My Credit Card Strategy For Travel Rewards
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- čas přidán 6. 08. 2024
- Revealing the easy strategies that I use to earn free and better travel. I'll explain my strategy while I go through my 20+ credit cards and in particular why I have each one. For more travel advice on how to get the most bang for your buck, including how to get good deals on flights check out the rest of the series here: • Travel Advice by Yello...
1 - Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x on travel spend)
2 - World of Hyatt Business Credit Card (for earning elite status)
3 - World of Hyatt (for the free night)
4 - Amex Platinum (for the lounge access)
5 - Amex Gold (4x at Supermarkets and Restaurants)
6 - Chase Ink Business Plus
7 - Chase United Quest
8 - United Mileageplus Explorer
9 - Marriott Bonvoy Boundless
10 - Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Credit Card from Chase
11 - Marriott Bonvoy Amex Card
12 - Amex Blue Cash
13 - Delta Skymiles Gold
14 - Citi Thank You Preferred
15 - CitiBusiness / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard
16 - Capital One: VentureOne Rewards
17 - Discover
18 - B&H Payboo
19&20 - Hilton Honors Surpass Amex
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Excited to catch the replay … Great information
This is easily the best content regarding travel perk cards. I've been looking for Info like this for a long time. Thank you, Chris!
Awesome! Glad it was helpful!
Great Live, Chris! I enjoy watching your videos, especially your hotel reviews!
I appreciate that!
Hope you start making more videos on credit card strategies! This is fascinating!
Just about to book a trip to puerto Vallarta and saw this come up. Great timing.
Perfect!
All of the information about Credit Cards are interesting.
Very useful!
Great video. Shopping portals are clutch
Yes they are!
Great video Chris. I use my chase ink cash for my Costco purchases by buying visa gift cards to use from staples when they offer them activation fee free which is one week per month usually
Nice!
It's always interesting to see which CCs people carry and why. Thanks for the info + video!
Thanks Jimmy!
AmEx Blue Preferred brings 6% back on groceries and streaming, 3% on gas, parking, tolls, rideshare, trains, buses.
If you have a chase bank account you can request a foreign currency exchange before your trip. You have to go in branch to pick it up, but it’s free. No exchange fees.
Thanks for the tip!
Chris, I understand all the cards are worth it on their own, but with some of the expensive ones, have you compared the use of one of the other cards that the rewards might be less in a certain category but saving the fee would make the math work out?
I closed my ANZ Qantas credit card today. We are refinancing so I needed to cancel some credit. I will research and open a new Qantas credit card with bonus points when our finance has finalised. Hopefully I’ll get some great the bonus join up Qantas points.
Fingers crossed! 😀
Great cards and strategy! Really enjoyed the video, keep up the great work 🫵
Glad you enjoyed!
what a great video, Chris! thank you for all this. I have several of the cards in this vid. I'm curious though --- how does churning affect your credit score. I would say my total credit card limits are pretty good, so i'm not at risk of high utilization. However, I do want to start closing some of my mediocre cards that have annual fees and also maybe sign up for a new card then for the bonus and closing it in a couple of years. Does open and closing cards every couple of years somehow flag you as high risk by the credit card companies or is there any real impact to your credit score (other than the usual dings on credit inquiries) -- provided again your utilization is low? Thanks!
Closing your card has 3 main effects on your score: 1) Payment History is removed 2) Credit limit is removed and 3) Account age is removed. Keep in mind, these changes (except for 2) only go into effect after 10 years of car closure. So if you cancel a card now, you keep the positive effects of your payment history for 10 years and your card also continues to age for 10 years. At that point it will disappear from your credit report. If this is a card in which a huge portion of your spending is on (ex: 40% of your lifetime spending) the effect it could have is huge. If it’s very little (1-2%) this could simply be negligible, especially in 10 years.
That being said, there is also the option to downgrade cards to No Annual fee cards for a lot of issuers provided there is an available downgrade option. This usually requires you to call the issuer and ask for a downgrade option. In this way, your payment history stays and the account keeps aging until you decide to cancel it.
Now churning can also be a great way to beef up your credit profile, mainly to add higher credit limits to buffer your utilization (and even make use of 0% APR promos to the fullest) as well as allow you to have negligible impacts on your Average Age of Accounts.
All in all, churning can be extremely lucrative if done correctly. And the effects it has are mostly negligible if done correctly, maybe with the exception of mortgage approvals but this is up for debate.
@@andrewtobias4545 thanks!! So you don't think banks will start flagging you as a churner if you keep opening a card and then closing it in 2-3 years?
@@remyd8767 Most card issuers don’t really do that. Amex is the exception as I’ve heard stories that they’ll claw back the points if you cancel cards before the 1 year is up and deny you for future applications for them. So you basically have to wait until the 2nd annual fee occurs to cancel. There’s also ways to game this with retention offers. But 1 year minimum on those. Otherwise, the rules are fairly relaxed for closing cards (as long as you have 0 balance on them). Downgrading is a definite option to consider though. Most of the time it’s better unless you think banks will think you have too many credit cards, which is a possibility for getting further approval. As far as I know there aren’t official rules or known sensitivities for credit cards but other credit lenders like mortgage lenders who deal with hundreds of thousands of dollars will do manual reviews of your credit. Some may not care, some might it’s hard to say. 1st mortgage is generally pretty lenient though from what I’ve heard. You can also find more information about this stuff on CZcams, there’s plenty of ppl that have had like 40+ credit cards as well as multiple mortgages so it just depends. The rules around credit scores which is the main determinant for most credit lenders are fairly straightforward and you can navigate them fairly easily once you get it under your belt.
@@remyd8767No. What do you even mean by being "flagged as a churner"?
Blue cash doesnt earn membership rewards but still worth having it open
Big respect to you. The only thing you didn't mention. Refer your family and you should cancel and reapply for chase Citi cards every 2-4 yrs
Thanks for the extra tips!
I am curious, why do you avoid IHG and holiday inn hotels? Have you ever stayed at a Holiday Inn Express for example? I find them to be really nice.
To each their own. I've stayed in a few Holiday Inn Expresses and just found them average.
GREAT INFO- does Walmart count as a supermarket?
Only Walmart neighborhood markets count for Amex Gold 4X
@@YellowProductions THX
Any secrets to finding good redemption values for business class+ airfare? Is it just a question of being flexible with your plans?
Yes. And looking for routes people don't think of. For example San Diego to Tokyo on Japan Airlines has good business class availability because most people don't think of San Diego as a city to fly to Japan from
Do you think Marriott Gold Elite Status will get us status match with MGM GOLD with the new 20 year partnership?
Seems reasonable
if you are building Hyatt status and staying at Hyatt, how do you manage AMEX MR points? do you use AMEX travel portal and book at Hyatt? also, is Hyatt available as an option in the AMEX travel portal?
I earn Amex MR Points from my spend on the Amex Gold card. 4x earn at restaurants and Supermarkets
0:10 Jennifer Garner “What’s in you wallet?”
Chris - “Yes”
Indeed
Thanks, just subscribed. Do you think Hyatta World of Hyatt regular 95 card is worth it? I got it in 2020, but now increasingly it is difficult to find category 4 free hotels in major cities. They are always far from the cities. Even In Rome, Italy, the free hotel is just hardly close to the city. I am thinking of cancelling it. Your thoughts?
I still keep mine.. but yeah. The cat 4 hotels generally aren't the ones in the city center
What’s the best hotel card?
Depends what hotel chain you like to stay with. I like the World of Hyatt card from Chase. If you're a Hilton person then the Amex Hilton Aspire
@@YellowProductions? Best hotel card is the Ritz Carlton. After a year seasoning, then can product change one of the personal Chase Marriott cards to a Ritz. I'm a Hilton and Hyatt fan - (Marriott is my least-preferred chain) but there's no doubt Ritz offers a lot of benefits vs the AF. I still mourn the demise of SPG...
I thought I heard that Chase have been hacked
Hey chris...the visual & audio doesnt sync
Try now
It's good now...thx
I only have one card and I’ve gotten discounts on my airline miles and hotels using American Airlines. I try to do an AMEX card and the rewards were a joke plus it was a high annual fee. We pretty much pay cash for everything.
Is the Venture X a good replacement for the Sapphire Reserve?
I think the Sapphire Reserve is better
@@YellowProductions The more I research it the more I agree with you.
I would say any credit card is good as long as u can pay off the balance end of the month. 😂😅
Indeed!
Are the visuals not matching the audio for anyone else?
+1
Should be fine now
Shocked you dont have the Aspire. Most powerful card Amex has. Your missing out.
We don't really stay at Hilton hotels often
Enjoy your videos. But as I watch I think you should have qualified how horrible your Platinum and gold card could be without getting those credits. They are cards that mainly work in a larger Metro area. And how limited the dinning credits are. Also redeeming with food service brings expenses that can wash out the value of the credit. I watch the use of CC also. Mostly I see the platinum buying fast food and I think they don't have a clue. I see t h e gold card and think you had to spend over 6k in groceries to break even with the AF.
To add your credits are broken down monthly. Didn't include that . I'm west of Chicago even being on the edge of a major metro area it would still be a 45 min drive each way every month to redeem the $10 dinning credit at the only restaurant cheesecake factory near enough to go to. No value in that.
Agreed. The Platinum and Gold cards only make sense for people living in cities that they can use the benefits
Remember Gen Z. Nothing in life is free & credit cards are LOANED MONEY. You can get discounts but if you have to spend money to get travel it wasn't free. Stay debt free young people
You can make a purchase and send in the payment immediately. You don't need to go into debt. The whole point is NOT going into debt. If you pay any fees you negate the benefits.
I know you go to Vegas routinely so feel you should get the Barclays Wyndham Biz Earner Visa that will match you from Wyndham Diamond to Caesar Diamond and other Casino status.
Thanks for the tip!
@@YellowProductions
I had applied this card TWICE but both got declined due to “too many inquiries/new cards”. I plan to try one more time soon.
BTW, I’m from Taipei living in LA for decades. My wife and I backed to Taiwan in Nov-2022 when re-opened! We also visited Japan in that trip then April 2023!