I had the CSR for several years and it was fine but I recently had a very bad experience disputing an obviously erroneous charge and the customer service "supervisor" was incredibly rude. The whole process was horrible and they stood by the ridiculous charge from a merchant that had gone out of business so I was on the hook for $500. I cancelled my card.

Chase Sapphire Reserve; $300 back per year as travel credit. Lounge access. Well worth it. 3 points back for travel and restaurants.

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who fly United, any tips for transferring Chase points to United? Do you try to find a flight and then transfer? Or transfer and then look for the flights?

I look for the flights and then transfer— usually with United the transfer is instantaneous and I can just refresh my flight search and the miles are there.

Once the points are transferred to miles they can’t be transferred back so I would be sure you want to use them.

(There was one time when it took a day or two but I can’t remember why or if that was even to United).

For those of you who fly United, any tips for transferring Chase points to United? Do you try to find a flight and then transfer? Or transfer and then look for the flights?

We have the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Freedom. We have transferred points to go to Hyatt. It is a very deal.

This is what makes sense for us. We fly on United and so using the Mileage and Sapphire cards enables us to consolidate points. There is initial work involved. We like United due to destinations, availability of award flights, cancellability of award flights, and excursionisr fares.

DH and I both applied for United Mileage cards for the sign up bonuses of 100,000 combined plus 10,000 points for me referring DH. After meeting the required $3,000 spend in first 3 months, both cards were parked in a drawer and only used if we booked United flights. I will probably downgrade my card before the $95 fee which becomes payable in second year comes up. I will also probably cancel them after two years so we can apply again and get new sign up bonuses.

We both got Sapphire cards for the sign up bonuses - 60,000 each plus a 10,000 (?) referral fee for me - and to use for certain expenses. I think there was a minimum $4,000 spend in first 3 months. We mostly transfer points to United when we want to book reward flights but I have also gotten very good hotel deals in the US through the Chase travel centre which are made even better by their 1.2x spending power. Mostly I avoid the travel centre for booking flights due to a bad experience when a flight changed. Best to book directly with the airline.

We use the Sapphire cards for any travel or restaurant expenditure. You can only reapply every 4 years. I will probably cancel either mine or DH’s since they do not charge for an additional cardholder (ie we can both use same card ). That would avoid paying the annual fee on one of the cards.

For all other spending on credit cards I use Amex Blue cash Preferred (6x cash back on up to $6000 groceries and streaming services minus $95 fee); Chase Amazon (5% off at Amazon and WF) and Wells Fargo 2% cashback. I got cash sign up bonuses for the Amex and WF cards.

I have looked at the Chase Sapphire cards and to me they seem complicated. I'm sure it's not that complicated, but it looks like a little bit of work, which I'm not interested in.

I have the United Mileage Plus card and AMEX Hilton Honors card. Both have $95 annual fees, which isn't too bad since the Hilton card provides a free night stay at any Hilton property every year if you reach 15k spent. The United card provides free checked bags and priority boarding, which means if you don't check a bag you're guaranteed to get bin space.

Of the two cards, I probably like the Hilton card the best, since points seem to accumulate faster. Another perk of Hilton AMEX is automatic Gold status, which gives you some food and beverage credits.

In the end, a no fee Discover card with cashback is probably the smartest play, but we do like to travel and with the AMEX card we have gotten more "free" nights than I can count. Free in quotes, since nothing's free, but we do pay off the card monthly, so I guess it works for us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to use the portal - in face it is often a bad deal to do so. You can transfer points to United, Southwest, KLM/Airfrance, Hyatt and many more. Very flexible program.

But, if you use the Chase portal, don’t you get a 50% bonus (or discount) on your points? I thought that was one of the key benefits of the CSP card.

Yes, but not against a straight points transfer. It's 1.25 cents:1 point value for booking travel. So a $500 flight would cost you 40,000 Chase points booked through the portal (if you have Preferred. If it's Reserve it's 1.5:1, so would be 33k points).

But that means you have established Chase as your travel agent so now anything about changes, cancellations, you have to go through them, and they have to work with the airline. Stories abound of ticketing issues because of adding the intermediary. Much much better to book directly with the airline.

Points transfers to airlines (like United) generally can get 1.5-2 cents/points value by booking award tickets. The other day I booked a one way United flight (pretty last minute) that was going to cost $350, instead it was 15k United miles, which I transferred from 15k Chase points. So that was 2.3 cents/point value. That value of course isn't fixed because it constantly shift depending on current cost of the flight in cash versus miles. But usually you can beat 1.25:1 pretty consistently, and you book direct, so for most you end up getting more value with transfers.

But it's a learning curve understanding where to get best value with all the transfer partners, so may not be worth the effort for everyone.

We have the Sapphire Reserve and have liked it -it has given us access to lounges while traveling, we have received enough points that covered hotel stays. The portal was easy to use for converting the points for hotel reservations. It covered the cost of our global entry. So far so good. We haven't used it for airline miles yet.

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to use the portal - in face it is often a bad deal to do so. You can transfer points to United, Southwest, KLM/Airfrance, Hyatt and many more. Very flexible program.

But, if you use the Chase portal, don’t you get a 50% bonus (or discount) on your points? I thought that was one of the key benefits of the CSP card.

You don't have to use the portal - in face it is often a bad deal to do so. You can transfer points to United, Southwest, KLM/Airfrance, Hyatt and many more. Very flexible program.

We like it but I have the trifecta preferred Amazon and the freedom. The freedom and preferred can be combined for points and the freedom will have quarterly promos like on gas or something. I mean it just depends on cash v points to travel - all the cc know the game do ultimately I feel like it's about convenience. It's really about the sign up promos.

We have a Capital One Venture X and really regret getting it because we really want to be able to transfer our points to United but it's not a partner.

We have Chase Sapphire preferred (use to have reserve). We like it and convert chase rewards to united miles but have never booked travel thru the portal (maybe I am missing out but the one time I looked into it it didn’t seem worth it).

Not sure it’s better than 2% cash back though (assuming you also get things like trip insurance and rental car coverage)

… are you happy with it / is it worth it?

DH and I have a really old Cap One card that essentially gives us 2% back on all purchases, which is obviously a great deal. We put literally everything on it and pay it off in full every month.

Kids are getting to a good age to travel farther/more adventurously but we are both shocked by how much travel costs have gone up since our pre-kids days, so looking to understand/improve our points usage (which is basically nonexistent). Have heard the Chase recommended highly and looked into it, but a bit stymied by the fact that you have to book all the travel through the portal?

Would welcome your experiences and if/how it’s worth it for you.