Frequent Miler on the Air - Credit cards we're considering | Coffee Break Ep118 | 8-11-26

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Get 15% of on Saily E-SimsThis podcast episode is sponsored by Saily. Saily is an ESIM service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saily gives you flexible prepaid data plans in over 200 destinations worldwide. Download Saily from your app store and use our code FREQUENTMILER at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. https://saily.com/frequentmilerEven though we have lots of credit cards, we've always got our eyes on a few more. In today's episode, we'll talk about some of the credit cards we've been keeping on our radar.(00:58) - Hidden gem credit cards Greg's considering(08:28) - Other cards Greg's consideringRead how to maximize your Hilton cards (with upgrades and downgrades) here(11:42) - Nick's nearer-term credit card considerations(19:45) - Cards Nick is considering from Hidden Gems Credit Cards podcastSubscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie YoderCheck out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of the Voyascape Network, a collection of some of the world’s best travel podcasts. Explore more at Voyascape.com. For advertising or sponsorship opportunities on this show and across the network, email [e-mail] or you can find more information at Voyascape.com/advertsing.

This podcast episode is sponsored by Saley. Saly is an e-Sim service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saly gives you flexible prepaid data plans and over 200 destinations worldwide. Setup takes just a couple of minutes on your phone before you leave, and your data activates automatically when you touch down. Plus, in order to reduce your data consumption, Saley actually blocks malicious sites,

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Details are in the show notes. This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at boyescape.com. Today's coffee break. Credit cards we're considering. Welcome to Frequent Milers Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic

related to miles and points. Each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less or your money back. So Nick and I already have lots and lots of credit cards. I would guess that I have even more than he does, but I don't know. But that doesn't mean, We're not always looking at what our next credit card acquisitions will be.

So for today's coffee break, we're going to talk about the cards that are on our, you know, to-do list to potentially sign up for those cards if we can. And what we're going to do is at first I'm going to talk through my wish list, I guess, if you want to call it that, of credit cards. And then we'll take a short break and then we'll hit next. All right. Well, I'm curious to hear. I know we've recently talked about some hidden gem credit cards that kind of put some of these at the forefront for us. So I'm curious if there are any of those you're planning on getting. And what else you're thinking about? Yeah. There's a couple from our Hidden Gem credit cards podcast from a few weeks ago.

There's a couple that I do want to get. The first is the Wells Fargo Choice Privileges Mastercard. That one, it's kind of a sweet spot for me because I love cards that give you some benefit each year that more than offset the annual fee and you could just kind of keep the card and forget about it like if you want to. And this fits in that because it's like, what, $95 and you get $30,000 choice points every year that more than pays for itself. And so I love that idea. What's holding me back?

Why haven't I signed up yet? But basically, while it's a great, like, sock door a card, you know, keep it and forget it and benefit from it, I don't have that many that often uses for choice points that it just doesn't feel urgent. Like, it doesn't feel like my life or travel or anything will change much if I get the card now, you know. So it's definitely on my, like, you know, want list rather than wish list, I guess. But and there's no, there's no reason that to do it.

Because you don't want it that bad. Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Similarly, the Air Canada Aeroplane card in that podcast, Hidden Gem credit cards, we talked about how it can be used to get one point, I think it was 6.5 or something like that, cents per point value when booking travel with your points. And, I mean, book, you book, you pay for.

for travel with a credit card and then you reimburse that that credit card with your points and you get that much value you have to fall go back to that podcast to listen to why that works out and how it can work out yeah it's not a straight 1.6 it's not at all no like there's a couple of steps there so you'll want to listen to the podcast exactly exactly so I'm kind of intrigued by that I also like that it you know it easily gives you like the lowest level lowest tier of Air Canada plan status with a certain amount of spend each year. Kind of like the choice thing, though. Like, I don't, there's no urgent need for this.

Like, I don't fly your Canada much. Bottom tier status doesn't give you a lot. You know, it's just, yeah, it's on my kind of want list, but definitely not a wish list. When we go outside of the hidden gem card list, I have a few that are on my radar. First one I want to talk about the Air France KLM card. The reason that card intrigues me is because it gives you lots of opportunities to get experience points. Those are points towards Flying Blue elite status.

And if I could get to Flying Blue Platinum status, then I would get two things that I really want. One is better award availability in booking like Air France or KLM flights. That could be really nice. The other is the ability to cancel or change award flights for free. And that's become more interesting to me since they, a few years ago, they lowered their price for booking like Delta, short haul awards. And so now I frequently see flying within North America, for example, on Delta, that Air France has the cheapest, you know, award price. And it can be often much better than Virgin

Atlantics, for example, and always much better than Delta's. But, you know, with Virgin Atlantic, if you cancel the flight, you just lose the $5.60 each way that you've paid with Air France. I believe that to get your points back, you got to pay the full, what is it, 70 euros or something like that. Yeah. So that, like, keeps me actually still using Virgin Atlantic miles when I should be using my Air France miles. So those two things interest me. It also would give me the ability to book Air France La Premiere for International First Class Awards. That's not something that's really on my radar to do anytime soon. So that would be like sort of nice if it came up where I wanted to do that but that's not a reason I would get the card so anyway so that's a long way of saying you know that this would be a tool towards that the thing I haven't

worked out is is exactly when is the right time to sign up for this it's it's very complicated because you get a bunch of XP's right when you sign up and you can earn more by by meeting certain spend thresholds, but those more aren't given to you until your next card member anniversary. And so if you've offset those two things a little bit, you can stack them. And then you've got to think about where your status is

when all those XP's appear, because the way you get status, it isn't straightforward like US Airlines where it's just like, here's how many loyalty points you need. With this one, it's a lot of, how many loyalty points you need to get to the next tier. And so like you have to get to, in order to get platinum, you have to get to gold first. And then you need 300 XPs. So there's a whole timing issue that kind of takes, you know, Ph.D. level thinking. And I just haven't spent the time to work all that out, how I can do it. And also when will, I think I will need probably a few,

even Delta flights, you know, credited to Flying Blue to make it all work. And yeah, so that's for another time when I get around to it. But I would love to do that. You know, the mental bandwidth, that's the thing that, I mean, it'll come back up when I talk about mine, but I think that that is a barrier because, you know, like I look at things like, it's funny. When you mentioned the Detroit Pellateau just card, you said, you know, that's a card, sock drawer card you can just kind of get and forget because you get more value each year than the cost of the annual fee. And that's true, but some insurers will close your card for an activity if you don't make a purchase or something. So it's not quite sad and forget.

You know, I get it and forget it kind of a thing. It's like get it. Make sure you don't forget to, you know, make the one purchase every so often. Make sure you have it on autopay and that, you know, you're going to be able to pay that out of whatever account you have hooked up with that. So it's like there's that little bit of mental bandwidth on all of these. And the Air France card really magnifies that. Oh, it sure does. It sure does.

Yeah, that's a big mental effort. I don't find too often that cards that have annual fees get canceled for lack of use. So I wouldn't worry about that with the choice card. But it might. There might be times where that happens. Anyway, moving on, I have a few more than I'm considering. I have Bonvoy Brilliant on the list. It's not really, I'm not really actively considering.

It's just that when Marriott added, I gave up on pursuing Marriott titanium status and got rid of my brilliant card, because the brilliant card helps you get closer to it. But then Marriott added, like, when you get titanium status, you get Air Canada Elite status. And in addition to United Elite status, you still get. And those, that kind of attracts me more. And then they have that partnership with Japan Airlines. And so there's like more things where it might be interesting to have,

titanium status. So I kind of put it there as like, it comes up in my mind every now and then. Like maybe I should get it. But I wouldn't qualify for the bonus. And so paying that huge annual fee and only getting, not getting the free night that first year, that would be tough to swallow. So I don't think that's too likely. That one's crazy, Craig. You're crazy.

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Hilton aspire. This is crazy in the other way. Like, why have I not signed up for this ever? I've never gotten this card.

And it's sort of like the mental bandwidth thing a little bit that we talked about a second ago in that Tim wrote a great post, how to maximize your Hilton cards with upgrades and downgrades. And I'm kind of in position for this. My wife and I each have a Hilton no fee card. And at any point, we can upgrade those to aspire or surpass cards and upgrade downgrade from there. But if we first, before doing that, each get a Hilton Aspire card, then we'll each have two Hilton cards that we could do the upgrades and downgrades and get so many, you know, Hilton Free Knight certificates, which is the goal with these cards. That's the main thing. That's where the huge value is at. And, yeah, honestly, it's about the mental bandwidth.

Like, I need to sit down and figure out a plan, and I just haven't done that yet. Finally, I just want to mention a couple more things. I've been eagerly waiting to learn about what new Hyatt card or cards are coming out, and I'm surprised we haven't heard anything yet. Bonvoy Brilliant Business card had been rumored a while back. Where's that? Maybe they give up on that. So those are a couple that are kind of on my radar to see what they're all about before I decide whether or not to put them on the list.

Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not holding my breath on that new Hyatt card, although, I mean, they did at some point confirm that something was coming, right? I think. Yeah, they definitely said something's coming. Yeah. But no word yet what it is. We'll see. And we'll be right back after this with the cards that I'm considering. All right. We're back. Now let's talk through the. the cards that Nick is considering getting. What's up on your to-do wish list new cards? Yeah, well, so there are several that are kind of on my wish list or the cards I'm considering, whether or not I will, I don't know.

But let's start with the one that sticks out to me the most. And that's the Alaska Atlas Summit card. That's got a, at the time we're recording this, a great introductory bonus going on it. And I really want those waived partner booking fees now that they've increased them. to $20. That adds up over a family of four. If I booked just a positioning flight, that's $80 and fees for the four of us. So if I could do that once or twice a year without paying the $80 in fees, then I would

find this card pretty easy to justify. So I want this card and I probably will apply for it in the near term. So that one's probably the most likely out of the ones that I'm talking about here. Why haven't I gotten it yet? I did apply when it first came out. I didn't get approved. I called recon, still didn't get approved, and I gave up on it relatively quickly and figured, oh, I'll get it down the road.

And now we're down the road. So now I think it's time to consider it. I love Alaska Atlas Rewards, great award deals, particularly from the East Coast of Europe. And we go to Europe almost every year. So that works out really well, stop over on a one way, a lot of reasons for me to like. Atmos rewards points. So probably that one is coming next. after that I'm considering the Chase Inc. Unlimited card also featuring a good welcome bonus at the time that we're recording this. Now, a couple of interesting notes there. First of all, why haven't I considered it before? I've actually, I've never had the Inc Unlimited ever before in my name. So, and I was not opening ink cards often as, you know, some people that are heavily into the hobby had opened probably quite a few ink cards over the years. I haven't opened that many ink cards. I've spent more time over 524 than under 524.

524. And so I, I have never had this one. And I'm over 524 now. So it wasn't really on my radar, but a recent email from a reader or a data point we got somewhere. I don't know if it was on Facebook or an email indicated that they had been approved over 524. They just had heard some people getting approved over 524 and gave it a shot and were approved for a Chase business card or maybe even too. So I'm curious now. I have no idea how likely it is that I'd be approved over 524. In fact, I'm sure it's probably relatively unlikely, but I might still throw my hat in the ring. I don't really feel like I have much to lose. I'm not concerned about. Very little lost. Yeah. So that is another one where I'm like, probably before the elevated offers are gone on those cards. I'll

probably give that a shot as well. After those, it starts to get a little fuzzier. So I've been considering an MX business gold card. Now, I already have an MX business gold card. We got a few in my household. But there's an offer in my account when I go to view all business cards and I look at my personalized offers at the top.

I've got offers to add an additional business gold or an additional business platinum card. So the business gold offers 100,000 points after $10,000 spend in the first few months. Business platinum would be $150 after $15,000. I'm considering the business gold instead

of the business platinum, both A, because it's got less of a spending requirement, and B, in the hopes of stacking that with an offer to upgrade to a business platinum down the line. Now, I already have a few business platinum cards, so there's no guarantee that I'm going to get that kind of an offer, but that's something I'm considering anyway, because we have spent down quite a lot of our MX membership rewards points, and so I'm considering it. Now, I say I'm considering it. I don't really want the headache of another card with monthly credits to use. And that's, you know, a big hang up for me here because I've already got plenty of those that we have to work through every single month. And so do I really want to spend the money up front to have to make sure I maximize that every month?

I don't know how much I need that 100,000 points. So that's where my hang up is. Do I really need the, do I need the headache as much as, you know, I need the 100,000 points? I haven't decided on that. That's a lot of points, though. It is. It is. It's nice to have and nice to have that flexibility. We don't have a lot of next year's travel planned yet. But I hang up for me is that I do have quite a lot of airline miles now between, you know,

the SaaS challenge and the JetBlue stuff we did last year and an Avianco award. I recently had to cancel. And so I'm not sure that I really need much more right now or in the near term or the next year or two. So again, it's just a matter of how much hassle am I willing to put. up with to stockpile points that are going to be useful someday. Right. Next up, the Samsung Galaxy card recently came out. It doesn't have much of a bonus.

I think it's like $200 after a little bit of spend. Maybe it's $500 spent. I don't quote me on that. I didn't look closely at that. But the reason that this is somewhat appealing to me is that it gives you 3% back on Samsung wallet purchases. And the reason that's appealing to me is Costco finally opened, quote, unquote, near me, about an hour away from where I live.

We finally got a Costco. Literally just opened last week. I was there over the weekend. It was a mad house. My goodness. But I imagine there will be some more Costco in my future. And they take Samsung wallet. It's a visa so I could use it in warehouse for 3% back.

Whereas like the built palladium card that I've been using for three points per dollar in most places is a master card. So I can't use it at Costco. So this would be a good return at Costco. Now I've got some visa cards that offer two points per dollar like the venture. X card. So it's not like a huge priority at the same time. I might pick it up. I'll I'll leave it at that. Hilton surpass for player two. My wife has never had the surpassed card. And so I'm somewhat tempted, not really right now. I mean, the time to have gotten this would have been elevated offers that ended a while ago. And so that's why I'm hesitant. Maybe if the right offer comes

around, we'd pick this up because I really wish I had more Hilton free night certificates, like Greg said before, Hilton free night certificates are highly valuable these days, in part because Hilton points aren't that valuable anymore. They keep devaluing the points. And so collecting more Hilton points is kind of a lost cause, but the free night certificates are uncapped. And so we've got some stays coming up in the next few weeks at some really nice looking SLH properties that I'm excited to go to that would cost more points than I'd want to spend on them. And so, and so we've got to but I'm happy to use free night certificates. I say more points than I want to spend.

I did use some points because I just didn't have as many free night certificates as I wanted. So I'd like to get some more of those. So that's on my mind, but anniversary date for her aspire card is in like May, I think. So I probably want to time that out differently and wait for a bit on that. And then two more. So next to last one here is a maybe who knows we'll see. I'm curious what's going to have. happen with this amex screen card refresh. We're expecting to get refreshed in like another two weeks

here or so as the thought anyway. And so if that happens, maybe they'll launch it with a flashy bonus. Will I be eligible for it based on family rules? Well, I still be able to get it, even if it sounds iffy on being eligible. I say that because the lifetime language that people often cite usually says you may not be eligible for card X if you have or have had card one. which is very different than saying you are not eligible. Right. Right. It's very wishy-washy.

So even if it feels like I'm not eligible, who knows, maybe I will get approved. I tend to have pretty good luck with Amex. So, um, so, you know, who knows? Are they going to refresh it and make it interesting? Right. Maybe. Right. Maybe not.

It's on my radar. And then last but not least, it is from the Hidden Gems credit card podcast, the M-Track card. And timing is not right on this right at the moment. it's not a priority because the introductory offers are not elevated right now. But there's several times a year where I say, I wish I had some Amtrak points. And so every time those offers get elevated, I'm like, oh, I should probably think of that. And for one reason or another, it doesn't get prioritized. But the next time an elevated bonus comes around, I hope to pick up an Amtrak card.

And that's my list. So those are the cards that Greg and I are thinking about getting. What about you? We always love to hear from listeners of the show. So if you're thinking about getting something soon that we didn't mention, let us know in the comments. This episode was produced and edited by Carrie Yoder, music by Annie Yoder. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and you'd like to get more of this in your email inbox each day or each week, go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list.

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