Best Credit Card Strategy

Bmramaut

Everybody wants to be a cat.
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Jul 21, 2019
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Considering pulling the trigger on Riviera points with the current incentives. Which credit card would help me lower the overall cost with sign up bonuses or travel incentives? I know this is posted other places but I didn’t want to dig and potentially confuse current sign ups with past ones. Wanted to come directly to the experts!
 
I recently got a Business Platinum AMEX card with a 250,000-point bonus.

Generally, you want credit card company points that can be transferred to travel partners, rather than points that "live" in a particular partner's account.
 
If you are open to signing up for a new credit card or two, you can split your payments across 30/60/90 days and hit a few sign up bonuses along the way. I'd look for cards with transferrable points versus an airline or hotel specific card, unless you know you are a brand loyalist. The AMEX Business Platinum/regular Platinum and Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve have good sign up bonuses at the moment.

If you aren't interested in opening multiple cards, I'd look at a Chase Sapphire card, because Chase codes DVC as travel, but AMEX does not.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best overall for travel rewards in the Chase ecosystem. It has a $550 annual fee but comes with a $300 travel credit, effectively making the annual fee $250. There are also many other perks associated with the card. It provides 3x points on "travel" and those 3x points have a value of 1.5 cents each when booking through the Chase travel portal, or they can be transferred to a number of airlines and hotels. You can then downgrade the Sapphire Reserve to the Sapphire Preferred after a year (which only has a $95 annual fee) if you don't feel the value is there to keep the Reserve benefits. If the Reserve is too intimidating, the Preferred gives you 2x on travel and they count as 1.25 cents in their portal (or you can transfer them out to a variety of airlines/hotels).

if you are open to a business card, the Chase Ink Preferred also offers 3x on travel (be careful not to confuse it with the Ink Premier, which is a cash back card) but they count as 1.25 cents in the travel portal. Their sign up bonus is huge at the moment (100,000 points after $8K spend).

The other card I hear talked about a lot is the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve. I don't have this card (yet) so am unsure if they code DVC as travel - hopefully someone can chime in.

Some people just keep it simple and go with a straight cash back card, but I haven't found a cash back card that offers as good value for money as a points based card. The best I've seen is typically 2%.
 
If you are open to signing up for a new credit card or two, you can split your payments across 30/60/90 days and hit a few sign up bonuses along the way. I'd look for cards with transferrable points versus an airline or hotel specific card, unless you know you are a brand loyalist. The AMEX Business Platinum/regular Platinum and Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve have good sign up bonuses at the moment.

If you aren't interested in opening multiple cards, I'd look at a Chase Sapphire card, because Chase codes DVC as travel, but AMEX does not.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best overall for travel rewards in the Chase ecosystem. It has a $550 annual fee but comes with a $300 travel credit, effectively making the annual fee $250. There are also many other perks associated with the card. It provides 3x points on "travel" and those 3x points have a value of 1.5 cents each when booking through the Chase travel portal, or they can be transferred to a number of airlines and hotels. You can then downgrade the Sapphire Reserve to the Sapphire Preferred after a year (which only has a $95 annual fee) if you don't feel the value is there to keep the Reserve benefits. If the Reserve is too intimidating, the Preferred gives you 2x on travel and they count as 1.25 cents in their portal (or you can transfer them out to a variety of airlines/hotels).

if you are open to a business card, the Chase Ink Preferred also offers 3x on travel (be careful not to confuse it with the Ink Premier, which is a cash back card) but they count as 1.25 cents in the travel portal. Their sign up bonus is huge at the moment (100,000 points after $8K spend).

The other card I hear talked about a lot is the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve. I don't have this card (yet) so am unsure if they code DVC as travel - hopefully someone can chime in.

Some people just keep it simple and go with a straight cash back card, but I haven't found a cash back card that offers as good value for money as a points based card. The best I've seen is typically 2%.
I’ve been told the US Bank does code as travel. Edit to add its possible it could not code as travel so its a YMMV situation
 
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Has anyone used the US Bank Altitude Reserve for DVC and had the purchase code as Travel?
My DVC points on you tube has an entire episode dedicated to this card. Might be worth a watch if you are considering it.
 
If you have Platinum Honors, the Bank of America Premium Rewards card offers 2.62% cash back on everything and 3.5% on travel/dining.
 
They have a deal where you get an extra $1k off your contract if you pay with a Disney Visa. So make sure whatever alternative you're looking at can beat that extra $1k discount plus the Disney rewards plus the 6 months no interest of the Disney Visa.
 
They have a deal where you get an extra $1k off your contract if you pay with a Disney Visa. So make sure whatever alternative you're looking at can beat that extra $1k discount plus the Disney rewards plus the 6 months no interest of the Disney Visa.
You actually don't need to pay with the Visa. You just need to have one. (I received the discount but am using my Chase Sapphire Reserve for payments.)
 
Wanted to add to this thread. I have been doing a lot of research and it seems the US Bank Altitude Reserve has had some issues with coding things as travel. So using for DVC is a big YMMV and may not be worth the risk vs a Chase card.
 

















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