Credit Card - Travel Rewards

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clonefromNE

Active Member
SuperFanatic
Oct 27, 2006
494
55
28
Boston
My wife and I are currently looking to get credit cards with travel rewards. We are looking at either the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier or Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Either between these two or in general...what travel rewards credit card do you have or what is the best?
 

Macloney

Well-Known Member
Feb 28, 2014
5,194
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Up Nort
When I traveled for work I used a Hilton Honors Amex and it was staggering at the amount of points I was able to accumulate.

Back in the day I had a Northwest Airlines debit card and now my bank offers nothing for debit cards.
 
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IASTATE07

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
May 30, 2016
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I have the Southwest card. If they still do the companion pass you and your wife should each get a card when it's 50,000 bonus points.
 

clonefromNE

Active Member
SuperFanatic
Oct 27, 2006
494
55
28
Boston
I have the Southwest card. If they still do the companion pass you and your wife should each get a card when it's 50,000 bonus points.

I don't think getting cards for each of us (separate rapid rewards accounts) would work because all of the 110,000 points have to be on one account to get the companion pass.

We mainly fly Southwest but cannot always. Because of that, I like that you can get 2x points on all dining and travel purchases with Chase Sapphire Preferred and the points can be transferred to Southwest at 1:1. Southwest RR card you only get 2x points on Southwest purchases.

I'm leaning towards the Chase card, but the sticking point is that with Southwest's card you get an annual bonus of 6,000 points. With Chase Sapphire Preferred you get no annual bonus. So you'd have to spend enough on dining and travel (uber, tolls, hotels, flights, mass-transit) to make up for the annual free points given on the Southwest card.
 

CYme

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
4,009
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Pella, IA
The CSR has enough other perks that the annual fee is nominal and the flexibility is worth it. Not dinging SW, if you can swing the companion pass it is a heck of a deal.
 
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