daveberk

A few months ago I went out to dinner at a fancy Brazilian steakhouse with 16 other people. I offered to put the entire tab on my card. Miraculously, everybody was set to pay cash. I collected the cash and paid the $1500 check on Chase Sapphire Reserve which earned 4500 points. I was satisfied with that, but as I left the restaurant, I received a text from Mog'l (a restaurant cashback program linked to my CSR) saying that I earned $93. Then I got an email from the United dine program that I had earned 7500 miles. I didn't choose the restaurant and had no idea that I would end up getting a free meal plus 12,000 points to eat at this fabulous restaurant.

I don't see this making sense in most situations. It could be useful if you need to top off miles to get an award that you need right away-- like grandma died and you have only 23K and need 25K to get to the funeral.

After writing my last post, I read the article and saw that this is a business class deal. That's huge! You could supplement this itinerary through purchasing tickets to other destinations in Europe and Asia on cheap regional carriers.

That's an ambitious itinerary for two weeks. It averages two days in each city.

Agree with Kat and Konrad. You should reduce the balance on Citi and try to raise some of your credit lines before you apply. If you have 5 or more accounts opened in the past two years, Chase will automatically deny you based on that. 10% util. is not bad but you will probably get a FICO bump for slightly less util and probably an even bigger bump for not having Citi maxed out even though overall util. is good. While the annual fee is waived on CSP the first year, you might want to think about the Chase Reserve card because it offers 3X for travel and dining. That's 50% more point value for transactions in these categories. You also get 1.5x on points used to book through the Chase travel portal. I think the CSP only gives you 1.25. The annual fee on the CSR is $450 and not waived the first year. But you do get a $300 travel credit automatically applied to your account on qualifying transactions which effectively reduces the annual fee to $150. If you don't have global entry, the CSR will reimburse the $100 application fee which further reduces the out of pocket cost of the card in the first year to $50. Given your anticipated spend, you will easily make that up quickly. Also you get a priority pass membership which allows you and your family entry into over a thousand lounges around the world. The minimum credit line on the CSR is $10K which is why fattening up your existing credit lines a bit could improve your chances.

It's a good thing, OP, that your account is noted member since 87 because the front line reps, at least, and maybe everyone up the chain who doesn't dig deeper, thinks you've been a member continuously since 87. Might help you get what you want when you call CS.

Just guessing here like everybody else. But suppose you have a bunch of negatives with no positives and convictions for fraud? You might get to 300. Bernie Madoff may be at 300.

Amex plat offered only 10K MR this time around. Last year I got 25K and they mentioned it when I called. Also said they only do this every 13 months and I was one month short but there would be no guarantee of a better offer if I waited.

I've never gotten a retention offer from Chase. If anyone has, I'd love to know their secret.

OP, you're not alone. Mine shows the same thing.

I had my wallet stolen a few months ago and had to replace four cards. None of my reports reference "card lost/stolen." for any of them. The cards I replaced were Amex, Citi, Cap.1, and Chase.

I booked a RT award ticket on Delta from SFO to UIO in J class. 80,000 miles. On the first leg, SFO-LAX I was on Delta in economy. Not a big deal for a one hour flight. The rest of the itinerary was on Aeromexico including the return. Once in Ecuador, I needed to delay the return flight by two days. I called Delta to arrange it expecting to be charged the $150 change fee. I was told that there was no space available in J class and that I would have to fly economy. The $150 was charged to my card as $154+ change. I'm not sure why. Delta also demanded 5,000 miles on top of the $150 fee and $80 to move me out of the middle seat they first offered to a window seat. When my boarding pass was issued in Quito, I noticed that I didn't have precheck on the ATL-SFO leg. I went to an agent in ATL to fix it and they said nothing could be done even though my trusted traveler number was in their system and I had been precheck on Delta from SFO to LAX under the same reservation number. The security line was extremely long. When we got on the early morning flight, the attendant announced they would not be serving coffee or tea because of a water crisis in ATL. I checked into this later and found out that the water problem was limited to the southern reaches of the city, not remotely close to the airport, and that people were simply being told to boil water as a precaution which is exactly what you do to make coffee or tea. Nothing consumer-friendly about this experience with Delta.

$47,700/$6,000 card opened at $20,000/$6,000

Using bill paying services rather than personally paying the creditor directly at their website has always made me a little nervous. Same with dropping a payment in the mail instead of paying online.

Depends on the bank and possibly the profile of the customer.