far as international goes. Process has been seamless the times I’ve done it.
I haven’t done any of the longhaul stuff like Emirates/Krisflyer/etc which seems to be where you can really score some great value if you have flexibility.
Delta/SkyTeam fan boi here. The basis behind it all is I often am alerted to flash deals for Delta One/Biz Class flights to Europe for 50,000 Virgin Points compared to the same flights/class with SkyMiles for 250,000+
Occasionally Amex points can be redeemed with a bonus to other airlines or hotels. A while back Marriott gave a 25 or 50% bonus on points transfer.
Also with Amex points, if you convert them to British Air, you can redeem those to American Airlines flights usually at a steep discount to the equivalent AA points
Capital One Venture has been our choice for years. The flexibility of using it for all travel expenses has been awesome. We just used points to pay $1,500 in travel expenses for our summer vacation to northern Michigan and it covered everything from lodging at Great Wolf Lodge to airline tickets to Airbnb. Played Belvedere by the way and loved it.
Just enter the last four of any card #s, zip code, and last name, and see what comes up and activate. Held off on confirming that it worked, but got lucky with a 10x bonus on Home Improvement store categories right before we start a bathroom remodel. Points started posting at the higher rate
I got a hit with my Marriott Bonvoy card and Sapphire, but not my freedom. Reading further into it, seems like the Freedom doesn’t hit all of the time given the 5% bonus categories
Yeah, I read that too. Didn’t get anything with my United Explorer either. I’ll have to dig up my OG Sapphire card somewhere (which I have been meaning to change to a Freedom Unlimited for 4 years) to see if that has anything.
