Frequent Miler on the Air - If you could only have one card...

Episode Date: June 19, 2019

Greg and Nick debate: If you could only have one card, what would it be? Capital One Venture? Chase Sapphire Reserve? A cash back card? We also discuss: New credit cards (Sonesta & Marriott) Transfer bonuses More Listen now.

Okay. Hey. Hey, hey, what's going on? So you're in Milan now. I sure am. We spoke, you were, where were you when we were last talking? You've been everywhere. I was in Crete last week and the week before I was in Zurich. So yeah, I feel like the international man of mystery now traveling around. But it's just been, it's worked out that way. Like Fridays have just been one of those transition days So you've been in different places each time

Yeah, but now it's Thursday, and we just couldn't work it out to have to do this on Friday if we did I think you would have been home, but I would have been in Ottawa So you're guaranteed at least one of us to be away from home for today, but also we've done every single one of these Facebook Lives, at least one of us has been somewhere else besides home. Yeah, and looking at the schedule, it might be that way for a while, I think. Will you be away next Friday?

Next Friday, I won't. I'll be home next Friday. You? Depends what time we we do the time You think that's the only Friday I'm gonna be home for a while though. Yeah And then we'll be in Minneapolis for the next right. That's right. Yeah, so we'll be able to do that one actually live face-to-face Maybe yeah, so I am so glad you're back from vacation even though you're not physically back You kind of missed while you're away

What happened well, so one of things was Plastic we had been earning 3x Again using the chase Inc business preferred card when paying bills through plastic but then that didn't last long or at least didn't last long since we learned about it you might go see my cat's tail behind me there um but yeah so it died quickly unfortunately because that was that was a nice because that was a really nice thing. What else did you miss? You missed two new cards debuting.

Yeah, tell me about these two new cards. So Spelestra, Spenesta, Senesta, Sequestra. What is it? Senesta. It's a hotel card. Yeah, like who's ever heard of the Senesta chain, right? But apparently they get good reviews, or who's ever heard of the Sonesta chain, right? But Apparently they get Good reviews or at least a lot of them do I'm sure not all of them

and The point program seems to have decent value. I mean I wouldn't call it huge value but decent and When I looked into it it it looks kind of like you know if you have certain properties that Sonesta properties that you really like it might make sense to go for this card but it's really a niche type of thing you know sort of like the Amtrak card you got a you got to like that kind of thing, you know, sort of like the Amtrak card. You got to like that kind of thing. You know, but it's more niche, though. It's more niche, because, yeah, with Amtrak, you have to

like that kind of thing, but if you live on the eastern seaboard, and Amtrak makes sense for a large number of people, maybe not everyone, certainly wouldn't work for me, but Amtrak is something that at least there's millions of people that live on the route that could use that. This Synesta thing, I feel like is so niche. I feel like there's so many different programs that I'm kind of surprised sometimes that we don't have a U.S. credit card for. I was really surprised to see this random chain that nobody's ever heard of. Yeah. So, you know, when I first heard it, I thought it was a Central American or South American chain only. But if you look at the click through on my post to the list of properties, there's something like 20, I want to say 26 US states that are

represented. Most of them were hotel. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, broadly in the US. And you highlighted a couple of popular places Hilton had, I know you had in there a couple of other popular spots that, like you said, if you travel to one of those places and you're, you know, this is I think one of those cards for people who say that, that, you know, they've applied for all of the cards already. And if you really truly are in that situation where you don't have much open to you, maybe if this looks good

because you're going somewhere i guess uh where this would work maybe i feel i feel like it's kind of a stretch to see that this would have more value though than uh than applying for points that can be used more broadly i agree with you totally totally doesn't have have transferable points. Speaking of transferable points, one of the other things you missed is Amex went on a spree, a bonus, a transfer bonus spree where they were offering targeted bonuses and not just little 20 or 30% bonuses,

but 40 or 50% bonuses. Huge. Yeah, huge. just little 20 or 30 percent bonuses but 40 or 50 huge for yeah huge um except they're not to their their a-rated partners necessarily but uh you do have british airways uh 40 or 50 percent you could have been targeted for um you have uh marriott um 40 or 50%, and JetBlue, although that one's deceiving because Amex's standard transfer rate is less than one-to-one to JetBlue. So it really only makes for something like a 20% bonus over one-to-one if you have a 50% bonus. So, yeah. What do you think of the other, well, of any of them? Do you think any of them are good enough to just do if you've got it?

You know, I always hate advising anybody to make speculative transfers for any sort of program because then you pigeonhole yourself into one currency. But I will say, I think 40% 40 to 50 percent on obvious is a really strong transfer bonus on obvious especially if you've been earning your membership rewards in decent quantity because it gives you both British Airways and Iberia since you can move the points back and forth and with a if you live in Chicago Boston or New York Iberia charges what you know 34,000

points one way during off peak from between Madrid and those cities and business class 34,000. So with the transfer bonus, you're talking in the 20s. And every now and then, they'll run a bonus, or excuse me, a sale beyond that where it's 25.5k one way in business class, and you're talking about like 16,000 or, you know, 18,000 membership rewards points. I might consider transferring speculatively obvious. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I could see that. Did you have any sense of how good

the award availability is on Iberia? Not great, but it's got to get better once everybody's 90K. There was that crazy promo last year where everybody was able to pull in 90K obvious pretty easily by booking a bunch of one-ways and not actually flying them and I think once all of those bookings are done I feel like there has to be some better

availability I found availability now and then when looking but you know aside from that I've also written in the past how Iberia can be good for for flights with connections within the United States I live near a small airport and so I always have to connect. And because of the way Iberia does it, British Airways prices each segment individually and adds them up, but Iberia measures the entire distance of your route, and then you pay based on that. So for example, if I fly from Albany to Myrtle Beach, I have to connect in Charlotte. That only costs me 17,000 Iberia, obvious. So a little over 8,000 each way. And now if we're talking at 40 or 50% transfer bonus, I mean, that's a great deal for me with a connection. Sure beats what American charges or what British Airways charges. There's downsides

because they don't let you cancel American Airlines awards, redeposit them or change them at all. So there are some downsides, but I think being able to move them between Iberia and British Airways makes it valuable enough that I don't know if I'm going to do it. But I think that it's worth considering. Marriott, too, to be honest, if you're really low on Marriott points, then it might be worth it. And I've been having great luck with Marriott points lately. I'm getting well over a set of points on a lot of redemptions. And so I feel like if I was really low on Marriott points, I might consider that because I'd rather not transfer membership awards one

to one to Marriott. But with the 50% bonus, it's like, man, baby, maybe. Yeah, no,

I wouldn't do either of them. no, I mean, Marriott, I mean, I'm flush with Marriott points. And, and I think that if it, you know, if I was low on Marriott, I mean, I'm flush with Marriott points. And I think that if, you know, if I was low on Marriott points, I would revert to booking more Hyatt stays.

But Hyatt isn't everywhere I need to be. Like, I like Hyatt, but I stay in so many places where there are no Hyatts at all. You know, when I take a road trip and drive, sometimes I get lucky and I end up near someplace with a Hyatt place. But like nine times out of 10, I'm someplace where there's no Hyatt anywhere nearby. And there's a 7,500 point Marriott or a 12,500 point Marriott. And those places are almost always over $100 a night. So easily getting a cent a point or more. So if you're getting a 50% bonus, talking about

one and a half cents a point. And Hey, I mean, from the guy who uses the, the chase points at one and a half cents, it's not a bad deal, right? Yeah, no, I mean, when you put it that way, that, that kind of makes sense. If I was low, if I didn't have enough Marriott points to be able to take care of those kinds of stays. Yeah, I just hate locking it into one current. That makes sense. But you know, Marriott's probably better than some because if you're really stuck, you can still transfer to airline miles, but of course not anywhere near one-to-one. Right.

So you do have other options if you do that. So the other thing you missed this week was my, you didn't really miss it. I know you read it. My post on Monday, I think it was, was me kind of ruminating on the question of if I could only have one credit card, what would it be? And this actually came from a previous conversation we had where we were talking up the venture card and I think we both agreed that it's really coming a long way it we used to pretty much discount it as a worthwhile rewards card because before it had transferable before it was transferable to airline miles it was basically a two percent back card

but with an annual fee with an annual fee right um but now it's actually arguably the single best card if you could only have one and uh so i asked myself okay given that I'm telling people that, do I believe it? Would I do it myself? And I actually came to the conclusion, no, I would prefer the Sapphire Reserve. Yeah. I can't get my mind around that. So why the Sapphire Reserve? I mean, you got to reiterate this for me. Why would you go for, I mean, remember, you're not only spending on travel and dining. There are a lot of other expenses in life. You're going to earn 1x on those? Right. Yeah.

So that's what I'm giving up. So with the venture, because it earns two miles per dollar everywhere, it essentially earns one and a half airline miles per dollar because of the weird transfer rate. So that's a good earning rate everywhere. As you're pointing out here, the Sapphire Reserve, it has very good earning rate for travel and dining and very poor for everywhere else because you only get one X and that only transfers one to one to airline miles. So why would I pick Sapphire Reserve anyway? So one, I do spend a lot on travel and dining. So I do think I would earn a good number of points, maybe not as many as with the venture, probably not as many, but...

I mean, don't you also spend money on groceries and car repairs and gas for your car and clothes? I mean, there are a lot of other expenses in life. You spend that much more on travel and dining than everything else combined? I don't know about that much more than everything, but I mean, I would have to spend a lot more. Yeah, no, I get you. So let's concede. Let me concede that I'll earn fewer miles, not just points, but miles by going with the

Sapphire Reserve. I still, I don't want to give up my transfers to Hyatt. Okay, you don't have to. You don't have to. Well, because you mentioned in your post that there's a sale that just expired yesterday, I guess, where Hyatt points were 1.7 cents each. And I know you're going to say that you don't want to buy Hyatt points speculatively, but of course you do. I mean, you use Hyatt points. So why wouldn't you buy Hyatt points specul, if you've only got one credit card? Now, if you get the venture card, you're earning two cents, basically, two Capital One miles per dollar that you can use for two cents towards travel.

Now, I don't know for sure that you can use those for points purchases, but I imagine you probably can for purchases of points. If you can't, then this theory doesn't work. But assuming that you can use your Capital One points to erase a points purchase, then every dollar you spend on the Capital One Venture Card is earning two cents. If you can buy Hyatt points at 1.7 cents, you're earning Hyatt points at a rate of 1.13 Hyatt points per dollar spent. That's better than you're doing at 1x on the CSR. That adds up over the course of a year. I just don't think that you're gonna even have to give up Hyatt in order to go with the Venture Card. I think the Venture Card makes more sense for you, not for everyone. Not for me, okay. What about perks though? So Priority Pass lounge access. Do you use Priority Pass a lot? No. Okay, I didn't think so. You know, the once or twice a year that I do. Once or twice a year, you could instead pay for a lounge pass to an even better lounge probably and reimburse yourself with Capital One points. So I think the Venture Card. What about the travel insurance perks that the Sapphire has. It's way better.

All right. Okay. I have to admit that. Much better because you got your delay insurance and your cancellation insurance, emergency medical, all the rest of that. So I'll give you that. The Sapphire Reserve has some of those things. I'm going to ask you, how many times have you made one of those claims in the last five

years? Zero. Okay. All right. It's good peace of mind though, right? Steven Pepper wrote a post a couple years ago, or I guess it wasn't that long ago, about a year ago about how he successfully filed a claim when he was in Australia, if I remember right. Yeah, the size of golf balls, right? I think he recouped a few thousand dollars, if I'm remembering. And my mom recouped about,

I want to say five or 6,000 from a claim that she made. So it's, you know, there's people in my immediate sphere that are benefiting from it. So I do value it for the uh peace of mind it gives you and i would have a really hard time paying for insurance like per trip well right so there's sort of a piece of mind aspect that's maybe not the outright value but

um or hard to measure value i guess you could say it say. It's okay. There's two things on it. First of all, the Venture Card has CDW. It has a collision damage waiver. Now, it might be secondary. I'd have to double check. But it does have car insurance. The insurance that I'd be more concerned with, I think, is the trip cancellation delay. That sort of thing that comes with the CSR. $500 a person on your trip.

That can really add up to cover your hotel and meals. And that stuff can be expensive if you have to book at the last minute and get a cancellation. So I can see where that's a little bit valuable. On the flip side, I've heard plenty of other people write and talk about buying an annual travel insurance policy for a few hundred dollars a year that might cover some of those things. And you might be able to erase with your Capital One points. But I would say this, I would say the capital one card, I think makes sense for you. If and only if you definitely want to keep transferable points in your pocket, transfer to partners.

And if we ignore your current stockpile of points and say, you don't even have those, let's pretend you don't have your stockpiles of millions of points. Then I think the venture card maybe makes sense because you still have airline miles, you're still earning one and a half per dollar spent, most of them. And then you get the transfer bonuses like Air France right now, 1.8 miles per dollar spent. So I think the transfer bonuses are interesting already. And I think Capital One is committed to making them really good. So I think that there's a good chance there. But I don don't think that the venture is the right card for most people

and in the real world i don't oh because tell me why i think i know why and in the real world with with greg having millions of points and miles at his disposal already he shouldn't be worrying about earning more transferable points he should be earning cash back and i think if somebody can only have one card i think they're wrong to consider a travel card, to be honest. I think they should have a cash back card, a card like the Bank of America premium rewards card, or the Alliant card that's earning two and a half, 2.62% back if you've got platinum honors with Bank of America. Because at that point, you have to really start to look at your CSR, you're earning, you know, one point per dollar, non bonus spend, right. And I've talked about this before,

when you're earning transferable currencies, you are paying for all of your miles and points. So you can say, I don't want to buy points speculatively, but you are when you're earning a transferable currency, you're buying points speculatively every day, you get a choice between one point and 2.62 pennies, you choose that point, it just costs you 2.62 pennies. And with those 2.62 pennies or 2.5 pennies, you can buy yourself easily one, one and a half, probably one and a half airline miles per dollar. In some cases like Avianca, two airline miles per dollar on all of your spend. You just buy points when you need the points. So I think most people would be better off with a cash back card. Cash gives you the ultimate flexibility, pay for your hotels, buy your points. That's my opinion. I don't know.

What do you think? Am I wrong? I think you are right if the people are not heavy travelers. I think so. So I think the venture is probably better than most cashback cards for heavy travelers because well you have the no foreign transaction fees which I know there there are some cashback cards that have that you mentioned a couple but it does have some travel protections built in, like CDW, I can't remember what the others are, and I think that a lot of people, well maybe not a lot of people, but I think that any readers of our blog, you know, even if they're not heavy into the miles and points stuff, you'll

occasionally see a deal that requires airline miles to jump on it. And they'll be really, really happy that they have that option to transfer points. And I don't think you're giving up that much by earning 2% instead of two and a half, which is, I mean, the Alliant card isn't that easy to get anyway. Well, right. And it's not that good anymore now that they're increasing the annual fee on that. You really have to spend a lot of money

for that to make sense, although if you're only using one card for everything, then you might be spending a lot of money on it. It maybe makes sense. I think the Bank of America premium rewards, if you can park 100k with Bank of America one way or another makes the most sense. And you're right, I would agree with you.

That one, really strong. Of course, all the things I just said before are still true. I mean, so it's 0.62% more than the venture capital. Yeah. But that's a sizable jump, in my opinion, especially when you can buy airline miles as cheaply as you often can. I mean, you can often buy them for around 1.7 cents a piece, sometimes less. So then I think suddenly it starts to make more and more sense, especially for somebody who's got a lot of airline miles or a lot of transferable currencies already.

You could buy up when you need to buy up, keep your cash back, flexible for that sort of thing. I just think that cash is king and it probably makes the most sense for one and for somebody who has a lot of miles and points already. I think that's a no-brainer. Okay, so you've almost convinced me that I was wrong about the Sapphire Reserve and

should have the Venture. I was wrong about the Venture and everyone else should have a cashback card. Otherwise, your 1x on your unbonus spend is costing you 2.62 cents for every 1x. I mean, when I add up all of the various bills that I pay in life, and all the money I spend that isn't in a restaurant or on a travel, there's a lot of money that gets spent every year. What would you do? You could only have one card, what would it be? And you don't have a balance of any points. Right. You know, the Venture card is appealing, and I'm using the Venture card as like my everywhere else card right now

for things that are unbonused because I think that it does present decent value. So I'm kind of going back and forth between that and the Alliant card. But anyway, to answer the question, if I could only have one, wait, that's tough. I didn't really think about it for me. I feel like it would have to be the cash back. I think if you could only have one, you got to keep it flexible and then just deal hunt. I mean, that's what I did before I earned miles and points. I deal hunted and I made it to, you know, almost did before I earned miles and points. I deal hunted and I made it to almost 50 countries without any miles and points just by hunting for good airfare deals and good hotel deals and everything else.

Of course, my travel style was a lot different than it is now, but I could definitely do that. So I think I would have to go with the cash back. I love my transferable currencies and I'm not going to give them up. I'm not going to go to one card. But if I had to, I think that's have to go with the cash back. You know, I love my transferable currencies, and I'm not going to give them up. I'm not going to go to one card. But if I had to, I think that's what it would be. I think that's my advice for most people. You know what I think you forgot, and I forgot, and so I didn't defend my position very well? All right.

Is the joy of free. So I've written about this several times. there's a value to the joy of using points that you don't think of as cash. You know, you feel like you're getting something for nothing, even though logically you gave up cash back that you could have earned. So you sort of prepaid for these points by giving up the ability to earn cash. But when you go to spend these points, it feels like you're getting something free and there's a joy to that. And I'm going to put it even on the earning side. So this is where I get back to the sapphire reserve even though you're probably

right that i would earn more overall with the venture or a straight cash back card um when going to a restaurant or or paying for travel and knowing i'm getting 3x there's there's a lot of excitement to that i can amp that up for you. I can amp that right up for you with the venture card, because if you're only going to have one card, then who cares about elite status and everything else? Cause you're not going to have the cards to help you earn extra nights and get free breakfast and all the rest of that.

So if you're only going to have the venture card, I think your strategy for hotels ought to be hotels.com. And then you're earning 10 X, you're earning 10 X at hotels.com 10 back plus welcome rewards uh and so i think that then then you're a big chunk of your travel anyway is is going to be on hotels right i mean what are your travel expenses generally hotels and flights uh so you can get yourself 10x on your hotel so then it's just your paid flights. Now, with as many miles and points as you have, how many paid flights do you take? Probably most of those are award flights right now. I guess they would be paid flights if you're using only the Venture card. But I just think you

would end up earning probably more points with the Venture, no? 10X? Wouldn't that give you that same joy of free? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, no, that would. would that would for sure I think it would but you get I think you get more of the joy of free when the rewards are more disconnected from cash so because the venture it's easy to think of those points as just once in each it feels more like cash back. So it makes you think about the value of the points. It does. So it makes you act more rationally. I'll give you that. But what I'm saying is there's a value to the irrational pleasure that you get from the disconnection between the points you're getting and the actual redemption later. And so you have the excitement of getting the 3X with the Sapphire.

You have the excitement of getting better value than you could have if you got a cash back card like every now and then when you get that great award redemption whether it's with hyatt or united or or any of their other transfer partners um and then you when you book travel through the ultimate awards mall you know you don't have the same or i don't have the same joy of free because it then it's feeling more like cash and and you know I'm thinking about is one and a half cents each but it's it's still one at that point you could have been doing better with the venture card and at that point because you're taking one and a half well I guess not necessarily if you're it depends how much travel and I mean yeah that's true and for people who do you really maybe maybe go ahead. You're willing to give up the joy of free.

No, you see, I think I'd still have the joy of free because I, I mean, I don't know what I not, am I lying to myself? I'm not sure. I feel like I would, or with cash back. I like to trip is ever going to be free again with cash back. That's true. That's true. And if somebody was burned a bunch of points in the last couple of weeks, I feel a little hypocritical saying that I would take cash back over the points.

Right. Enjoying that joy of free for sure. But I feel like you could probably get more travel for your money spent. I guess I'd really have to do the math and lay this out. But I think that for most people, you probably could get more travel for whatever you're spending with the venture card. And at the end of the day, if your goal is to travel as much as you can, I mean, I think maybe that would erase the joy of free. Now, the cashback option instead of the venture where you don't have any of the transferable currencies,

maybe you're right. Maybe that would take away too much of the joy of free. Although on the flip side, I'll tell you this with the Alliance card, we've been letting a balance of cash back, just kind of stack up and eventually we'll just pay for something and, and take that cash back and, you know,

erase it so to speak by taking that cash back out. I don't know. I think it's still going to feel like the joy of free. No? Yeah. I guess as long as you don't withdraw it to your bank account, which is the smart thing to do.

So you start earning interest. But if you want the joy of free, you don't withdraw it. And then you get that. And then it costs you just the same. Yeah. The other thing you could do is create a travel or a free stuff bank account that's there for nothing but reward. Now you convinced me. Now you convinced me because if you're using one of those high yield accounts, Dr. Accrediter writes all the time about different high yield accounts where you could be earning another two or 3% on top of your cash back. Cash, come on. Come on, Greg. Cash is king, right? If you have to have one thing. You know, even Citi now has a high yield account. It has something like 2.36%, something like that.

So you could start putting all your cash back in there. And once you have something like 100,000, you'll be able to get a discount on getting the Citi Prestige card. You'll finally be able to get back to earning real points. And I'd play it free again. Yeah, you know, I probably um if i could only have one card it would be the prestige card before they killed the fourth night free really you know i think maybe talk about a dog for 1x it's definitely doesn't even give you the the 1.5 oh but you see

i'll tell you that it's not a dog for 1x because city unlike chase offers lots of transfer bonuses so i could often be earning 1.25 or 1.3 miles per dollar i'm able to take advantage of the transfer bonuses and then you keep your coveted virgin atlantic that way so you can still get your you know yeah yeah duckies there but you know necker island or other associated resorts. Although I guess if you only have one card, then you'd have to give up your Virgin Atlantic silver status. So maybe you wouldn't be able to go back. Or I could start crediting my Delta flights to Virgin Atlantic.

Well, you could. I think that would be a good decision. I would be behind that. Lastly, if Amex was accepted everywhere and you can only have one card, which Amex card would you pick? Oh boy, that's a good question because I'm a big believer in the Amex gold, but if you could only have one, yeah I think it'd still be the gold to be honest because I think you'd end up earning more points that way, right? Blue Business Plus is capped at 50K for 2X, so you could earn 100 with 50K spend, but you could earn 100 with just 25K spend at the grocery store on the Amex Gold.

And what I like about that is you have a combination of, obviously, you're going to spend money on groceries every year. Then you could also theoretically throw in a little bit of MS or some fuel points. So I think that it's an easy 100,000 points. You would be giving up on all the 1X stuff that you're spending money at 1X, but I think the gold would probably be it. All right. We're in total agreement there. I would definitely pick the gold card.

And I was sorry when I was writing the post that the gold card is an Amex because I just can't. Like, you know, even within the U.S., I can't see keeping only an Amex card in my wallet. There are places that just don't take it. And so it just wouldn't work. Yeah, it always annoys me when I run into it. But there are places. In fact, I remember I went to a mechanic with an expensive repair on a sports car just a couple of years ago. And I was shocked when they wouldn't take an Amex amex i thought you can't charge this much money and not accept

amex let me pay the way that i want to pay my goodness but uh yes so you couldn't do that you're absolutely right but if you could i guess the gold would be the one i mean talk about perks and a platinum card kind of sounds like maybe that could be good if you really love the perks but i think the best perk is earning miles and points right so i think it'd have to be the goal yeah i agree all right hey it was great talking to you again and uh looking forward to our next chat next week absolutely thank you very much great to see you great to see everybody else who's out there see you guys next week bye everybody bye