I have not noticed anything other than a transient dip in my credit score and I’m always hovering in the mid 800s. The more old (>10+ yr) personal credit cards (not business credit cards since that doesn’t show up on personal credit reports) you have as well as a low %CL usage, the better for your credit score. Opening and closing my more recently opened cards has not made a difference for me.
That is a generalization with Amex cards in particular. Even then, “once in a lifetime” is not really lifetime with Amex, it’s more like 7 years, sometimes less. And occasionally Amex has credit card offers without lifetime language and you can get that card again with the sign up bonus. This can apply to Amex Delta cards too, every once in a while.
If booking on AA in this manner, do you get free luggage? My AA Citi card no longer provides free luggage for international flights, and that is one of the main ways I justify my card fees. I am coming up on my third year with some winter time in Mexico, and find them dropping this benefit highly irritating.
I have been pleasantly surprised at the ability to take advantage of new CC offers in recent years. SW is working hard to win back their following, and most recently I noticed a 60,000 point offer.
Hi! Need your expert advice. I’ve had the Chase Sapphire preferred for a few years and like some of the benefits, but I’ve rarely booked through their travel site (did get a Paris hotel last year with mostly points). My husband and I recently got Capital One cards and I was able to pay for most of our flights to Italy with miles (that I transferred to Air France flying Blue). However, I still have some Chase points that I would like to use toward hotel nights (first two nights will be in Rome). I’m not sure that I’ve stayed anywhere with Hyatt, but are you saying the best deal would be to transfer the Chase points to Hyatt and book hotel nights that way? Thanks for your thoughts.
Yes. Look at the Hyatt map linked below. Then look for sweet spot points deals. For example, I looked up 2 nights in Rome in October. The Tribute is Category 4, or 15,000 points per night. The cash price is 471 euros per night ($514). That works out to 3.43 cents per Hyatt point. That would be considered a great deal. I’m sure there are Hyatt pros out here who can expand, but that’s how I look at it. Generally Hyatt transfers are instantaneous.
Ok great, thanks. Yes, that is a very good deal. That’s how it ended up working with our Capital One miles. We ended up getting a much better deal on flights by transferring the miles. We’re actually going in October. Thanks for your help!
Sorry, but after the 1 1/2 year issue we had with our kid’s BofA credit card that had been used by someone else, we would not consider them regardless of the benefits.
For some of these cards, you have to spend a very high amount to maintain the best benefits. We just don’t do that.
We use my Chase Card, and the points it accrues to pay part of the CC bill when we purchase airline tickets directly from the airline. And Discover gives us cash back.
I have a student in Philly also. But weirdly, when the flight to Philadelphia would be easily over $600 for a round trip, I could find points (even a few days beforehand) for 10K. But the cash fare is always nuts. We can fly to DCA or LGA for half the price.
Tell me more. Haven’t had a single issue with this over the years. Meaning, the few times the number leaked and there were fraudulent charges, BofA overnighted me a new card and that was that. No hassle, and obviously I did not have to pay $.01 of the fraudulent charges.
We have the Chase Reserve card and have had good experiences booking directly thru the site.
UA business class via points on the UA site #288K points plus $370 in fees. Booked via the Chase portal #238K points and no additional fees. And once booked UA sees this as a full revenue fare of $3570. If I cancel the flight UA will show the full fare as FCC’s. Had I booked a PE fare via Chase I could have applied for an upgrade to business since UA sees it as a revenue and not reward ticket.
I’d booked a one way with TA via Chase portal. Great fare. Except TA cancelled the main leg of the flight (IST to SFO) three times and kept offering less and less doable alternatives. When I’d booked this itinerary I quadruple checked the cancellation policy (it was fully refund up to 7 days in advance to the manner paid less $200/pp). We were already on our trip when TA made the third cancellation. I spent 2 hours on the phone with a fantastic Chase agent. Got the points returned to my account within 24 hours and rebooked a return flight with another airline.
In the past points transferred from Chase to an airline partner were immediately available. A recent transfer took 3 days. No explanation other than ‘it happens’.
When you book via Chase travel portal (with your Sapphire Reserve card), each Chase point is worth 1.5¢, so a $3570 ticket would cost you exactly 238k points (3570/0.015). United doesn’t imposed carrier surcharges, but it passes on some airport-/government-imposed fees, which are generally low in US, but can be very high for flights from some European cities (e.g. London).
BTW, United miles have been severely devalued recently, so don’t bother transferring Chase points to United.
Delta is the indisputable leader in devaluation. It started its so-called dynamic pricing of award tickets back in 2016. Some award flights on Delta can cost you millions of miles. United is just following Delta’s lead.
Anyone remember Sky Alliance? When USAir unjoined that, we lost many many thousands of FF points…and no one was helpful at all about recovering them. They just didn’t care. Supposedly everything transferred over but…our miles didn’t. We had good records, but we basically got a “tough luck” resoonse when trying to deal with this.
You mean Star Alliance. Until the recent travel boom, nearly all US airlines, particularly legacy airlines, made more money from their FF programs than from flights themselves. One of the ways they used to make money in these programs was for flyers to lose track of when their miles would expire. Now, due to the pandemic, miles/points in some US airlines no longer expire.
