Paid MF with new Chase Sapphire Reserve card for $600 credit

[rickandcindy23]

My II fees and RCI fees show up as 3X. I am thrilled with that. At least the high fees get 3X.

 

[DavidnRobin]

I put our MFs on the CSR vs. the AMEX SPG as in past. About same value, but UR portal offers more choices.

 

[elleny76]

I put our MFs on the CSR vs. the AMEX SPG as in past. About same value, but UR portal offers more choices.

Hi, I already use the 100K points with my CSR and will try to avoid the AF of $450 for 2017. What is the best way to cancel this cc or to downgrade? if the option is downgrade what is the best chase cc to choose to do so. thanks

 

[LisaRex]

Hi, I already use the 100K points with my CSR and will try to avoid the AF of $450 for 2017. What is the best way to cancel this cc or to downgrade? if the option is downgrade what is the best chase cc to choose to do so. thanks

The easiest way to cancel is to send them a note via the C/S email on the Chase website. No sense canceling it before the next AF is due, however, because the card comes with some great benefits that you may want to use until the year is up. The rental car primary insurance coverage, for example, is a very useful benefit.

Also, remember that you get the $300 travel credit every calendar year, so the cost after that is $150/year. Given its increased points per dollar spent, I'll be keeping this card, even if I have to pay for secondary cards for my family.

Recommending the "best" credit card is hard to do as everyone's spending habits and travel habits are different. I always look for the card that gives me the most points in restaurants, travel, grocery stores, and home improvement stores, as that is where the bulk of my big spending is. Then I look for a card with built-in consumer protection, such as primary on rental cars or extended warranties. Before I got the Sapphire Reserve, my "go to" card with Chase Sapphire Platinum, which is $95/year. Well worth it for use of the chase travel portal, where I can book everything from airfare to activities via points. Rental cars can be especially good deal when you use points. I'm talking 35,000 points for a week's SUV rental on Grand Cayman. That's a good return given I got double points for travel and restaurants.

When I was paying college bills, I also liked the CapOne Venture (?) card because I got double miles on everything, including the semi-annual tuition bills.

 

[duke]

Best "Downgrade" is to Chase Freedom Unlimited - 1.5 ultimate rewards points per $. No annual fee.
Best all around card is Fidelity Investments Rewards 2% cash back on everything. No annual fee.

However, keeping Sapphire Reserve costs only $150 (as Lisa said) after $300 travel credit and you get Primary Rental Car Insurance and 3x points which are worth 1.5 cents each for a 4.5% return.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I am never cancelling the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We pay a lot of MF's, and 3X for almost all of them, plus any travel we do at 3X. And when we need to renew our PRE, we will have our cards for that. I told our son and daughter-in-law we could pay their PRE as well. Maybe I am wrong on that, but their last name is the same, so why not?

It's the Starwood Amex I am going to cancel, unless I can make sense keeping it.

 

[tschwa2]

I am never cancelling the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We pay a lot of MF's, and 3X for almost all of them, plus any travel we do at 3X. And when we need to renew our PRE, we will have our cards for that. I told our son and daughter-in-law we could pay their PRE as well. Maybe I am wrong on that, but their last name is the same, so why not?

It's the Starwood Amex I am going to cancel, unless I can make sense keeping it.

You get the Pre benefit every 4 years when you pay for the PRE or Global entry- it doesn't matter who it is for.

Global Entry or TSA Pre✓® Application Fee Statement Credit
To be eligible for this statement credit you must use your Chase Sapphire Reserve℠ card to either complete the Global Entry application and pay the $100 application fee, or complete the TSA Pre✓® application and pay the $85 application fee. A statement credit will be processed after the Global Entry program application fee OR TSA Pre✓® application fee (whichever program is applied for first) is charged to your Chase Sapphire Reserve℠ card. You are entitled to either: one (1) $100 statement credit per account, OR one (1) $85 statement credit per account, every 4 years in connection with the Global Entry or TSA Pre✓® program application fee. The statement credit will be posted to your account within 24 hours of the Global Entry or TSA Pre✓® program application fee being charged to your card. You are responsible for payment of all charges until the statement credit posts to the account.

 

[VacationForever]

I am never cancelling the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We pay a lot of MF's, and 3X for almost all of them, plus any travel we do at 3X. And when we need to renew our PRE, we will have our cards for that. I told our son and daughter-in-law we could pay their PRE as well. Maybe I am wrong on that, but their last name is the same, so why not?

It's the Starwood Amex I am going to cancel, unless I can make sense keeping it.

For the 1x purchase like grocery store or pharmacy and doctor's office, SPG is a better card. I am keeping all my cards and will cancel my husband's Chase Reserve when the year is up, and add him as a supplemental card holder.

 

[rickandcindy23]

For the 1x purchase like grocery store or pharmacy and doctor's office, SPG is a better card. I am keeping all my cards and will cancel my husband's Chase Reserve when the year is up, and add him as a supplemental card holder.

What do you do with the points? Booking airfare directly through the Starwood portal is not a good deal for me. I used to transfer points to Alaska, but I can rarely get a 1st class ticket to Hawaii from the coast for 40K, and so I buy those tickets using UR points. I notice the same thing with Hawaiian Airlines. It's just tough to get those 40K FC seats.

Which airline is worth of those points? Or do you use hotels in the system? I would love to know how to get value out of that card, because it's getting close to cancel time. If I can get value from it, I will keep it.

I have a Capital One Venture, 2X cash back on everything. A $2,000 spend gives me $40 back.

 

[VacationForever]

What do you do with the points? Booking airfare directly through the Starwood portal is not a good deal for me. I used to transfer points to Alaska, but I can rarely get a 1st class ticket to Hawaii from the coast for 40K, and so I buy those tickets using UR points. I notice the same thing with Hawaiian Airlines. It's just tough to get those 40K FC seats.

Which airline is worth of those points? Or do you use hotels in the system? I would love to know how to get value out of that card, because it's getting close to cancel time. If I can get value from it, I will keep it.

I have a Capital One Venture, 2X cash back on everything. A $2,000 spend gives me $40 back.

The best use is to convert to Marriott points for 3X points and then book a travel package. I have booked several travel packages...transferring the airline side of the travel packages to Hawaiian Airlines, Delta Airlines and United. I don't travel on Southwest unless they are the only non stop option for my destination. I have booked First Class round trip seats on Hawaiian twice, First class on Delta (round trip to New York, one way from Rome to US), United round trip to Asia etc...

For the hotel side, I have used on Westin in Seattle, Napa and Florence, Marriott in San Jose, Rome, New York and Singapore, Sheraton in Singapore, just to name a few recent stays.
I don't pay for airline tickets or hotel stays anymore.

 

[Westnick]

Just FYI. The chase sapphire reserve card with 100k bonus points is still available. The branch manager at chase informed me of that. They are no longer offering it online. You have to go to the local branch to get that promotion. Offer ends march 12. Just in case anyone is still interested.

 

[DavidnRobin]

So...
somewhat tangential, but have an update on CSR UR and AMEX SPs usage - for us.

I had converted SPs to AA miles last Aug during their promotion and was able to finally able to use those miles to book SF-NYC for 100K AA miles in 1st Class for the both of us. 25K each way.

Then used SPs to stay at Le Parker Meridien NYC by Central Park - 100K for 6nites (hopefully get some Gold love).

I looked into using UR points, but the SP usage was a way better deal (for our needs - location) than using UR points.

This turns into a relatively inexpensive trip to NYC basically on SPs. Finally get to take Robin to NYC (her 1st time).
And great to reduce points as not to hold them too long.
Now to use those UR points - at least not forced to use for travel.

Our GEOS interview is finally coming up...

 

[rickandcindy23]

Still tickled pink with this card and will never let it go. Chase will have to get mad at me and cancel it, if we are taking too much for granted here. We have over 300K miles in each of our accounts currently, and I have spent a bunch on First Class tickets out of Oakland to/from Hawaii for our next two trips.

I transfer our points from the other Chase Ink cards to get 1.5, instead of 1.25. We do about 500K points on those ink cards.

I am hoping to get first class seats through United, or some other airline, for a trip to Europe next year. I don't even care what time of day we travel, since it's first class, and I don't care what day of the week we go, since we are staying in hotels and going on a Viking River cruise in the middle of the trip.

I have to use the portal for the trip, so United seems a good choice, but there is also British Airways. The fuel surcharges our daughter pays for her European trips via BA seem crazy to me, but they use two companion passes to fly the kids free with them.

Where do you think my miles are best used?

 

[VacationForever]

Still tickled pink with this card and will never let it go. Chase will have to get mad at me and cancel it, if we are taking too much for granted here. We have over 300K miles in each of our accounts currently, and I have spent a bunch on First Class tickets out of Oakland to/from Hawaii for our next two trips.

I transfer our points from the other Chase Ink cards to get 1.5, instead of 1.25. We do about 500K points on those ink cards.

I am hoping to get first class seats through United, or some other airline, for a trip to Europe next year. I don't even care what time of day we travel, since it's first class, and I don't care what day of the week we go, since we are staying in hotels and going on a Viking River cruise in the middle of the trip.

I have to use the portal for the trip, so United seems a good choice, but there is also British Airways. The fuel surcharges our daughter pays for her European trips via BA seem crazy to me, but they use two companion passes to fly the kids free with them.

Where do you think my miles are best used?

If you transfer the points directly to United, you can get the first class tickets for fewer points...

We only fly first or business... we are planning on blowing through 700K UA points, several courtesy of Chase, for our round trip Polaris business class on United to Asia, for a cruise there...

 

[elleny76]

Still tickled pink with this card and will never let it go. Chase will have to get mad at me and cancel it, if we are taking too much for granted here. We have over 300K miles in each of our accounts currently, and I have spent a bunch on First Class tickets out of Oakland to/from Hawaii for our next two trips.

I transfer our points from the other Chase Ink cards to get 1.5, instead of 1.25. We do about 500K points on those ink cards.
?

That's a lot of points..cool! I got my 100K points and I booked 15 days to go 2 countries in Europe but only economy flight for my complete family.( First class was 170k miles just 1 person) I am still happy about it but would love to collect more points (500K points is a dream!)

 

[rickandcindy23]

Unfortunately, the card I used to get the 500K points per year is no longer available. I just hope Chase lets us keep the card because it's been the absolute best card for building points and miles. 5X on office supply, phones, cable and satellite and internet. We buy Visa gift cards at Staples online to get the 5X for office supplies. Very fragile system we are exploiting. We have been doing it for about 3 years. Now we are just hoping the card gets renewed next month and doesn't have reduced benefits. That would break my heart.

 

[farsighted99]

Unfortunately, the card I used to get the 500K points per year is no longer available. I just hope Chase lets us keep the card because it's been the absolute best card for building points and miles. 5X on office supply, phones, cable and satellite and internet. We buy Visa gift cards at Staples online to get the 5X for office supplies. Very fragile system we are exploiting. We have been doing it for about 3 years. Now we are just hoping the card gets renewed next month and doesn't have reduced benefits. That would break my heart.

You mean the ink card? I doubt they are dropping that. I have a couple of those (an INK Cash, and an INK Plus). I think you are grandfathered in, though they might not offer it to new users. I usually don't bother buying GC for only 5% extra, since there is usually a fee, but I guy a lot of office supplies at Staples. I also pay the phone, cable, etc. with it. The gift cards from PayPal Digital Gifts which they sell on eBay give you that 5% plus you can usually get a gift card that has a hefty discount.

 

[rickandcindy23]

You mean the ink card? I doubt they are dropping that. I have a couple of those (an INK Cash, and an INK Plus). I think you are grandfathered in, though they might not offer it to new users. I usually don't bother buying GC for only 5% extra, since there is usually a fee, but I guy a lot of office supplies at Staples. I also pay the phone, cable, etc. with it. The gift cards from PayPal Digital Gifts which they sell on eBay give you that 5% plus you can usually get a gift card that has a hefty discount.

5% is not what it is, though. It's 5X. 5X is different from 5% cash back. I have the old Ink Bold MC and Ink Plus Visa. If I buy a $300 gift card at Staples, $308.95 purchase X 5 = 1,544.75 points for the $8.95 fee. 1,544.75 points is worth a lot in SW or in the UR portal. It's worth about 3X what we pay. If you have the 5% cash back, that is different. I am no math wiz, believe me, but I know the value or UR points, either transferred or using through the portal.

100,000 UR points = $1,500 so 1,500 points = $22.50. 1,544.75 points = $23.17. The $8.95 fee on the card also gets 5X. That is nearly 3X the value. SW value is slightly higher, though not much. Totally worth it to me. We do our max $50K spend per year on those cards, so 500K points annually. I haven't paid a dime for airfare in four years. I always use points through the portal or SW.

 

[Jason245]

5% is not what it is, though. It's 5X. 5X is different from 5% cash back. I have the old Ink Bold MC and Ink Plus Visa. If I buy a $300 gift card at Staples, $308.95 purchase X 5 = 1,544.75 points for the $8.95 fee. 1,544.75 points is worth a lot in SW or in the UR portal. It's worth about 3X what we pay. If you have the 5% cash back, that is different. I am no math wiz, believe me, but I know the value or UR points, either transferred or using through the portal.

100,000 UR points = $1,500 so 1,500 points = $22.50. 1,544.74 points = $23.17 That is nearly 3X the value. SW value is slightly higher, though not much. Totally worth it to me. We do our max $50K spend per year on those cards, so 500K points annually. I haven't paid a dime for airfare in four years. I always use points through the portal or SW.

Assuming all your spend is on gift cards you have around 1.4k in fees a year for that 50k (or 2.8k if you have two cards).

The real question to ask is how do you spend 100k per year or liquidate those gift cards...

Currently I buy amazon gift cards on the ink from office depot to get a nice discount on my subscribe and save stuff.. and I use the chase saphire reserve for normal amazon spend (price protection insurance payments usually exceed the 7 percent benefit on non subscribe and save items).. that being said. I can only legitimately spend about 2400 a year on amazon subscribe and save, and 2k a year or so on cell and TV.





Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[rickandcindy23]

The real question to ask is how do you spend 100k per year or liquidate those gift cards...

We take the gift cards to Walmart and get money orders with them. It's easy to do in Colorado. Then we deposit those to our checking account at the credit union. They are as good as cash. We have had zero problems doing this over the last four years. I didn't think of this myself. I got the idea from Flyertalk.

Our fees are substantial, but as I said, we get almost 3X the value. It's easy to do and worth the effort for us. Our son does the same with his old Chase Ink Bold.

It's 500K points, which is worth $7,500 through the UR portal and more through SW.

If we did the 100K spend entirely with gift cards (some is Dish Network, cell phone, internet), it would be a cost of $2,896 for 500K points. We transfer the points to Chase Sapphire Reserve at 1.5X. That makes a difference, too.

 

[farsighted99]

yeah, you are right, it's points not cash back, so it is a bit more valuable if you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve.

I don't like doing what is basically called Manufactured Spend (in other words, you aren't really buying anything, just moving money around). It's too much like money laundering. I'm nervous about being flagged for that. If it works for you, great. Though I think the credit card companies are trying to come up with a way to nix that type of stuff ... if they figure it out they can yank your points back.

I had a real fantastic offer from American Express in Jan. for their business cards where I could buy $1250 worth of stuff at Sam's Club at one time and get 20% credited back ($250) for each transaction (we had the offer on several cards) and I bought half Sam's Gift cards and the other half Vanilla Visa cards. However, I decided to use the Visa cards paying bills and buying stuff, and I still have a lot left of the Sam's gift cards... I made quite a bit of money... but that kind of stuff makes me a bit nervous. Plus the outlay of cash was pretty brutal. I know I could sell the Sam's cards online, but I don't want that hassle. So I'll just use them at Sam's. One thing, you can use them to buy liquor.

 

[VacationForever]

"Money laundering" is way too much work and makes my head hurt just reading it.

We have 4 cards that we use. Chase Sapphire for dining and non-Marriott/SPG/Vistana travel spending. SPG Amex for the 1X type of spending - doctor's, groceries, and SPG/Vistana MF and stays. Marriott Visa at Marriott stays and MF. I think we can get rid of the Marriott Visa but maybe next year. Costco Visa for Costco and gas. Costco Visa is the only free card. Marriott's free night pays for itself only if I can use the night. I have been letting it go unused.

 

[Jason245]

We take the gift cards to Walmart and get money orders with them. It's easy to do in Colorado. Then we deposit those to our checking account at the credit union. They are as good as cash. We have had zero problems doing this over the last four years. I didn't think of this myself. I got the idea from Flyertalk.

Our fees are substantial, but as I said, we get almost 3X the value. It's easy to do and worth the effort for us. Our son does the same with his old Chase Ink Bold.

It's 500K points, which is worth $7,500 through the UR portal and more through SW.

If we did the 100K spend entirely with gift cards (some is Dish Network, cell phone, internet), it would be a cost of $2,896 for 500K points. We transfer the points to Chase Sapphire Reserve at 1.5X. That makes a difference, too.

Walmart has gotten finicky in south Florida with that. But it is a solid liquidation meathod until walmart says no (I have known people banned from Walmart money centers)..



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[rickandcindy23]

Money laundering is illegal, people, while this is not. How is it like money laundering? If I sold pot I grow in basement and then deposit it in our chimney cleaning business account, which is a legitimate business, but selling pot isn't, THAT would be money laundering.

It isn't illegal to buy gift cards with credit cards, or the stores wouldn't do it. It is not illegal to buy a money order with a Visa Gift Card, or the stores wouldn't do it. And it's not illegal to deposit money orders into a bank account. It's not money laundering, and it's not kiting either.

There are dozens of threads on flyertalk for anyone interested in doing what we do. It's profitable and almost too easy. It is fragile, however. Fragile because my credit union could start limiting MO deposits. Walmart could stop selling money orders with debit cards. Staples could stop selling VGC's. And finally, Chase could put an end to 5X on office supplies, or they could just shut down our accounts. So far, so good. But I don't take anything for granted, nor would I buy $20K in gift cards at once. I buy six at a time, liquidate, then buy another six.

 

[dioxide45]

mon·ey laun·der·ing
noun

1. the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses.

It certainly isn't money laundering by definition.