Daily Discussion Thread - October 18, 2017

I have six annual fees coming up, and want to get some advice.

# Card Date AF Anniversary
1 JetBlue Plus Nov 16 $99 5,000 pts
2 Chase Sapphire Reserve Nov 16 $450 $300 Travel
3 Chase Ink Plus Dec 16 $95
4 JetBlue Business Plus Jan 17 $99 5,000 pts
5 AmEx SPG Personal Apr 17 $95
6 AmEx SPG Business Apr 17 $95

JetBlue Cards

  • Pros: 20% rebate on point redemption, 10k in anniversary points (12.5k with the rebates), Free checked bags. I also MS'ed to Mosaic status, which is nice to have.
  • Cons: Can't think of any.
  • Analysis: I value TB points at 1.4 cents, so the anniversary points offset the AF by $175. AF is effectively $23. Those $23 are offset by the 25% points generated by an additional 6,500 point redemptions which is easy to MS. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Does my analysis sound fair?

Ink Plus

  • Pros: Great MS card with 50k category spending. $1,900 in MS will generate the $95 cash needed for the AF. It can be offset by less if I still have the Reserve.

  • Cons: I barely hit 10k in category spending, so I didn't really exploit it. I've also moved over 400 in monthly cell phone bills onto the Ink Preferred for the Cell Phone Protection.

  • Analysis: Ink Cash can do 25k of that category spending with no AF. If I get another Chase business card and PC to a 2nd Ink Cash, I could hit the 50k MS opportunity if I wanted to. So should I just cut the Ink Plus now that I have the Ink Preferred?

AmEX SPG

Pros: SPG status, Boingo Hotspots, AmEx offers, and valuable Starpoints for everyday spending. Also, Executive Lounge benefit for the SPG Business card.

Cons: I just got the Biz Plat, and have a higher SPG status, along with the hotspots and AmEX offers. I put all my everyday spending on churning, so I can't really exploit starpoints.

Analysis:I've never used the lounge benefit, but it might be useful in the future. Biz Plat will expire 6 months after the SPG, so I might want to keep one to have the Boingo and SPG status benefits for 2019. But Even if I keep the SPG Business, is there any benefit to keep both SPG cards? Unlike the JetBlue cards, this doesn't seem readily apparent.

/r/churning Thread