Tag Archives: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

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Reconsideration Strategy for Credit Card Annual Fees During Coronavirus Pandemic

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Good morning everyone.  After reading recent articles by Omar @ Travel Summary (It’s Time to Reduce Your Credit Card Annual Fees) and Doctor of Credit (Credit Card Annual Fee Due? Remember To Ask For A Retention Offer Before Cancelling), I decided to take a look at my credit cards, their annual fees, and whether or not they are worth keeping going forward.  I will share my strategy for organizing my credit cards and my recent call with US Bank regarding my US Bank Altitude Reserve Credit Card.

I opened up my master credit card spreadsheet and looked at all the credit cards, debit cards, and authorized user cards in the table (68 total cards).  I then removed all my debit cards and authorized user cards and was left with 42 credit cards in my name or Laura’s name.  I then removed all the no annual fee credit cards and was left with 25 credit cards that have annual fees.  The annual fees totaled $4,134.  If you are curious about why we pay so much in annual fees, read I Paid $4,588 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2019 & Was it Worth it?  Here are the credit cards sorted by card name:

Credit Card Name AF Credit Card Name AF
AMEX Business Platinum $595 Chase Sapphire Reserve $450
AMEX Gold $250 Chase Southwest Airlines Priority (Laura) $149
AMEX Hilton Honors Aspire $450 Chase World of Hyatt (Laura) $95
AMEX Platinum Delta SkyMiles $195 Citi AT&T Access More 1 $95
Banco Popular Avianca Vuela $149 Citi AT&T Access More 2 $95
Bank of America Alaska Airlines (Laura) $75 Citi AT&T Access More 3 $95
Capital One Venture Rewards (Laura) $59 Citi Premier $95
Chase Hyatt Hotels $75 US Bank Altitude Reserve $400
Chase IHG Rewards Premier $89 US Bank Radisson Rewards Business $60
Chase IHG Rewards Select $49 US Bank Radisson Rewards Premier Visa Sig 1 $75
Chase Ink Plus $95 US Bank Radisson Rewards Premier Visa Sig 2 $75
Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless $95 Wells Fargo Propel World $175
Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business $99 Total Annual Fees $4,134

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Work from Home Diary 3: Upcoming Travel Plans (Cancel Now or Wait it Out?)

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Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday.  I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.  For today’s update, I wanted to discuss upcoming travel plans and my plans for those trips.  As of today, I have 4 trips on the books.  These trips are not set in stone and could be cancelled by myself or the airlines before departure depending upon how things are going in the world.  We are taking things slowly and focusing on 1 day at a time.

Trip 1 – Mother’s Day Weekend

My next trip is in mid-May for Mother’s Day Weekend.  I was planning on flying down from San Francisco (SFO) to Orange County (SNA) to visit my parents and grandparents.  I have flown down for Mother’s Day weekend for the last few years and enjoy seeing my family.  This trip was booked with Citi Thank You Points for basic economy travel on Alaska Airlines.  If the situation in California remains the same (all Californias are told to stay home to prevent the spread of coronavirus), I will probably cancel my trip and hold onto travel funds for a future trip.

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Mother’s Day dinner in St Kitts (2017)

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$5 TurboTax Chase Offer Triggered with State Tax Return E-File

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Good afternoon everyone.  If you are working on your taxes this weekend and using TurboTax, don’t forget about the $5 TurboTax Chase Offer.  $5 is not much, but it’s better than nothing.  The Chase Offer expires on April 30, 2020, and should be triggered with any TurboTax purchase.  I saw the same TurboTax offer on all my personal Chase credit cards but I decided to add and use the offer on my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card since Chase Ultimate Reward Points are more valuable than Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG points.

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My Travel Philosophy for Redeeming Miles vs. Paying Cash for Flights (w/ Account Balances as of March 2020)

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I just finished listening to the Miles to Memories podcast (latest episode) and enjoyed listening to them talk about Disney when they redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights.  I don’t have a hard and fast rule that I live by, so I thought it would be fun to share my travel philosophy of when I redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights.  I specifically mention flights because I plan to write a similar article about hotels and didn’t want to make this article too long.  Lastly, when I use the word cash, that could mean paying for the flight with a credit card, or paying with an airline gift card, or using credit card rewards to pay for the flight – basically anything other than booking an award ticket with airline miles.

I also think it is important to share how many credit card reward points I have, since my thinking would be much different if I had 1,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points vs. 1 million Chase Ultimate Reward Points.  With that said, here are my transferable points balances, as of March 2020, from smallest to largest:

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Staples Chase Offer: $30 / $20 / $10 Off $100 Purchases (Found on Biz Cards)

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Good afternoon everyone, I was catching up on Doctor of Credit (it’s almost a full time job to read everything they publish on a daily basis) and just read the post Chase Offers: Save Up To 30% At Staples (Business & Personal Offers).  The post is a few days old, but I am glad I read it.  I had no idea that Staples had a new Chase Offer where you could get $30, $20, or $10 back on a $100 purchase.  As luck would have it, I have 3 business credit cards that each received a different offer ($30 on Chase Ink Cash, $20 on Chase Ink Plus, and $10 on Marriott Biz).  I loaded the offers to my business credit cards and drove to my local Staples.

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