Frequent Miler on the Air - Do credit card category bonuses matter? | Ep58 | 8-8-20

Episode Date: August 8, 2020

00:51 Reader feedback: Nick's confession time Related post on product changing Capital One cards: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/capital-one-product-change-dilemma/ 9:44 What crazy thing did Citi do this week? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/someone-in-ihg-marketing-was-having-a-laugh/ 17:02 Mattress Running the Numbers: Is it worth transferring Ultimate Rewards to IHG for easy elite status?  https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/top-tier-status-via-chases-ihg-transfer-bonus/ 29:05 Main event: Do credit card category bonuses matter much? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/nicks-wallet-completely-revamped-in-6-months/ 47:20 Post Roast 54:33 Question of the Week: When does it make sense to diversify into a third currency? Should this reader go after ThankYou points? Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Frequent Miler on the air starts now. We've got a fantastic show for you today. Or I should say, have we got a fantastic show for you today? What do you think, Nick? I hope we've got a fantastic show every week. But yes. Good point. We don't know because we're just starting the show now.

It's not like we record it, edit it, and then do the introduction later like some shows do. Right, right. We don't rehearse it. There's not like a dry run or anything like that we just right right so this could be the one week where the show absolutely bombs we don't know we don't know but we have faith that this is going to be a great show we think so our event today and we are i'm really excited about the uh crazy thing so we'll get to that soon but But our main event today is chasing category bonuses. Is it really worth it?

First, of course, feedback time. So let's drag out the giant mailbag. Dragging that mailbag out. We keep getting comments about it all the time. Yep, all right. And I'm reaching over into Nick's mailbag. Okay. There we go.

And okay. Got it. This feedback is from Nick. It says, I did the product change to the venture earlier this week. My account has no way to generate a referral link though. Dope. That may end up being a waste of $95. Poor Nick.

What's going on here? Poor guy. I'm sorry to hear that, Nick. I thought you were brilliant for a minute and then I realized that you weren't and that's because you are me, Nick. So yeah, this is Greg's nice way of saying that it's confession time.

It is confession time. What's going on? So I have to confess, as I talked about a few weeks ago, I product changed my Capital One garbage card. That's not really what it was called, but it was something like a garbage card. Might as well have been. Might as well have been. The $39 annual fee for 1.5% cash back. So it was a garbage card that I've had.

It was like my first credit card. So I had it for a long time. Stinks. I paid the annual fee longer than I should have. And so it was time to product change. We talked about that a few weeks ago, how I could have product changed it to like the Quicksilver card with no annual fee

and the same one and a half percent cash back. But instead, glutton for punishment that I am, I decided instead to upgrade it to the Capital One Venture card, which has a $95 annual fee. Of course, why you ask? Well, we talked about it already. We said that I did that because I'm in the rare position where I can use my referral link and generate referrals. So the referral cap on that is $500 a year, five referrals, a hundred bucks a piece. So I figured, ah, it's worth the

gamble. I don't know if I'll get that many referrals or not, but it's worth the gamble to give it a shot and see. But now you know how many referrals you get. I do. The key is if you want to pick up referrals, you have to be able to generate a referral link. That's kind of like the minimum standard for picking up referrals. And so if there's no link for people to click, I can't very well get anything out of that. So sure enough, in my account, there is no ability to generate referrals now. Now you have a theory as to, there is no ability to generate referrals now. Now you have a theory as to why that is. I do. I do have a theory as to why that is. And I'm kind of excited potentially. I don't know

if excited is the right word. I found it interesting. So when my venture card came in the mail, I was really surprised. Now I should say I was half surprised because I saw something about this online. It looked like it was still a MasterCard, but if you know credit cards, you know that the ventureure Card is a Visa. So I thought, ah, that has to just be a leftover relic because my garbage card was in fact a MasterCard. So I thought, ah, maybe just the website wasn't updating properly. And it looked like it was a MasterCard.

But surely when I got it, it would be a Visa because that's what the Venture Card is. But surely it's not. It's a Venture Card and it's a MasterCard. So I saw the MasterCard logo. And not only is it a MasterCard, it's a World MasterCard but surely it's not. It's a Venture Card and it's a MasterCard. So I saw the MasterCard logo and not only is it a MasterCard, it's a World MasterCard for what that's worth. My old card certainly wasn't a World MasterCard. So I guess I upgraded in that sense. But on the flip side, that means that I think I can't generate referrals because there is no Capital One Venture MasterCard that you can apply for. So I assume that's why I can't generate any referral links.

However, it does mean that there come with it some benefits that don't exist on the regular VentureCard. So for example, it has the cell phone protection that MasterCard added to World MasterCards where if I pay my bill with it, I get cell phone protection up to $600 a phone with only a $50 deductible. So that's pretty good as far as cell phone protection up to $600 a phone with only a $50 deductible. So that's

pretty good with as far as cell phone insurance goes. And it's got some of the different purchase protections and whatnot. Some of the other Capital One visas have those too. But the other thing that's kind of interesting so far. All right. So follow me here. You can click a link to see if you're eligible for a product change. And that was in the post that I wrote about this. So I clicked through that link. I did the product change to the venture card. And then immediately I went back to see if I could product change again. Not because I was going to, I was just curious, does it work? Right? Right. Sure. Of course. Who wouldn't do that? Who wouldn't do that? So I clicked through, logged in again, and it said, congratulations,

your upgrade's already been approved. And I was like, oh, okay, well, because I just did it. That's what it said. But then I waited about a week and I tried it again. And when I tried it again, of course, now it gives me the ability to upgrade my venture card to a venture one, which I put upgrade in quotation marks there because the venture one is a lesser card, no annual fee, only earns 1.25 capital one miles per dollar.

But here's the interesting thing. So it shows you the ability to compare your current card with the new card. And it shows my current card, my venture card, which normally has a $95 annual fee as only having a $39 annual fee. Ooh. So I,

I'm kind of curious if I'm going to keep the $39 annual fee from the old garbage cart. Wow. That would be great. That would be great. That would be great. Cause I am earning the two miles per dollar. I've already made a couple of purchases and I am getting the two miles per dollar as expected. And so at the very least, it looks to me like I'll

probably only pay $39 this year for the cart. Maybe I'll only pay $39 moving forward. It should be a win because if we eventually product change my wife's venture card away from the venture, then we're going to save like, you know, almost 60 bucks a year so hey i'll take it that's really cool that's really good this is sort of a very interesting like you have to be a credit card geek to really care about this because but you're listening to yourself you are right i mean you must remember remember that guy's family from last week who didn't care at all about this stuff like no we're listening to this going dad change the channel come on less about this this has nothing to do with vacation dad what's going on yeah but but i'm finding this fascinating that the two things that that we can get that it's possible

somehow to get a venture mastercard right i mean not like i need a venture mastercard but it's interesting that it's possible different and that it's maybe possible to have a different annual fee than what's advertised. Now, the MasterCard angle also has another benefit that's more for us bloggers than for most people, which is that you could pay for more things on plastic, the bill payment service, with MasterCards than you can with visas. Like, for example, you can pay for more things on plastic, the bill payment service, with MasterCards than you can with visas. Like, for example, you could pay a mortgage. If you use a Capital One personal card. Capital One might not be right.

Right. Which I haven't tried. I haven't actually tried it yet because I figure maybe it's worth a shot in giving it a shot. But yeah, Capital One personal cards. Last I knew anyway, you couldn't make payments. But if they ever do reintroduce that,

then yes, Greg's point stands. You can use the MasterCard. I forgot about that. Many more types of things. So that sounded interesting. Stephen brought up the fact that I could register it with Simply Miles for the Simply Miles offers because it's a MasterCard. So that's something. There's that MasterCard travel lifestyles thing. I thought it was just kind of cool because like I said, I hadn't seen a Venture MasterCard before. And the back of the card is, so the numbers on the Venture Cards are on the back. And the back is different. Front is identical with the Visa.

But the back of the card, the numbers on the Visa version are like all on the right side and a few lines. And MasterCard is more traditional. So it's a totally different build. They obviously have the capability to print it and like have it laid out in a plan on the computer, so to speak.

So probably not a one-off thing. And you know, you said you find it interesting. It's possible to have that MasterCard. I know that Capital One has some weird quirky stuff like this because my parents' only card for many, many years was a Capital One card. And they had the old, probably, presumably it was called the Venture One, or maybe it was called something else that only earned the 1.25 miles per dollar. And at some point on the phone, they got upgraded to earning two miles per dollar, but they were told that they would never be charged an annual fee. And sure enough, they haven't. So that's been a decade or two already. It's whatever long it is. So they've had a two mile per dollar card and it says Visa Business on theirs, which I don't know. It's not a business

card. They don't have a business, but it says business and nobody can really explain what that is. It's a bizarre thing. So Capital One has some bizarre stuff going on and now I'm excited because I have a piece of the bizarreness. Yes. Yes. That's so cool. So I mean, Bank of America also has that bizarre thing where when you product change, sometimes you can end up with versions of cards that don't normally exist, but I'm not sure if they do anything like that with the annual fee, though. That's a totally new one

for me. And I don't know if that'll stick. I know that's what it says, but again, that could just be a quirk that's still in the system because the old annual. But it worked for your parents. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They kept it forever. Maybe. Very cool. Alright, so that's our show for today

so if you have an old garbage capital one card you might want to product change it that's what today's takeaway is uh which product change it anyway but uh all right but now that we're past that we're past that now it's time for what crazy thing has city done this week that's right what crazy thing so city has just infected everybody else with craziness is what they've done that's the crazy thing they have like it's gone pandemic style so last week it was i can't even remember who was it that went crazy on us last week was it chase last week or can't even remember the last couple of weeks we talked about other entities so we've said hey they must have hired away city's it team or they must have hired away the marketing team because

city's craziness is infected hilton's popping into my head but i don't know why i can't remember what it was was it i don't know you have to listen to last week's episode all right you can i bet there's a bunch of listeners that are like come come on, guys. I'm sure they are. I'm filling the blanks. Sorry. It was so crazy, I don't even remember. Oh, you know what? Last week, the crazy thing was that City didn't take away Greg's points,

but the week before that was some of the... At any rate, it's not City this week, guys. It's the point that I'm getting at. It's not City that was crazy. People are like, come on, get on with it. What is it? Move forward. Give me the next time.

What is the crazy thing? I love this crazy thing, though. I love it. So it's not City that went crazy this week. It get on with it. What is it? Move forward. Give me the next step. What is the crazy thing? I love this crazy thing, though. I love it. So it's not Citi that went crazy this week. It's IHG. IHG went totally bat crazy. What did they do? Talk to us about it.

Bat blank crazy. So the first part was fun, but the second part is even more fun. So the first part is Stephen pointed this out to us and and then wrote it up that uh in the emails that went out from ihg about the ambassador program which is a paid program which we've talked about on the show just in the past couple weeks yeah um one of the the benefits they listed on some of the emails, not all of them, was free spirit flight. Which we know what that means, right? I mean, I don't know if they're counting on your spirits to soar because you're an ambassador. It sounds like it was something to a spirit airline, which on the one hand, the ambassador program is for the top end intercontinental brand.

And also it's sort of been extended to the Kempton brand, but it's for the top of the top creme de la creme of IHG's program. And then you've got Spirit Airlines, which, now I haven't flown them recently, but they're not known for being the most luxurious airline. Let me stop there. This just makes my argument for why IHG is a total waste of time. I think it actually, the markets go together pretty well. It's like the cheap end of the hotel loyalty. They're not going to give you breakfast. You got to pay for that.

They fit right in with spirit, don't they? I mean, spirit's a natural fit for them. You got to pay a little bit extra for anything extra. You want status, you buy it. You want breakfast, you buy it. You want like, I don't know, peanuts, you buy them. You want the big seat, you buy. It's just the same thing, right?

They must be run by the same people. So we wouldn't have noticed this. We wouldn't even notice this line, except that they then send an email out to a bunch of people saying, oh, we didn't really mean it. There's no free flights on Spirit. So that was

hilarious in itself that they messed up that big. Stephen's guess, and I think it's as good as any, is that somebody during a draft version of this was joking around and stuck that line in there. Free flights on spirit intercontinental. Right. Like, I mean, it's pretty common, like, especially if you don't know what all the benefits are, you put in some placeholders

and fix it later. And someone forgot to fix it. You know, that's basically what he's thinking. Right. So, so they put, they sent out a, you know, an email saying, no, it's not true. But where it gets funnier is, is that someone tweeted to IHG saying, what's, what's this about this free flights? And the great thing is that IHG had a detailed reply about how to get your free flights on Spirit. So if you want to play Intercontinental Bora Bora, then combine it with your Spirit Airlines account and that'll get you almost halfway there. So we've talked many times about how like, don't trust what a call center rep tells you because they'll make stuff up if they don't know it. Right.

Well, it turns out not only will they make stuff up on the phone, they'll make stuff up if they don't know it right well it turns out not only will they make stuff up on the phone they'll make stuff up online and they'll be really detailed about it sound pretty good like they were like link your link your ihg account to your spirit account and then move your points over and yeah and so i thought i thought, wait, IHD does have the ability to transfer points to airline miles. So maybe the rep was just confused by that. And so it actually makes a little bit of sense. I mean, not a lot of sense, but a little, right? So before the show, I looked up all the airlines that you could transfer IHD points to.

And there's a big, big list. And guess which airline is not on that list. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Free Spirit Flights is not on that list. There are no Spirit miles. No Spirit in IHG. No Spirit in IHG at all. It's an accurate statement. So as big of a blunder that original email was, I just love that they publicly published

how to go about linking your account and getting the free flights. Totally made up. It's a perfect example, though. It is. It's a great example because people all the time are asking questions, this question, that question, and customer service. And then we constantly get reports from people that are like, oh, well, customer service told me this. That's just clearly, totally wrong, no basis in reality. And I know that, you know, why are they going to take my word for it over the person who works at the bank? I understand their position in questioning what I've said, because a customer service rep that actually works for that entity said that it's true. This is a great example of, yeah, how they

just make it up on the fly and you never really know. They don't know, you know that they don't know, but they make it sound like they think they know. However, I will say one thing that I thought was kind of interesting. So the bullet point says free flights on Spirit Airlines. Spirit Airlines program is free spirit. So who knows? Maybe they're going to add free spirit. And so maybe they were saying free spirit flights, not free spirit flights, but free spirit flights by being able to transfer your miles. Maybe they're going to add spirit as a transfer partner. Right. I mean, I sort of thought about that, but this was under the ambassador benefits. So it's like, you can only transfer your points,

make them worth even less than they are now. If you have ambassadors. If you have them back, if you're willing to pay top dollar for your paid stays in intercontinental properties, then we know that spirit flights are going to feel good. I think Stephen's right. I think somebody was joking and put that as a bullet point and as just a placeholder funny thing. And it was funny in the meeting. I'm sure it was. It was not funny in the subsequent meeting with the boss. Anyway, whoever did that and whoever answered the tweet in the way they did,

I just thank you because it made my day. Thanks IHG. So, and all in fun, my, my, my fun that I poke at IHG. So, so that's that for the crazy thing this week. So that's going to segue us into mattress running the numbers. We're talking about the hotels as it is here. So let's talk about mattress running the numbers. And so this week. We should talk about IHG, don't you think?

We got to talk about IHG because now you have the ability to transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to IHG and get this. Hold on to your seat there. Hey, kids in the backseat of the car, are you ready? This is exciting. A 60% bonus on your ultimate rewards points when you transfer those bad boys over to IHG. And as readers pointed out, and we got plenty of confirmations on this,

the base points that you transfer over from ultimate rewards count towards IHG status. So you can buy yourself ihg status as greg described this have a a mattress run from home without even having to involve the mattress just a couple exactly isn't that exciting right well let's let's describe the deal and then then we'll talk about how exciting it is talk to us okay all right so first of all let's just get out of the way that a straight up uh chase points to ihd1 to 1.6 is not exciting at all that's a bad deal true statement absolutely agree true statement right

right nobody disagrees with not even ihd would disagree maybe they would but things do get more interesting though if you consider status more interesting um because so this year uh ihg lowered the status requirements for spire that's their top tier elite status they lowered the status requirements from the usual 75 000 to 55 000 and as a standard benefit of Spire status, when you achieve Spire status, you can choose to get 25,000 IHD points. So when you take these two things together, it means that this year, if you transfer 55,000 points from Chase to IHD during the bonus period. The 55,000 will be enough to get you to Spire status. So you'll get the 25,000 bonus points, and you also get the 60% bonus that Chase is offering as the transfer bonus. So it combines to give you just barely above a 1 to 2 transfer ratio

instead of a 1 to 1.6. And of course, you have SPIRE status. Now, so it's more interesting. That's not to say that it's a deal. I'm not saying that. So he's definitely not. Let's be clear. So let's not be saying that. So I ran the numbers and it's not very hard to prove that a 1 to 2 transfer ratio is still a bad deal. Not as bad of a deal, obviously, but it's still a bad deal. Don't do it. A better bad deal. Unless you really want SPIRE status, and the SPIRE status would last the rest of

this year, all of next year, and through, I don't know, January and February maybe of the year after that. So you get Spire status for a while, but there's one little problem with doing that, right? One? Well, the one little problem that I'm thinking of is that Spire status isn't working. Right. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. One little problem. That's it. Yeah. Unless it came with free spirit flight if it

comes with a free spirit flight then we might have to talk again because i can't book those to chase ultimate rewards anymore so i might really value the ability to get those if i transfer my points to ihg and spend another 200 or 40 000 points or whatever on that on status although i guess what you could have done i don't know what you could have included in that post is you could have said that then you take 40,000 of those points and use them to buy ambassador status. Oh Right. Yeah. Yeah your money go a little bit better there then you've got you've got Double status with IHG right right double nothing. nothing yeah right so double a little bit no we already we already established in a previous episode that that having ambassador status gets you 20 of food

and beverage it does on every stay at intercontinental there you go not any other hotels might add up at intercontinental properties so so when you looked at it i thought it was interesting you did i'm joking a lot about IHG, but you did actually make a decent argument for where you might be like, it's not the worst deal ever. It's not a good deal because you can often buy IHG points for half a cent each, including right now.

Right now, if you have the Sapphire Reserve, for instance, you can cash out your points at the grocery store at a value of one and a half cents each. So each of those points could buy three IHG points. So if you're only getting like a little better than two IHG points per Chase point, it's not a good deal. You'd have to really highly value Spire status

to make it worth doing that. And that's where I thought your post was interesting. It's just not that many. Yeah. Go ahead. Because you pointed out, so what's the key benefit? I mean, what are the key benefits to Spire status? Well, I mean, the key one that has some material value,

which I pointed out in the post, is that you get 100% bonus on point earnings instead of a 50% bonus, which Platinum Elites get. And then anyone can have Platinum Elite by having the IHG Chase credit card on IHG stays. Right. So if you stay a tremendous amount at IHG Chase credit card on IHG stays. Right. So if you stay a tremendous amount at IHG hotels, or you expect to in the next year and a half,

then it could pay for itself. Even more to the point, if you've already been staying a lot at IHG hotels, you probably don't need 55,000 points to get to Spire. And then it actually, at some point, it becomes a really good deal. The fewer points you need to get to Spire. And then it actually, at some point, it becomes a really good deal. The fewer points you need to get to Spire, the more value the deal has because

that 25,000 point bonus is fixed. And so as a percentage of the points transferred over, it becomes big. Agreed. If you only need to transfer 10,000 points to get IHG's Spire status, well then it's probably worth it because it's going to cost you 10, you're going to get 25 back plus the status, blah, blah, blah. And then at that point worth it because it's going to cost you 10 you're going to get 25 back plus the status blah blah so and then at that point it becomes more compelling anyway then

right right now one of the other benefits of spire that interests me we've talked about this before that you don't value but i do is uh 10 a.m check-in so i've had this like over and over when when traveling to europe now who knows when i'll do that again, but, uh, where you fly in on an overnight flight and you, you arrive at your hotel early in the morning. And in my experience, often it's like, well, sorry, the room's not ready. We'll let you, we'll hurry it along and we'll let you know. And so you get the idea that it'll be ready by 11 or 12, but then it's like ready at like three right which is you know pretty close to the normal check-in time anyway um that's been my experience a number of times so if that early check-in really worked i would find it very valuable

um but it's not guaranteed so what i mean it's more or less the same as you know taking your chances any other time when you get there early. So basically, I feel like if there's a room available when you get there early, they'll probably give it to you. And if there isn't, well, they can't give it to you. It doesn't really matter what status you have. So yeah, that doesn't excite me. And obviously, because it's not guaranteed, it doesn't really excite you either.

Yeah, I mean, the key benefit is the extra points on paid stays. And so if you're going to have a lot of paid stays, it could make sense. But I thought that was really interesting in the post because you made a clear case for the fact that you need to have a lot of paid stays. Like, not just a few. You need to be staying at IHG all the time or at expensive places. Right. If you habitually spend that much at IHG, you're probably earning Spire status anyway.

Right. Right. That's the thing. Because it's like $32 in value for every $1,000 you spent, right? If you habitually spend that much at IHG, you're probably earning Spire status anyway. Right. Right. That's the thing. Because it's like $32 in value for every thousand you spent, right? And it's what it came out to. Yeah. Yeah.

So in order to make it worth the loss there. That's the incremental bonus points. Incremental bonus points. Exactly. Right. So you're going to be spending thousands every year at IHG for it to be worthwhile. So if your employer is paying for that and you are spending those thousands, hey, great. But then like Greg said,

you probably only have a smaller amount to bridge the gap. I mean, I don't know, this year, maybe because you had so little travel, maybe not, who knows. So maybe it'll make sense to transfer over a few for some folks. But I think the key takeaway there was that even that double bonus points

on having Spire status really isn't worth much anything unless you write a lot of money for stays and the other benefits continue to be really weak i know that people are listening and they're saying hey breakfast doesn't matter it's the cheapest meal of the day and you might be right but then replace that with some other valuable benefit ihg like right it gives some guaranteed suite upgrades or give something that means anything. Yeah, especially since IHG didn't used to have Spire status, like Platinum was the top.

And so they added Spire and we all figured they're going to add meaningful benefits at that top tier, but they didn't. And that's really surprising. I mean, even a club lounge upgrades a year or something that gives some value there. Something, right, right, right. lounge upgrades a year or something that gives some value there. Something. Right. Right. Right. So I did, though, learn something interesting that I didn't know about the IHG program.

And this applies to Platinums and Aspire elites. So I think that many, many of our readers have Platinum status thanks to the IHG credit card. So you know how room upgrades when you have elite status are always like based upon availability or whatever like no program has that as like a guaranteed like you're definitely going to get a better room right right except I'm wrong

you know what IHG has? they have a guarantee Kempton Kempton guarantees a next level upgrade according to the bullet points of what the status levels get. Wait, for inner circle status or for platinum status? No, platinum or above. What?

Right? How many of those upgrades have you gotten at Kempton? Well, I mean, so when I stayed in New York, I wrote a whole post about how I got a really nice upgrade. I can't remember. I can't remember what happened. I haven't stayed at that many Kemptons since they merged the program. Well, you stayed in Grand Cayman, right? I mean, you just got like a parking lot view in Grand Cayman, right? view uh came in right no no no that was the beautiful ocean view oh you're right you're right so that so that was very legitimate yeah right it was the west end so it was marriott who doesn't guarantee it that gave me the parking lot right right right right my fault my fault my my miss misremembering there well so i stayed at one kimpton last year first time i've stayed at a

kimpton so my opinion on kimpton's probably you know take with a grain of salt because i haven't stayed at many of them but i didn't get any kind of an upgrade and I had platinum status. So, so whatever that's worth, I got a regular room, something that I booked. So, well, so, so that brings up another thing. I don't think unlike Marriott, I don't think their program has a elite benefit guarantee where they pay you or whatever, if they don't provide the guaranteed benefits. And benefits. And for all I know, the place was full. I mean, it was like a Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I mean, they can't really guarantee it if they're actually full, I guess.

But anyway, I just found that interesting because I haven't seen it anywhere else and didn't know. Very interesting. So the 60% bonus, to be clear, those bonus points are not counting towards status. So if you wanted to transfer over the full $55,000 for Spire status, the 60% bonus to be clear, those bonus points are not counting towards status. So you do, you know, if you wanted to transfer over the full 55,000 for Spire status, you need to transfer 55,000 and then you will get a 60% bonus on that. But those bonus points aren't elite qualifying. So keep that in mind,

especially, I think that's especially important to note for people who are only like, you know, 10,000 points shy or something. You can't transfer like six or 7,000. Right. What we haven't checked yet is whether those bonus points are elite like 10,000 points shy or something. You can't transfer like six or 7,000 or something. What we haven't checked yet is whether those bonus points are elite qualifying with spirit airline.

Well, we don't know. Yeah. I guess we'll have to wait for them to actually unveil some sort of tie in with spirit. And then maybe we'll find it. Maybe that's where the bonus is going. Those bonus points.

Probably. Yeah. Something like that. So, Hey, I've got an idea. All right. What's that?

I think we should move on to the main event i think so too so i kind of it i almost feel like we already did the main event twice like we had two juicy topics that we talked about i mean it's been a fun week all right see we told you it was going to be a good show and the kids in the back seat didn't believe us but i hope a few more of you out there were like oh wow this is going to be a juicy one so the kids in the back seat are still saying change the they are channel come on they are they are those kids are not impressed they're like wait a second i would write anything about billy ellish eilish i don't even know how to say her name see like and they're like what are these guys talking about they don't know

anything right right so anyway main event chasing category, is it worth it? So this came up because you wrote a post about how your wallet has everyday spend, for how you're going to spend at the grocery store, gas station, restaurants, retail stores, whatever, when that kind of spend and the rewards associated with it are, I'm totally paraphrasing here, but are so small compared to what you'll earn through signup bonuses, through manufactured spend and, you know, perhaps other things like shopping portals and whatnot. But right. So that's, that's what our main event is. So there you go. Yeah. What do you think? Is it worth it? It's a great question. You know, and I think that it's a good point. And it's a point that a couple of people made actually, that said, you know, I'm just not spending very much right now,

given the way things are pandemic, I'm not traveling, I'm not going out to restaurants, I'm not, you know, going on crazy shopping sprees, you know, because of all the various factors right now with the pandemic. So I definitely get that. And it makes sense. And even in regular times, I would say pre-pandemic, there were times where I've been like, I don't really care. I probably get a small category bonus on this $50 purchase, but does it really matter? Because overall scheme of things, that $50 purchase isn't worth enough points to me. So it didn't really make a big difference. I didn't think here or there. But I actually would say, all right, so I think that there's a point to be made there. I do a fair bit of manufactured

spending in normal times, earn points from referral bonuses, I earn points from shopping portals, etc. So does it matter? It probably doesn't if you're spending very little money. I mean, if you're spending very little money and you're any kind of a manufactured spender, you're right, those category bonuses probably don't make a big difference in the bottom line. For me, though, I would say that there's a threshold where I'll be like, all right, well, if I can get 10,000 points or 20,000 points incrementally or something like that, that's an amount that makes a difference to me. I mean, yeah, sure. It's only two or 300 bucks or one round trip flight or whatever. But I'll take that free round trip flight or two or 300 bucks or whatever it is every day of the week. If it's laying on the floor and

I can pick it up, sure. Why not? Right. So, so I look at it that way and I say, well, over the course of the year, I'm still spending enough on groceries. And in fact, I said in response to that, that I'm spending more on groceries now than I ever have at any time in my life, because I'm not traveling anywhere. I'm not going to restaurants. I'm in the situation now where I have a son who's eating like a third full-size human and another one on the way. So I see grocery spend continuing to be a big part of my budget moving forward. So yeah, I mean, a grocery bonus means a lot to me right now. Now, a bonus on paid flights doesn't matter to me at all, but whereas it might matter very much to someone else who's in a different situation. So I think it depends on how much you're spending in those bonus categories. If you're only spending a couple hundred dollars a year in a particular category, yeah, I agree.

Work on your signup bonuses, you know, focus on that. But in your major spend categories, it certainly can add up. And the other thing that I said, I made this point in response, and I'll repeat it here, is that I think the incremental value of, for example, that Bank of America premium rewards with platinum honors, if you can get it, is worthwhile over a 2% card. I gave the example of just one expense that I incur every month, that by the end of this year, just in six months time, that's going to make like a $75 difference in the bottom line. So hey, that's 75 bucks in my pocket. It's a free meal out or whatever else. Again, if it's easy there

and available, why wouldn't I take advantage of it? And that's just if I put one bill a month on that card, and I'll probably put some more stuff on that card. So by the end of the year, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being, you know, maybe a couple hundred dollars difference having that card this year. So and to me, again, a couple hundred bucks, I mean, we play this game on those margins. I mean, the whole game is played on those margins of, you know, a little bit here and a little bit there and how a little here and a little there adds up to a lot after a while, right? So, I think it's still worth making sure you're using the card that earns the most number of points. And if the card that earns the most number of points is the card that you're

working on a signup bonus with, I mean, of course use that card. Great. That's, that's terrific. But if you're not working on a signup bonus, why wouldn't you get as many points as you can? I mean, just the maximizer in me. I don't know. What do you think, Greg? Do you care about it? Yeah. Yeah. No, I kind of feel the same way. So there there's, there's something, even, even if it doesn't amount to a, to a very material difference by the end of the year, let's say, I just like knowing that I'm using, that I'm getting the most rewards that I can, right? Right. And so there's something about like, just like, I don't know, the pride, I guess, in maximizing your wallet and having, like, I feel like I have a really great wallet now, you know, that really earns great rewards. It's just about anywhere I tend to shop. There's something, I don't know, proud of that.

Incredible, yeah. So, you know, yes know yes logically it doesn't make a lot of sense and and actually I went through this uh with my wife's wallet where where I finally I decided that it actually for her wallet it wasn't worth maximizing to the nth degree because um well first of all there uh there was too much opportunity for mistakes where we end up with like one x instead of the promised three or four or five x right um but you know it's just i'd rather have a happy wife at the end of the year than uh an extra 75 bucks right right rewards so right. So, you know, having the premium rewards card that's 2.62% everywhere as her main thing. And then she's also gotten her wallet, the Amex

Gold. And so she knows to use that at restaurants and grocery. And it's that simple. Yeah. So. Yeah. I think that's a really good strategy to keep it very simple. And that's fine. Hey, if you want to keep it simple, you want to have one card or good strategy to keep it very simple. And that's fine. Hey, if you want to keep it simple, you want to have one card or two cards and keep it really simple and just work on a signup bonus periodically or whatever the case may be, that's fine. There's a lot of different ways to play this game. But I definitely, I agree with you that I enjoy playing it

in the sense that I like knowing that I stacked a bunch of deals and got a lot of points back and got, you know, like half the cost of a purchase back and points or whatever else so i enjoy that aspect of it that's part of the reason i play the game in the first place so that's part of what drew me to this whole thing so yeah i do like it you know one of the points that the same person who kind of asked that question made in response to someone was like it's not worth all this extra time figuring this stuff out i got tv to watch and and you know i I definitely get that perspective. So I know there's a lot of people that have, and I don't watch TV.

And that is a key difference. I don't watch TV. I think about rewards and points and miles and trips. And that's just what I enjoy doing. And if you enjoy watching Dancing with the Stars or The Bachelor or whatever else, that's fine too. Hey, I mean, enjoy your life. Do what it is that you like doing.

I like maximizing points. That sounded a tad judgmental. No. I know you didn't mean it to be. I like Dancing with the Stars, believe it or not. I love ballroom dance. Took salsa. Took some dancer years.

Love it. So, no, I'm saying whatever it is that you enjoy. All right. So, let me ask you a question, Mr. Maximizer. All right, go ahead. Wouldn't, why aren't you constantly signing up for new cards? Because even a really bad signup bonus, like earn $50 after $500 spend, that's, that's a 10% reward, you know, reward on your spend right there, which is better than almost any

category bonus you can get. So why don't you just always have new signup bonus cards in your wallet? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a pretty good strategy for most people. And so I'll answer why I'm not in a second. But let me first say, I think that is a sensical strategy for the vast majority of people. So that's probably what I would recommend doing for most people. Why am I not doing it specifically? I don't know that I have a perfect answer, but my answer is that, A, I do a fair bit of manufactured spending. And so I don't really want to draw too much extra attention. So whereas I used to push the boundaries and open tons and tons of cards,

nowadays I'm at the point where i'm like ah i i've got some decently easy ways of manufacturing spend i don't really want to draw too much extra attention by opening way too many cards and pushing that envelope so um that makes sense as part of it and i earn enough points from that that it's like it's more than what i would get from the signup bonuses and i don't want to draw attention to it. So I'm willing to sacrifice the signup bonuses for the little bit of work I got to do to MS. So that's part of it. And obviously part of it is that I'm a blogger. And so I earn points from referring people and stuff like that too.

And then every now and then I'll pick up some stuff for resale. So I earn enough points right now to meet my needs. And I don't want to draw too much extra attention. So that's why I don't sign up for more cards. But I also find it kind of interesting. And somebody said that they find it interesting that bloggers don't seem to be as into churning cards. And one of the things that came to my mind

when that question came up, this is kind of an odd parallel, but years ago I DJed, I DJed weddings. And so I got this job, part-time job on the weekends, DJing weddings and parties and stuff like that. And I loved music for years. I've got a really eclectic taste in music. I listen to a wide, wide range of different types. I mean, jazz, pop, country, disco, you name it. I listen to a little bit of everything. And so I really always listened to music constantly, right? And

I started DJing and I worked for this guy. I spent a lot of time working for this guy, organizing his office and stuff. And he's a DJ, right? Full time, done this for years, like 20 years full time. And one of the things that struck me as really odd was in his office, he never had music on. And on the rare occasion where I would turn on music, he would almost always turn it off. And I was like, what's he doing turning this music off? He's a DJ, like, why wouldn't he want to have music running? Right? And I DJed for five or six years and all of a sudden I became a person who rarely ever had music on anymore. I don't know if it's just one of those things that when you do it all the time

for a living, it doesn't become the same as it was for you when it was just a hobby. And so maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Like maybe that, that hunt, the thrill of that hunt is less because I'm looking at it all the time. I don't know i'm not sure what about you i mean do you you sign up for cards occasionally but not a ton i mean again yeah i don't do it a year sort of like it like i have i have enough points so i'm not i'm not

you know constantly looking for what's the next thing to always have new thing in my wallet the other the other reason that i don't do that is um logistically it's annoying when you use a card to buy something that you later return they say they're gonna return it to that card and maybe you've canceled it or whatever and or just trying to figure out what card you you put that expense on because you need to look that up you know i i just don't like that complexity and and um it's not a big deal it's just something that yeah i feel good about knowing you know okay i've got my travel card and you know i want to use my chase sapphire reserve for travel and i know it's then my travel's covered for certain types of you know uh travel uh problems right right so they've got good coverage um you know and i know you know okay this was on on bonus uh spend so i know it's going to be on my premium rewards card and so on so so that kind of thing i don't know i find that useful so so there's something valuable about having a stable set of cards, even though it still changes pretty frequently, as you found out.

And I did, last week, or earlier this week, on Ask Us Anything, I said that I wasn't going to change out my prestige card for the Bonvoy for the restaurant bonus. But I actually did, because I was getting it out anyway for something. And then I was like, oh, I should, I should do this. Because the nice thing, the Bonvoy bonus on the Amex cards, it lasts all the way till the end of October. I think it is. So it's quite a while.

It's a while. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And, and up to 7,500 spend. So I, unlike the Chase one, like I don't have to worry about it. Am I going to go over this? And so I could just keep it in my wallet and hopefully I'll remember it when it expires to go put the prestige card back. I think that's another good point there too. When you said you have enough points. I've still been building this year because I spent a lot of points last year. But I'm also at the point where I'm not doing a lot of traveling right now.

I'm fairly comfortable with the points I have. And if I continue maximizing my spending category bonuses and take advantage of the occasional offer here or there where I can, I got enough points that I don't feel a compulsion to sign up for new ones all the time. Though again, there's a lot of value to be had there. So I'm certainly not discounting that as a good strategy. I definitely agree though, that the simplification has become attractive over the last like year here. I think especially as our family grows and our time gets, it's thinned. It just becomes a little, the bill day becomes a long day. You know, when you got like, you know,

a dozen or a couple dozen cards and you got to fill out all the expenses and everything else. Cause you know, we keep track of all that stuff. And it just takes longer than, than i wish it would sometimes so we're trying to simplify some of that stuff by using fewer cards and if i can use fewer cards and also earn more rewards i mean why wouldn't i right right and so towards simplifying i've been getting rid of most of my ammex authorized user cards because, you know, back in the day we were able to, for every authorized user card,

sign up for all the same Amex offers. So when a great Amex offer came along, we would have like 10 authorized users, user cards, and it would be like Greg A and Greg B and Greg C. And I would, I would sign up for all those offers. And you know what? To tell the truth, it was kind of a pain in the butt

keeping track of all that, which cards had which offers assigned to them because it wasn't available on all of them. Right. And remember which ones I spent them on. So even though it was a big uh disappointment as far as like not getting so many rewards from mx when they stopped allowing you to register multiple cards for the same offer um it was kind of relief too right like i'm able to actually simplify my

mx portfolio by an unbelievable amount so that's kind of nice yeah it is. And, you know, so we've been kind of thinning the herd and getting rid of some of the cards that have been overdue for getting rid of, though I did make a probably poor decision in upgrading my venture or my old Capital One card to a venture card. You know, we've been making calls on retention offers and things like that too.

And I've been continuously surprised that some issuers just haven't really been generous in terms of retention offers. Just today, my wife called on her Barclays Aviator card and I had already looked up the data points on Flyer Talk. So I knew to expect no retention offer, but I'm still kind of surprised because we actually value American Airlines miles somewhat.

And so we've used that for some manufactured spending this past year. I mean, it hasn't gotten a ton of action, but it's not like it's been sitting in a sock drawer, totally collecting dust for the last year, but no offer at all to keep it. And so, you know, out the door it went, but, but, you know, that's, we're starting to do a little bit more of that too. And we've been doing that on Card Talk, helping people get rid of some of the cards that they don't need because you surely don't need tons and tons of cards. But yeah, I definitely, I'm still going to chase after category bonuses when I can get them, especially when they're super easy, low hanging fruit, stuff like grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations.

Those are places I'm spending money anyway. So if I can pick up more rewards in those places, I'm a happy guy. Any little bit there, I don't know. I mean, it makes a difference in the long run. I think part of the reason I'm focused on that these days is I wrote that post about going after the Bank of America premium rewards card and how that kind of helped me fix some of my retirement planning mistakes. And so that's kind of in turn sent me down a little bit of a rabbit hole in terms of reading about long-term investing and Vanguard and John Bogle, Jack Bogle, I guess you prefer Jack, but, and, you know, and reading some stuff there that has also led me to appreciate a little bit more

the compounding nature of being able to get those rewards and save that money or, you know, invest it in some way and that sort of thing. So, you know, it definitely adds up, even if it's not a lot right now over the longer period of time, that does add up to be, you know, a difference. So, and we play a game where half a

percent is like a world of difference right so so it sure is yeah so if i can get an extra half i mean if you get you get five percent right now on your chase ink card at the office supply store would you turn it down if you get five and a half percent of course you wouldn't you'd take the five and a half right so um you know five and a half well yeah if they're all three rewards not if you value the ultimate rewards more than once on each which you do what you do but your point is taken if it's if it's all the same all right so um okay so that's out the way that's that's the main event that's the main event done with the main event so we have to move on to post roast we do we do and you know i was really excited about roasting you about this IHG post,

but I feel like we've beaten that IHG post to, you know, all peers. So I'm just going to throw in my post-roast here that whoever thought that manufacturing or that transferring ultimate rewards for IHG Spire status would be a good idea, except you kind of wrote why it might make sense. So I think I'm going to wave the white flag on PostRose because I think we already talked about it. All right. I reserve the right to reclaim my time, depending on what you say.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So mine's probably going to be really short too. Okay. All right. You wrote a post on super credit card duos,

or I should say rather, what you did was you dug up an old post of mine. Right. You edited it a little bit, reposted it, did not change the author. It looked like you posted it. Whatever edits you put in there looked like they were for me right um what you didn't do was find out that that there was a newer version of

that post out there in our in our library that had already been updated in many of the same ways and and maybe even more clearly uh and uh so yeah i don't know that I have much more to say, except, you know, shame on me through your homework. I didn't do my No, it's true. It's I didn't have every post memorized. I will I'll accept the roast on that one. That's right. Definitely don't have a you know, and the funny thing is that I thought that there was a more updated version of that post. So I was looking for it initially. And the post that I updated was from 2017. And I was like, no, that's the first year I worked for Frequent Miler. I know that Craig has updated that post since 2017.

But I was like, 2017 was the last update. I'm looking at it. I'm like, well, I couldn't find the post that was more updated. So you know what? I'm going to roast you back because I didn't easily find that more updated post and so if i knowing that it was out there somewhere didn't more easily find it who's gonna find it right yeah what yeah no if i couldn't i i totally deserve that because so after after we emailed about this mix up right i googled to see like our own site to see like, were there others? And I, I turned up,

there's like a lot of similar posts out there that are just sitting there with different points, old sort of, you know, stale points of view. They've got cobwebs on them and say things like say things that don't make sense anymore, like spg or whatever and yeah i took a bunch of spg references out of that post for the record there were a bunch in there yeah right yeah yeah um so so what i decided is what i'm what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna create a single uh credit card combos guide. Then we're going to find all those old ones and not repost them, but actually

just mark on them at the top. There's newer information. Go see our guide over here. Basically, what this is, it'll be a resource where instead of finding what's the best credit card, there's no answer to that question. What there is is combinations of cards that make sense,

that work together for various reasons. And so we're going to try to keep all of our knowledge about what combos make sense in that one guide. So that's my promise to the show. That's why you get paid the big bucks, Greg. That's a good solution. Most years. Paid, got paid the big bucks.

Right. This year our advertisers are taking money from us to put content on our site. Right. Right. Right. Right. So, and I think that that's pretty interesting. It'd be a great idea to have a master post with combos because anybody plays the game knows that the best way to play it is with combos like greg said i mean i think that you just kind of glossed over that point quickly but the fact is not that there's no answer to what's the best card because there's a lot of good cards out there there's no answer to what's the best credit card because one credit card will never be the ideal solution it may be an okay

solution in some instances, but the best solution for earning the most rewards is always going to be a combination of different cards. And so, yeah, I think that's a great idea for a master post. So Greg roasted me, I roasted him back a little bit and see it's going to lead to something that's hopefully going to be better for all of us. So I think so. And the funny thing is this ties into the main event because the combos are all about combinations of cards that lead to the best combination of category bonuses that give you the most rewards whereas there are people listening saying no no no there is one best card that's whichever one you're working on the

signup bonus right so yes if you're really a truly maximizer you probably are serially signing up for those cards. But for all the rest of us, which is, I would guess most of us. Definitely. It's good to have a good set of cards that are strong earners. Definitely. And you know what, that's a point that I failed to make earlier and I should make now. Because our hobby is obviously niche compared to the overall market of people who have credit cards in the United States and certainly the overall market of people who are interested in travel or whatever else. So when you look at our hobby, our hobby is pretty niche to begin with. And then out of that niche of people, the people who are constantly signing up for new cards all the time is an even smaller niche group.

Now, once you're in that group, it can kind of seem like everybody's doing that. Everybody's opening tons of cards all the time. But the truth is we get enough messages from people, whether it's, you know, emails or things on Facebook or whatever else from people who are under 524 all the time asking about, you know, this card or that card, what their best strategy is. And so if they're under 524, they are not constantly spending on a card that it's earning a signup bonus. So it seems to me the average person, even in this hobby is not signing up for new cards all the time anymore. So now let's not say it's a bad strategy. If you can keep it up. I mean,

certainly like you said, the best card to be spending on is the one you're earning a big signup bonus with. So if you can keep that up, great, but not everybody's going to do that. So, right, right. No, that's a really good point. Every now and then we get a comment from a reader saying, you shouldn't write about Chase signup offers anymore because no one's under 524. The fact is, if we only focused on those who are over 524, we'd have a very, very low readership, I think. I think so too. I think so too. It's not as big a number as it seems if you're so immersed in the hobby that you're

constantly surrounded by other people who are over 524. I think you get a very skewed view of what the average is. I mean, the average American has what, two or three credit cards, period, like over decades, they've got like two or three or something or four or something like that. It's a low number. So definitely, I think that most people aren't going crazy with the new welcome bonuses. Again, it can be a good strategy, but it's not common. So yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Good strategy, not common. Question of the week time, right? Question of the week time, yes. So now I was waffling between two different questions, and I guess I'm going to hold on to one for next week. Yeah, I'm going to hold on to that one for next week. So I was waffling between two, but I think that this one kind of flows naturally from, more naturally from today's discussion.

So somebody says, hey guys, love your site and the podcast. I appreciate you guys. I'm sorry, I said somebody. I should have named this somebody, Al. Al says, appreciate you guys keeping things up to date with points miles amongst everything COVID-y. As a physician, I appreciate the escape. Question for you.

I have a healthy, though not crazy, amount of membership rewards and ultimate rewards points, about 300,000 points in each program. Only me and player two have a good amount of spend coming up. Would you keep on accruing membership rewards and ultimate rewards, or would you change to another currency? Thank you, points.

I have all ultimate rewards cards already, but only a couple of membership rewards cards, personal gold, platinum and business platinum. When did you guys make a transition to another transferable currency? Is diversification better than maximizing particular currencies? P.S. Cashback sparks no joy. Thank you and keep up the good work. So that was a good ending there. It was, that was important. Yeah, it'd be hard not to go towards some of the cashback opportunities there. But wow, that's a really good question.

I'm not sure, like sometimes when you ask, when you ask these reader questions, I just have an answer off the top of my head and it's one word. And then just to fill up time, we blabber on about it a bit more. But this time, this time,

I don't know. I thought it was a really good question. Like, so there's a couple of questions to unpack there, right? One of them is, when is it time to transition to another transferable currency? Like, when are you at the point

where you're like, okay, it's time to diversify and get another currency and when do you stick with what you've got and i think it's especially interesting in this situation where there are a lot of cards that are in membership rewards points we've talked about that being a strength of the mx program that there's a whole bunch of different cards that are in membership rewards and he's only got like three i guess in the household between the two of them. They only have three of those cards. There's a lot more opportunity there. But is it time to transition and diversify a little bit to have another kind of rewards in the household?

I don't know. What's your suggestion? I don't know either. So if it was Chase and City, there'd be no question. I'd be like, yes, it's time to go on to membership rewards. But does City add so much more over what he's already got? I mean, Turkish. And there's a couple other minor programs, but there's not, I mean. Turkish is it unless you're going to like go really hard and earn a lot of thank you points so that you can take advantage of some of the other things.

Turkish is really the key one. Right. I mean, that's right. So I think there's, I think there's two. Yeah. So I think there's maybe two thoughts about whether it's a branch in the city and I'm not even thinking about capital one. Right. Right. Right. Well, I mean, no, no, I don't think it doesn't make sense. So, so, so, so. It doesn't make sense. So Citi's weird because it's a good program for starters because of the earning structure that you could, for only $95 a year, have these great category bonuses with a Premier card

and have 2x everywhere with the double cash and get a 10% rebate with the rewards plus but it's not good for beginners because of the transfer partners some of them are pretty complicated like you wrote a whole post today about the guide to Turkish not simple to book a Star Alliance award, right? With Turkish. Unless you're very, very lucky. Right, exactly. So, and that's pretty common.

Like some of the best values through the Citi program are not simple. Right. So, I think the answer, I mean, I don't know a lot about this guy, except I really enjoy the fact that he's a doctor and he mentioned that we cover things COVID-y. Gotta like that. But no, I think the answer is don't diversify yet. Uh, you've got a lot more you can do with membership rewards. Take advantage of that because you're in that one program. Might as well keep earning the,

the points in there and learn that program really well rather than adding another program, which has, it does have some good value, but not a tremendous amount over. All right. So I'm going to tag a question on then for him because we only considered City. We discounted Capital One and that's fine but now should he maybe consider

he, she, Al I suppose it's a he should Al consider either the Hilton cards or the Marriott cards. He says that he the annex cards he has do not include a hotel card. He mentions he's got all of the ultimate rewards cards, but certainly a possibility that he's under 524

if he's got all the ultimate rewards cards and just a couple and at least one on the business side with Amex. Yeah, this is where you kind of need to know the person better because sometimes when I bring up those things, I hear, oh, well, you know, when I stay somewhere, it's always at a B&B or I always I'm a cruiser.

So I'm always on a cruise. And so I don't need a luxury hotel stay or whatever. And so, yeah, I think absolutely. If you value luxury hotel stays, you know, you really ought to be looking at Hilton Aspire. That's always a sell. Yeah, I think I think think Hilton card is something that stuck out at me. And especially if he's got two players in the household, I'm going to assume that probably the annual fee on the Aspire cards is not a big deal. If cash back doesn't spark any joy, then I'm guessing that cash is probably not a major concern. So I would say two Aspire cards might be a good idea because then you could also combine the points. So you end up with 300,000 points. You can pull them together and have them in one account, plus your free nights that come with those and all the other perks. I think Aspire

cards might be worth thinking about over Thank You right now. Because really, like Greg said, Turkish is going to be your key with Thank You initially anyway. So, you know, that's great if you want to fly domestic economy on United or you want to fly to Hawaiian economy on United. If that's not specifically the thing you're after, then the other key, probably awesome sweet spot for Turkish is going to be flying to Europe for 45,000 points. However, if you get yourself a bunch of ultimate rewards points, you can use ANA and fly around trip for 88. So you actually do a little bit better with ANA anyway with your membership rewards points. And then beyond that, the other key transfer partners more or less overlap with what you've already got.

I mean, EVA, that sort of thing. But EVA, you're going to need a lot more than the 60,000 points that come with the Premier card. So you have to be doing a bunch of spend. You probably want to pair Premier with a double cash if you've got big expenses coming up. There's more complexity to it. So I think I would probably go Aspire and, yeah, membership rewards.

So I agree with Greg. All right. That's it. That's all, my friends. That brings us to the end of this week's episode, right? I believe it does. I think it does. Although, were you going to –

We wanted to talk about card talk briefly because so we so so card talk is is this new uh video only show that we're doing and then we will write up the the post and last week we were supposed to do one of these and I messed up because I forgot till it was too late to recruit someone for the show. And, uh, so we didn't, we just didn't do the show last week at all. Um, so what we need, we we've, we've advertised for people to ask for, for people to volunteer through our Facebook group, but now we're adding another way to volunteer, which is through email. So you can send us a message at cardtalk

at thefrequentmiler.com. And that's cardtalk at thefrequentmiler.com. Right. Not car. And not at frequentmiler, but at thefrequentmiler.com. The one and only, thefreer but at the frequent miler.com the one and only the frequent mile that's important yeah send it to card talk if we're gonna get a response guys all right the frequent miler so yeah so if if you if you have like you need help like figuring out

you know we want to plan a big honeymoon or you've got too many cards. You want to get rid of some and you need help deciding or you, Hey, this would be really fun. You just, you have certain types of spend. You do a lot. You want to know what's the best combo of cards. Uh, you can be helping us design this new resource page that I talked about building. Um, so yeah, uh, send us an email and, and maybe you'll get on the show. I'm very good. Very good. So, and maybe you'll get on the show. And very good.

Very good. So, and watch out for those posts because those are going to be every other week. Every other week we do a card talk, a card talk. And then in the weeks in between we do our ask us anything on, uh, on YouTube. So you can check those out each week. We always have posts on frequent miler to alert you to when those things are coming up so you can keep an eye out for them. So there you go. Card card talk please come join us send us your questions and your submissions and

interest in being on the show so my friends if you would like to learn more about what we've been talking about today you want to get on our email list sign up for our facebook group follow us on twitter all that fun stuff you can go to the frequent miler.com slash subscribe again that's the frequent miler.com slash subscribe get on, that's thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Get on all of those various lists. Thank you all very much for being out there with us today. We enjoy it. We appreciate you. And we will talk to you guys again next week. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.