New Cards - Citi Thank You Prestige and Chase Ink Plus

This month, we decided to open up a few more credit cards as our rewards balances started running low.

Citi Thank You Prestige
First, my father signed up for the Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard. The regular offer is as follows:

A. 50,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.
B. $450 annual fee (not waived)

However, instead of applying online, my father went to a physical Citi branch office and applied with a real life banker. Why? Because the sign up offer he was given was as follows:

A. 30,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.
B. Additional 30,000 Thank You points after spending a total of $15,000 in 12 months (so $12k more after spending the first $3k)
C. $350 annual fee (forever)

But even $350 just to have the card in our wallet is a lot of money. There's been tons of other websites that sell explain the benefits, but here's why my father signed up.

• $250 each calendar year of Airline Reimbursement. So for 2015 and 2016, we can get back $500 of total airfare spend (which in my family, is as good as cash) before our first card member year comes.
• $100 Global Entry Application reimbursement. My parents and I already have Global Entry, but my grandmother does not. Since Citi doesn't really know or care WHO specifically applied for Global Entry, we can use our Prestige card to pay for my grandmother's application fee. 
• 4th Night Free Hotel Benefit. We haven't yet used this feature, but given how much we travel, it's a safe bet that we'll have an opportunity over the next 12 months. But even if all of 2016 comes and goes without us using this perk, we'll still have done better than the $350 fee.
• Free American Airlines Club Lounge Access. We don't often fly American Airlines, but if we ever did, I'm sure we'd prefer stopping at the lounge before our flight.

Chase Ink Plus

The second card we opened was the Chase Ink Plus card which comes with $95 annual fee, but also with a 60,000 Ultimate Rewards point bonus (after spending $5,000 in 3 months).

This card, however, is for small businesses. Luckily for us, my father had an eligible small business that needed a new business card. 

While this offer did not waive the $95 annual fee the first year, it did come with an extra 10,000 bonus points more than the standard 50k offer, which we value at $200 (2 cents/pt). 

So it was a good trade off, especially since we just redeemed 150,000 Chase UR points for 2 rooms at the Andaz Papagayo for 5 nights each at our upcoming Costa Rica vacation. That redemption gave us a value of 2.4 cents/point.

So now, we have to spend approximately $8,000 in November, December and January and another $12,000 through October 2016. Of course, the entire point of this game is to NOT spend more than we would otherwise in our regular lives, so it will be a matter of shifting our everyday spend onto these cards (groceries, gas, bills, restaurants, etc).

High Spend Targets

As you know, we accumulate a lot of our frequent flyer miles, hotel points and bank reward points through credit cards.

Most of the benefit, however, comes from initially signing up and reaching the minimum spend (which ranges from $1,000-5,000 within 3 months most of the time).

Some also offer perks just for having the card (priority hotel elite status, priority boarding on airlines).

Then there's the spending bonuses for using your card at certain merchant types (2-5x at groceries, office supply stores, hotels).

The fourth type of benefit is for reaching high levels of spend in a given year. These targets have rewards that are very attractive to people like my father who enjoy gaming the system. There are several cards that have these high spend targets, but we'll only discuss the ones my parents have actively. You can research the rest on your own.

Chase Select Visa - $25,000

For example, for spending $25,000 a year on our Chase United Select Visa allows United MileagePlus members to avoid the Premier Qualifying Dollar (PQD) threshold for earning elite status. Normally to hit United Silver, you'd have to fly 25,000 miles AND spend at least $3,000 in base fares.

Given we take advantage of super cheap fares (such as the $815 fare to NYC from Tel Aviv or the $266 flights to Costa Rica), we hardly ever reached the PQD minimums for United Silver or Gold status.

Citi Hilton Reserve Visa - $10,000

Another example is the $10,000 spend on the Citi Hilton Reserve Visa. For doing so, we get a free Hilton Weekend Night Certificate good for just about ANY Hilton property in the world.

Last year, we used it for my grandmother's stay at the Conrad Hong Kong). Normally, the Conrad Hong Kong would cost 80,000 Hilton HHonors points, so this certificate was a great value for my family. And since we hit $10,000 this year as well, we'll get another free weekend night certificate to use in 2016.

And if we ever hit $40,000 in a year, we'd get upgraded to top tier Hilton Diamond status. That sounds pretty amazing, but we question if the incremental benefits of being Diamond (vs. a mid-tier Gold which already gets you free breakfasts) is worth it. After all, that's an extra $30k of spend we'd have to forego on our other cards.

Starwood SPG American Express - $30,000

Our Starwood SPG American Express also offers mid-tier SPG Gold status if you spend $30,000 in a year. For late checkout and a modest room upgrade to a better view, it's a nice mid-tier status to have.

But since my father has Platinum status, we don't go out of our way to hit this SPG Amex high spend goal -- though admittedly, some years we hit it without actively trying to do so.

Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard - $15,000

This card doesn't really fall into the same category as the others. Rather than being a recurring high spend benefit, the Citi Thank You Prestige card offer we received when we signed up was as follows: 30,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months PLUS another 30,000 TY points for spending $15,000 in the first 12 months.

The "regular" offer is 50,000 miles after spending $3,000 with a $450 annual fee, but my father wanted the special $350 annual fee offer which happened to be the 60k points for $15k spend in the first year offer.

Conclusion
Having been fortunate enough to hit both the United Visa and Hilton Reserve Visa targets earlier this 2015 year, now we can focus our extra spend on the $15,000 target for the Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard over the next 11 months, having already hit the $3,000 first target in Month 1.

But as soon as January 1, 2016 comes around, we're back to the races with the United and Hilton Reserve Visa cards. Thank goodness for being able to use our 5 Nationwide Buxx cards to load/unload $5,000 each month.

Points and Mile Totals

Some of my classmates at pre-school have been asking me lately how many points and miles we have. I generally just say "this much" as I stretch out my hands, but in the interest of transparency, I'm willing to share our family totals to all 3 loyal readers of Lap Child Diaries.

Airlines
American AAdvantage - 600,000 miles
United MileagePlus - 400,000 miles
British Airways Avios - 215,000 miles
Aegean Airlines - 60,000 miles

Hotels
IHG Rewards Club - 113,000 points
Hilton HHonors - 104,000 points
Starwood SPG - 102,000 points
Club Carlson - 18,000 points
Hyatt Gold Passport- 600 points

Bank Rewards
Chase Ultimate Rewards - 392,000 points
Citi Thank You Points - 165,000 points

Now clearly, there are families (and even individuals) out there that have 1,000x more than we do, so we're really not trying to show off. We're just answering a question we get often, and there's no shame/pride here.

The truth is that these points and miles will only decrease in value over time. Programs "devalue" their points from time to time by increasing the prices for award redemptions, so we recommend not hoarding these rebate currencies. Cash you can save, but with loyalty points and miles, you should "earn and burn" as quickly as possible!

Any good redemption ideas for us?

Tightening Credit

I've been busy the past few months trying to figure out how to spell my name, so that I too can start applying for travel reward credit cards.

Why? Because my parents are starting to hit their limits. Many of the desirable credit cards these days don't let you earn the sign up bonus again and again. For example, American Express only allows you to earn the sign up bonus 1x per lifetime (for their personal cards). Given my parents have had all the good Amex cards already, they're done.

Additionally, I think they're starting to hit their limit with other banks as well. Notably, Chase is less interested in giving them more and more Chase Ultimate Rewards sign up bonuses.

Last month, my father's Ink Bold card (the business charge card for his painting company) was coming up on on its first anniversary. That meant his free first year was over, and that he would be charged $95 to keep the Ink Bold card for another 12 months. His plan, however, was to apply for the Ink Plus (credit card) and earn another 50,000 Chase UR points as a sign up bonus since it was a different product from the Ink Bold.

However, when he applied, his application went pending. When he called the Business Credit Card Reconsideration number – (800) 453-9719 – he was grilled on the painting business' financial performance. While it was easy to open a credit card for a new business venture, it was actually harder to open one up for an existing one. Go figure!

They mentioned something about the business not being old enough, not enough profitability, already having enough credit extended to him.

Now, my father knew all the counter-arguments to respond with:

• "I have a perfect payment history"
• "I have an 800 FICO credit score"
• "I'm willing to close my Bold card so it's not extending me any additional credit"

But nothing would change their mind. Perhaps they just realized my father wasn't going to be a profitable customer. After all, paying out all those UR points on Office Supply store and Telecom spend costs Chase money - likely more than they're making on transaction swipe fees.

Because the card is worth keeping (5x on office supply stores and telecom spend, 2x on gas), we earn more value in bonus points each year more than makes up for the $95 annual fee. However, my father will likely close his 2nd Chase Ink Bold card that he has for his consulting business. No need for two annual fees.

Well, if this gravy train is coming to an end, then so be it. Back to the drawing board...

Retention Year 2

Last year, my father called up his favorite banks and asked if there were any offers to compel him to keep their credit cards open for another year. After all, spending $65-95 every year for each premium credit card can start to add up... especially when we have 30+ cards. So either (a) the banks will have to give him more than that in value each year or (b) will have to waive the fee.

Some cards that we will keep open forever include the Starwood American Express cards (as it helps us re-qualify for Starwood Platinum status each year, offers 2x on Starwood spend and has great Amex promotions) and United Select Visa (as it helps my father re-qualify for United Gold status each year and offers 3x on United spend).

But coincidentally, these were the ones we threatened to cancel last year in the hopes to receive an attractive retention offer. Recall that last year, my father received 2,000 SPG points in exchange for paying the $65 annual fee for his SPG Amex and an additional 5,000 United miles for paying the $95 annual fee for his United Select Visa.

But every year is different.

This time around, my father called Amex and asked to be transferred to an Amex Retention Specialist. My father said he was doing some planning for which credit cards to use and which to cancel for 2015, then asked if there were any upcoming Amex promotions he should know about. Unfortunately, he was told that since he received a promotional offer last year, he was ineligible for another one this year. No harm, no foul.

He did, however, fare better with Chase when he called to inquire about his United Select Visa. This front line customer service representative was authorized to offer my father a $100 statement credit if he kept his card open another year. That would more than offset the $95 annual fee, so he was actually being paid $5 to keep the card. This offer was on top of the regular 5,000 United miles that he receives each year anyway.

Then another day, we called for my mother's Chase British Airways Visa. We signed up a year ago when they were offering 100,000 BA Avios for spending $20k in the first 12 months. We used those BA miles to fly us to Chicago last year and to fly our friends to Orlando last week. When we discussed waiving the annual fee, they told us it wasn't an option. So we told them we'd like to close the account. Then came an offer to give us 9,000 Avios for spending $1,500 in the next three months. That comes out to 6x vs. the usual 1.25x per dollar spent.

So my father accepted that offer and kept the card open. We quickly found a way to spend $1,500 in a few transactions that week and now are awaiting the bonus to post in the Feb 1st statement. Even though we receive the bonus, we'll still close the card afterwards, since the bonus was only contingent upon spending $1,500 on the card and not paying the $95 annual fee.

We still have to call Citi (for my mother's American Airlines Amex) and Barlcays (for my father's US Airways Mastercard), but we'd be OK with closing those down if no compelling offers are made.

[UPDATE: For my mothers American Airlines Amex, we were given a $95 statement credit if we made a $95 purchase, which was actually $10 more than the $85 annual fee. For my father's US Airways Mastercard, they refunded him $89 for the annual fee, though he was only charged $44.50 for the annual fee.]

Switching Strategy to Cash Back

Last week, I shared my parents' strategy of getting 5.5% rebates back for our day care. Now clearly, that post was just highlighting one example of a larger theory that can be applied for any non-bonused spending. But sometimes, I forget that not every one of my readers follows every subtle point of all this madness.

There are definitely people out there who would much rather just stick to a single credit card to use for all their spending. That's perfectly fine for those people.

But my father's obsessed with "optimizing" everything. I'd truly worry about him if his "hobby" didn't let us travel so frequently for so cheaply. He has our family using anywhere between 1-4 different cards depending on what store or what kind of purchase we're making.

Some of my readers have said they have a hard time keeping up with how my family decides on which points to earn / which credit cards to use. Here's a basic rundown:

1. Rent - checking account (no points)
2. Groceries - Amex Blue Cash card (5% cash back)
3. Restaurants - Citi Thank You Premier (3x Thank You points)
4. Cell Phone / Internet - Chase Ink Bold (5x UR points)
5. Domestic Travel
   a.  United Flights - Chase United Select (3 United miles)
   b.  Starwood Hotels - SPG Business Amex (2x SPG points)
   c.  Hyatt Hotels - SPG Business Amex (5% back + 1 SPG point)
6. International Travel - Citi Thank You Premier (2x TY points)
7. Other

   a. Amazon / Chain Retailers - Chase Ink Bold (5x UR points by buying retailer gift cards at Staples)

   b. Everything Else - ???

So before we starting re-thinking our points/miles strategy, the conventional wisdom was to use our SPG Amex for #7b (anything that wouldn't earn a special bonus). The thought was that if you don't get 2-5x, then you should just earn the "most valuable point currency" which was a SPG point (valued by many at 2.5 cents/pt). The other popular alternative was the Barclays Arrival+ card (earning 2.2% rebates on travel).

However, as we talked about last week, we could also earn 5.5% rebates on everything (4.2% cash and 1.25% flight rewards) by simply combining our Amex Blue Cash, Citi Thank You Premier and Paypal Debit cards. If you need a refresher, click here.

So essentially, if my father chose to spend $1 on his SPG Amex for non-bonus categories, he would be forgoing 5.5% of rebates (the opportunity cost). That actually means he is essentially "buying" 1 SPG point for 5.5 cents each. Given our typical SPG redemptions range from 2.5-4.0 cents/pt (including our most recent 5 night award stay at Westin Costa Navarino), we'd actually be better off by earning cash rebates and using that saved cash to pay for the Starwood hotel reservations directly.

Let me walk you through an example.

Imagine we need to spend $1,000 a month for daycare again. Since, it's not a bonus category, we'd most likely use our SPG Amex and earn 12,000 SPG points every year. That's enough points to book 1 night at a Category 5 Starwood hotel such as the Westin in Sydney, Australia (~$390 USD/night in November).

However, if we used our Amex Blue Cash card and bought 24 Paypal My Cash cards ($500 loads + $3.95 fee each card), we'd have $12,000 worth of Paypal funds and have paid $95 in load fees. For spending $12,095 on our Amex Blue Cash card, however, we'd earn $605 in rebates - or $510 of net profit (in cash). Then he'd also earn 12,000 Citi Thank You points for the actual daycare spend on his Citi Premier card, which he would pay off using funds from his Paypal Debit card.

With that $510 of cold hard cash, my father could just pay $390 for the 1 night at the Westin Sydney and still have $120 left over. PLUS, he would earn 3x SPG points for his actual stay and 2x Citi Thank You points for paying for the stay (another 1,170 SPG points and an additional 780 Citi Thank You Points). Here's a side-by-side comparison to help illustrate the point.

Yes, we know that a solid counter-argument could be, "Why don't you just spend on your SPG Amex, and then withdraw money from your Paypal account to your bank account.Then just pay off the Amex?" That's very sound logic in theory, but in practice, a constant loading of your Paypal and withdrawl to your linked bank account will almost certainly flag your Paypal account and get you shut down. The beauty of the "Paying Citibank with your Debit Card" is that it looks more like a "normal transaction" to Paypal's automated risk management system. The marginal extra value of an SPG point over a TY point isn't worth risking the entire gravy train over.

So back to our example. Assuming those SPG and Thank You points are worth 2.5 and 1.25 cents/pt, respectively, that's $29.25 and $159.75 of additional value. Then throw in the residual $120 of cash rebates left over, we have $309 of value when all is said and done after our 1 night hotel stay. Seems like a no-brainer!

Q4 Bonuses for Chase & Discover 5% Back

As some of you may know, Chase Freedom and Discover IT are very similar credit cards with comparable benefits. Both earn you 1x back on regular purchases, but have rotating quarterly categories that can earn you 5x up to $1,500 of spend in those categories.

Of course, the primary difference is that Chase Freedom earns you Chase UR points which can be either (a) redeemed as cash back for 1 cent/pt or, if you have a premium Chase UR card, (b) transferred to airlines and hotels such as United and Hyatt.

This redemption method can get you more value as we've done in the past such as putting my grandmother and her sisters up in a luxury suite at the Park Hyatt in Busan, South Korea.

Discover IT, however, only earns you 1 cent/pt in cash back, though you can also find deals for discounted retailer gift cards (i.e. $20 for a $25 AMC gift card).

Clearly we prefer earning a Chase UR point over a Discover point, but both are valuable in their own way. But fortunately, there are ways to maximize both at the same time.

For example, this Q4 (Oct-Dec 2014), you can earn 5% or 5x on your Chase Freedom card and Discover IT cards at similar retailers.

A. Chase Freedom - 5x on Amazon, Zappos or department stores
B. Discover IT - 5% on online shopping and department stores

So if you have both cards, you'd need to spend $1,500 on each to maximize your bonus potential, or $3,000 total in 3 months.

But remember, our #1 rule - NEVER spend more than you do normally to play this credit card rewards game. That defeats the purpose of "free."

However, instead of talking through theory, here's EXACTLY what my father plans on doing to spend $3,000 without actually spending a single penny more than he would normally.

1. Using his Discover IT card for Amazon Payments. Until the October 12, you can send a $1,000 transfer to a friend who will then send $1,000 back to my mother. No additional fees. Fortunately, Amazon Payments codes as "online shopping" for Discover and will get you 5%. However, Chase differentiates between Amazon and Amazon Payments, so Chase Freedom will not earn the 5x bonus.

2. Buying Amazon Gift Cards for holiday gifts. The conventional use for gift cards has always been to hand them out as presents to your friends and colleagues for special occasions, celebrations and holidays. While our apartment building staff typically gets holiday checks or cash from the tenants each December, they didn't complain when they received Amazon gift cards from us last year. Well, at least not to our face! We're never exactly sure what to give doormen, maintenance staff, and managers, but we typically give $50-150 per staff member, so that's another $1,000 of spend. Fortunately, Amazon.com doesn't charge any fees for shipping it's gift cards, so again, we're not spending anymore than we would have otherwise. Because this qualifies for Chase 5x, we'll use our Freedom card here.

3. Stop while we're ahead. Now, we'll have spent $2,000 across both our Discover IT and Chase Freedom cards and received back at least $100 in total rewards. But we'd be still be $500 short of maxing out each card's Q4 5x promotion. That's fine with us because honestly, my father's way too smart to be tricked by bank marketing and will not go out of his way to hit the full cap. That's how the banks get you to spend more!

Of course, if there's something we absolutely need to buy anyway, we'll look at our online shopping/department store options, but we'd be foolish to spend another $500, just to get back $25 of rewards. I'd rather just keep that $500 to begin with.

Rethinking Family Travel Strategies

In a few months, I will turn 3 years old. Wow. I feel so old!

But turning 3 won't be nearly as big of a deal as when I turned 2 years old. As you may know, that's when I officially turned in my Lap Child status and had to start paying for my own tickets. Well, rather, my parents had to start paying for my own tickets.

After several months of traveling in my own seat, I've flown just over 49,000 miles, visited 11 places in 7 different countries and secured "lifetime" Star Alliance Gold Status through Aegean Airlines. Many of these trips were subsidized or enhanced by my father's relentless pursuit of frequent flyer miles and reward points.

However, as we look ahead to the future, we may have to rethink our travel points strategy now that we're going to consistently be traveling as a group of 3.

We still have a ton of American Airline and United Airline miles (500,000 and 300,000, respectively), but we'll probably only find 2 award seats available in business/first class on long haul flights to Europe and Asia. In fact, our last premium cabin trip to Europe was actually two separate bookings (one using United miles for 2 seats and another using bank points for a "paid" seat).

Since I am my father's daughter, I've done all the math and looked at every possible combination and permutation. Unfortunately:

• My mother will refuse to let me sit by myself in economy while my parents are up in business/first
• My mother will refuse to sit by herself in economy while my father and I sit in business/first
• My mother will refuse to let my father relax sit by himself in economy while she deals with me by herself in business/first

So I guess that means we're going to be flying together all the time in economy. Not the worst thing in the world, and it will allow us to have more frequent flyer miles in our accounts (since business awards are about 2x the cost in miles of economy awards). But that just means that we'll be left with a lot more airlines miles than we're likely to use each year.

With that dynamic shift, my father's been transitioning his credit card spending to cards that will accrue him either (a) cash back, (b) hotel points or (c) flexible bank points. Fortunately, he's well equipped with the right credit cards in his wallet to use on our regular monthly spend.

For cash back, we're going with our Amex Blue card that gets us 5% cash back on all gas, grocery and drugstore spend. We also take advantage of the fact that CVS, Duane Reade and Rite Aid sell retailer gift cards, so we're also earning 5% back on our Amazon and Best Buy purchases among others.

For hotel points, we're continuing to build up our beloved Starwood SPG points using our personal and business Starwood Amex cards. After all, when we go on vacation, we spend a few hours on the plane, but we'll spend multiple days enjoying our Platinum status benefits at Starwood's St Regis, Westin or W properties. The SPG Amex only gives us 1 SPG point per dollar spent on non-Starwood purchases, so we usually limit this card's usage to non-bonused spending (my father's small business expenses, shopping at retailers that don't sell gift cards and other random spend). Plus, as I get older, I think we'll need more space, so we'll have to use more SPG points to redeem for suites if we don't get a complimentary upgrade.

Of course, Starwood isn't always an option to every place we go, so we like the fact we can bank Chase Ultimate Reward points as well using our Chase Freedom and the Chase Ink Bold cards. Right now, we use the Freedom for our gas and 7-11 spend (they have a 5x bonus this quarter) and the Ink Bold for our cell phone, cable/internet and office supply spend (hint: Staples also has a lovely gift card rack). Since we have at least 1 premium Chase UR card (the Ink Bold), our UR points can be instantly transferred to Hyatt Hotels and Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG). And if we wanted, we could even use our UR points as currency to book hotels at a fixed value of 1.25 cents/point through their Chase Travel portal.

So despite just being approved for our new Chase United Explorer Visa and Citi American Airlines Mastercard, we're probably only going to reach the minimum spend required to unlock the sign-up bonuses and then put the cards away until their annual fees come up 12 months from now. No urgent need for a ton more airline frequent flyer miles.

Sorry guys, looks like you were just a One Night Stand Card!

Father's Fall Application Round

Typically, August is when everyone in NYC goes on their final summer vacations - especially this week heading into Labor Day Weekend.

However, we did most of our traveling already in June (Switzerland and Israel) and July (Italy and Greece), so we've been enjoying our own New York and the amazing weather the past few weeks.

So with the extra free time not spent at the airport nor in hotel rooms, my father has been reviewing our frequent flyer miles and hotel point balances. He's trying to figure out which ones we need to re-stock, now that our big 2014 trips are over.

We seem to be OK on hotel points (a healthy stash of 110,000 Starwood SPG points, 100,000 IHG Reward points and 97,500 Club Carlson points). Frequent flyer miles seem to be good as well (500,000 American Airline AAdvantage miles 300,000 United MileagePlus miles, and 222,000 British Airways Avois). In addition, we have another 288,000 Chase UR points that can be transferred into United Airlines or Hyatt Hotels instantly.

But since it had been about 5-6 months since my father's last credit card application round, he thought he should get in one last set of travel reward credit cards before 2014 closed out. Luckily, there were some decent limited time offers available, including:

1. Chase United Explorer Visa (50,000 miles) - fee waived first year
2. Citi American Airlines Mastercard (50,000 miles) - fee waived first year
3. American Express Everyday (10,000 points) - no annual fee

Big Warning If you have any debt at all (student loans, credit card, personal loans or mob gambling debt), then you're better off not opening more credit cards, because you're probably spending more than you're making and ruining your future. The last thing you need is another credit card. 

• The credit card companies will only issue these premium reward credit cards to individuals with high credit scores (above 700 FICO). Applying and getting rejected hurts your score even more, so don't try until you're confident you'll get approved. 

• The points and miles you earn (valued at up to 2-4% of your spend) will be negated if you carry a balance and have to pay 15-25% interest. All that money you're paying in interest and late charges could pay for the trips you're trying to get for free. 

• And if you have trouble overspending, keep in mind that the average person spends 15% more when they use a convenient plastic credit card to make purchases instead of using hard earned cash. Something about seeing your empty wallet makes you thing twice about buying that extra Starbucks.

Given we were so flush in miles/points, we didn't think it made sense to apply for cards with an annual fee, so we skipped the Amex Business Platinum card ($450 fee for 100,000 points), the Bank of America Alaska Airlines card ($75 for 25,000 miles) and the Barclays US Airways card ($89 fee for 40,000 miles).

We didn't have any strong needs for specific points, so we just went with the best available offers in the loyalty programs we liked having (United, American and Amex). So here's how he fared on his no/waived fee applications:

Chase United Explorer Visa
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 50,000 United miles
Min Spend: $2,000 in 3 months
Other: $50 statement credit after first purchase and 5,000 additional miles for adding authorized user

My father actually had this card twice before already. Back sometime around 2005 he had the Chase Continental Explorer card (before the United merger). Then in 2011, he applied for the Chase United Explorer card and received a 50,000 mile sign up bonus plus an additional 5,000 for adding my mother as an authorized user. Now Chase typically only gives sign up bonuses once per card, but they added language in the terms and conditions that states that you can be eligible for the bonus again IF you have not received the bonus within the past 2 years. Since 2014 minus 2011 is > 2, my father's prospects were looking good!

Unfortunately, he was not instantly approved online. So he waited an hour and then called the Chase Reconsideration Line to "offer any additional information regarding his application." In addition to confirming his annual income and rent expense, he dropped in some facts about his 100% on time payment history and long relationship with Chase Bank. The representative said everything looked good and that he would re-submit the application with his recommendation, but then it went to "a final review" that would require a few weeks.

Now, my father knows that no one wants to give bad news to applicants. So most company's standard operating procedures call for the "you will receive our decision in the mail" message to let the poor representatives from having to get yelled at. But then again, a similar process happened with his Chase Hyatt Visa card back in Feb 2013 as well and he was ultimately approved for that. So it's a bit of a toss up how things will play out.

OUTCOME:  Pending

[UPDATE: 8/29/14 - My father's Online Chase account now shows the new Explorer card, so looks like he was approved]

Citi American Airlines Mastercard
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 50,000 American miles
Min Spend: $3,000 in 3 months

My father had applied for the Visa and Amex versions of this card back in July 2012. Then in 2013, he negotiated another free year for the Visa, but closed his Amex before the $95 annual fee hit. So this past summer, when the Visa fee was hitting, he ended up downgrading it to a no fee Citi Dividend card to keep the credit line open. But now, he was without an American Airlines card.

Of course, LCD readers should know by now that my family usually flies on United Airlines domestically and their Star Alliance partners internationally, but we do fly American Airlines from time to time when we redeem our British Airways Avios for flights on AA. If that last sentence made your head spin, then be thankful you're not a points/miles nerd like my father.

With this card, we get additional perks such as 10% mileage award rebates (which will come in handy should we redeem any of our our 500,000 AA miles), free checked bags and priority boarding. Since we have NO status whatsoever with American, these perks definitely come in handy when we fly American to Chicago to visit our friend's painting business (Five Star Painting IL) next month.

The online application went to Decision Pending, but there was a popup window offering an Online Chat with one of their representatives. This feature is great since it saves my father from having to call the Reconsideration line and can offer him a written transcript of the conversation. After answering a few questions and moving some credit lines around, he was approved on the spot!

OUTCOME: Approved!

American Express EveryDay
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 10,000 Membership Reward points
Min Spend: $1,000 in 3 months

Compared to the other 50,000 mile bonuses, this sign up offer was pretty sub-standard by all accounts. However, the card itself has no annual fee and therefore allows my father to keep it indefinitely.

If you recall, last January 2013 he applied for a 100,000 MR offer for the Platinum Amex card which he then closed in January 2014 before the $450 annual fee was due. He also had applied for a 75,000 MR offer for a Gold Business Amex in May 2013 that he closed in May 2014. Since he didn't value paying a $175 annual fee just to keep his Amex MR points, he had to redeem or transfer all of them to airlines before closing his last Amex MR card. But since this Amex EveryDay card has no annual fee, he can house all his future MR points without having to unnecessarily redeem or transfer.

Plus, now my parents have another two American Express cards to use for Small Business Saturday in November! If it's anything like last year, that's another $20 of free stuff...hopefully $50!

This would be his fourth active Amex credit card (others being SPG Personal, SPG Business and Hilton).

OUTCOME: Approved!

Mixed Retention

Back in February, I wrote about how my father was able to secure a few extra points and waived fees by simply calling up the banks when his credit cards were due for their annual fee to hit.

This past July, it was time for another round of closure or retention. The lineup was as follows:

1. Chase Ink Bold Mastercard
2. American Express Starwood Business
3. Citi Thank You Premier Visa
4. Citi American AAdvantage Visa

Chase Ink Bold Mastercard

My mother had opened up this card back in June 2013 and earned 60,000 Chase UR points for spending $5,000 in 3 months. This was one of the cards that helped us earn enough UR points to transfer to United Airlines for our business class flights on Lufthansa to Italy.

It gave us a great 5x on our spend on our Time Warner cable TV and Verizon Wireless bills each month. We also found some creative ways to spend at Staples (ordering our bottled water, buying gift cards for Old Navy shopping and Amazon shopping) for another 5x on office supply expenditures as well. Over the course of the 1st year (with no annual fee), we definitely generated at least another 20,000+ UR points in addition to the 60,000 sign up bonus. Valuing UR points at about 2 cents/pt, we earned a tax free $1,600 in rebates for spending the same amount as we would have normally but by using the right credit card.

But now that it was time to renew the card, but pay $95 for the upcoming year. Given my father also had another Chase Ink Bold card for his small business, we didn't see the need for paying a fee for a second Ink Bold card with duplicate benefits. So we called up Chase to see if we could close the account (or if they would make us an offer to keep it open).

Some people on Flyertalk reported getting 10,000 points for keeping the card (and paying the $95 fee). When we called, they made no such offer. We then asked if we could "downgrade" the card to the Chase Ink Cash card (no annual fee, but a similar 5% earning on telecom/office supply stores). They declined as well.

At some point during calls like this, we would expect to hear, "Mr. Songer, you've been a great customer with us since 20XX, so we'd hate to lose your business..." But this call, there was nothing. Apparently, they wouldn't hate to lose this business at all.

Left with no options, we decided to close the card outright and avoid the $95 fee.

Outcome: FAIL

American Express Starwood Business

This was going to be a bit of a gamble. Most of the time, when we're threatening to close the card, we're more than happy to follow through. Sometimes, however, we're just playing chicken and will balk if they call our bluff. The Starwood Amex is one of those situations.

My mother opened this card this card in June 2013 when there was a 30,000 SPG point offer for spending $5,000 in 3 months. Now, my family (a) loves Starwood hotel properties and (b) values a SPG point at about 2.5 cents/pt - the highest of any point/mile currency. But most importantly, my family achieved Starwood Platinum status thanks to the help of getting the 2 stay / 5 night elite credit just for holding the card.

Since we actually had a lot of Starwood Amex cards (between my two parents with both personal and business versions, we actually didn't need to keep this one to earn our SPG points. We had plenty of available credit with the handful of open SPG Amex cards.

However, the fact that this card gave my father the additional 2 stay / 5 night credit definitely helped us reach 50 nights last year to earn both Starwood Platinum status as well as 10 Suite Night Award coupons - which we definitely used this past year. Without the elite credit, we would have fallen short last year and this year.

My Father: "We enjoy the card, but I'm just not sure it warrants another $65 fee to use the card another year."

Representative: "I"m sorry, but I cannot waive the fee."

My Father: "Um, OK. Then I'd like to cancel the card..." (long drawn out, waiting to be interrupted with a counteroffer)

Representative: "OK, I can help you with that!"

So when the agent quickly confirmed his request so quickly, my father called an audible and stopped the Representative. "Um, actually wait one second, I want to make sure with my wife. I'll give you a call back."

Representative: "Sure thing. Have a nice day!"

We kept the card open and paid the $65 fee, rationalizing that 2 stays at a Starwood hotel would cost at least $150 out of pocket and time.

Outcome: FAIL

Citi Thank You Premier Visa
This Citi credit card was actually 2 years old. My mother opened it in June 2012 when they were offering 50,000 Citi Thank You points for $3,000 spending in 3 months with no annual fee the first year.

But when the $125 annual fee came due the following year (2013), we called and were able to negotiate a $75 statement credit to partially offset the fee. Though we'd have to pay $50 net, we took that offer, because we still had my father generating a ton of Citi Thank You points using his 5x earning Citi TY Preferred card for another 7 months.

The Premier version card gives you 1.25 cents/point value when redeemed for flights, but the Preferred card only gave you 1.00 cent/point. So redeeming for an extra 0.25 cents would be worth paying $50 out of pocket for, if and only if we would redeem for at least 20,000 Citi Thank You points during the year. We ended up redeeming over 514,000!

So for paying the reduced annual fee of $50, we were able to redeem for an additional $1,285 of flight value. Smart move, Dad!

But now, it was July 2014 and we no longer had the benefit of the 5x Preferred card to generate massive amounts of Citi TY points. So we redeemed all the rest of our Citi TY points (at a 1.25 cent/pt rate) on our upcoming October flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico and were prepared to close the card. But when we called Citi, they were reasonably accommodating.

Instead of just waiving the fee outright, they proposed a spending challenge. If we spent $1,000 in each of the next 3 billing statements, we would receive an additional 1,000 Citi Thank You points and a $125 statement credit - enough to offset the annual fee. Of course, we'd still be charged (and have to pay) the $125 annual fee upfront, but at least we have an opportunity to earn it all back in the form of a statement credit. We accepted.

Outcome: SUCCESS!

Citi American Airlines Visa

This was another Citi card that we've had since 2012. At that time, we were able to apply for 2 Citi AA cards (one Amex and one Visa) at the same time. It was called the "Two Browser Trick" and we were able to earn 50,000 AA miles on each card for 100,000 total.

Fast forward to 2013, we called to get retention offers on both cards. But interestingly enough, my father received no offer on his AA Amex, but did get a fee waiver on his AA Visa. So he kept the Visa for another year until this past July when the annual fee came up.

There are a ton of travel perks by having/using these Citi AA credit cards, including Priority Boarding, 2 AA Lounge Passes, Free Checked Bag, and 10% Mileage Rebate when redeeming AA award miles. Unfortunately, we didn't fly American Airlines that much and didn't end up redeeming any of our 480,000+ AA miles either.

But nevertheless, at some point, we would be redeeming our miles and likely would want one of these Citi AA cards, but it was foolish to pay $85 for speculative optionality. So we called to see what offers we could get, but they didn't offer us any. No waived fee. No statement credit. No AA miles. No challenges.

But given my father had a $20,000 credit limit on this card (valuable asset for future trades), he didn't want to close outright. Instead, he asked to downgrade the card to a no-fee Citi Dividend card. The representative processed the product change and told him that the $85 due on his monthly statement would be reversed before his statement balance was due.

The Citi Dividend card isn't that amazing (straight 1% cash back on all purchases, no ability to transfer to airline miles or hotel points), but they do offer quarterly 5% cash back categories where you can get up to $300/year (ie, spending $6,000 in bonus categories).

But unlike Chase Freedom or Discover IT quarterly bonuses, there's no quarterly $75 cap on bonus earning - you just have an annual cap of $300 in rebates. So if there's a quarter with a particularly great category (i.e., drugstores), then my father can surely find a way to maximize his window of opportunity.

Outcome: SUCCESS!

Business Class Flights with Bank Points

I don't know about my parents, but I've been really excited for our upcoming trip to Europe since February when we booked it using United frequent flyer miles just before the Great Devaluation.

For 100,000 miles each, my mother and I are flying in business class on Lufthansa to Rome, Italy and back from Athens, Greece. Our "out of pocket" cash costs are just $163 per person.

United Miles & Chase Ultimate Rewards
Two round-trip business class tickets on Lufthansa during peak summer season cost us 100,000 United miles + $163 cash each ticket (post-devaluation, they cost 140,000 miles now). A normal cash fare priced out at $4,326 per person, so each United award implied a 4.1 cent / mile redemption. Again, remember that United miles can be used to redeem on other Star Alliance airline partners, such as Lufthansa.

However, at the time of our February redemption, my father's United account only had about 30,000 miles. So he transferred 170,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to his United account, and the miles showed up instantly.

He was able to do this transfer, because he had a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card at the time. He also had a Chase Ink Bold credit card which would have worked as well. These premium Chase cards ($95 annual fee, but waived the first year) allow you to transfer UR points to United Airlines or Hyatt Hotels among other travel partners.

So the past few months of earning 2x UR points from our regular dining and travel spend meant we were essentially getting a 8.2% rebate from using our Chase Sapphire Preferred card. And the 5x bonus for using our Ink Bold card for our cell phone bills, cable/internet and office supply stores was earning us 20.5% rebates. Pretty impressive return for just paying your monthly bills, huh?

Citi Thank You Points

Of course, my mother and I wouldn't go to Europe without my dear father. And he wouldn't be too happy sitting back in coach while my mother and I flew upfront.

So he booked his own business class tickets on the exact same flights as ours. But instead of using United miles, he used his huge stash of Citi Thank You Points instead. A few reasons we booked his ticket separately like this:

1. We didn't have enough United miles to book 3 seats in business class (100,000 miles per person).
2. United didn't have 3 available award seats on the same flights.
3. Tickets bought with Citi Thank You Points are considered cash tickets.

His business class ticket cost 346,101 Citi Thank You Points, which was a fixed 1.25 cents/point redemption. But unlike my mother and me, my father would also earn his normal United miles and elite status credit for his premium cabin ticket -- flying 9,483 miles.

Since he has United Gold status, he would earn an additional 50% bonus on all his flights. Plus another 50% Premium cabin bonus for his Z fare class tickets on the return. So he would actually earn 16,721 United miles. Assuming those are only worth 2 cents/mile (vs. the 4.1 cents/mile rate we were just able to redeem at), that's another $334 of value. A free flight AND more frequent flyer miles! For redeeming bank points! Pretty sweet.

Now, 346,101 is still a lot of TY points, but since we had 12 months of a special 5x promotion on my father's Thank You Preferred Mastercard, we took advantage and racked up a ton of TY points in 2013 through manufactured spending techniques such as Vanilla Reloads and Amex Bluebird.

Now, this particular 5x promotion is no longer available anymore, but here's how my family took advantage of it when it was active. If it sounds a bit complicated, it's because it is to many people.

My father needed access to 4 different cards:

1. Citi Thank You Preferred
2. Vanilla Reloads
3. American Express Bluebird
4. Citi Thank You Premier

As mentioned in an earlier January post here, our Preferred card only gave us a super low 6,000 TY Point sign up bonus. But the devil is in the details. It also had a 5x bonus on all gas, grocery and drugstore spend for the first year. The wonderful thing for 2013 was that the drugstore CVS sold Vanilla Reload cards which could be used for Manufactured Spend if paired with the Amex Bluebird card. You can google this technique yourself, but basically, each $500 Vanilla Reload card purchase earned my father 2,500 Thank You Points (worth $25.00).

Then the $500 would be loaded onto the Bluebird card. Then the Bluebird card would pay off the $500 charge on the original Preferred card. So we didn't really "spend" anything in the end, but took advantage of the system to achieve our family goal of subsidized travel. Even after factoring in the $3.95 fee for each Vanilla Reload card, the scheme still generated $21.05 of profit per card.

Then since my mother also had the Thank You Premier card, we could redeem the points for 20% fewer points than normal. So instead of redeeming for 100 points for $1 of flight value, we could redeem just 80 points for that same $1 of value. Said another way, our Thank You points were now worth 1.25 cents/point instead of 1.00 cent/point. So the $25.00 of value each $500 Vanilla Reload card we purchased became $31.25 of value.

Now, $31.25 isn't a lot of money towards a flight to Europe, but when you do more than 1 Vanilla Reload card at a time (as we did during our Phoenix trip last year), you can start to see how scale-able this process can be. Each card shown below is worth $500 and earned us $31.25 worth in Thank You points.

Towards the last several months of our 12 month promotional period, we were "spending" about $15,000-18,000 a month, generating anywhere from 75,000-90,000 TY points each period. In case you're not Asian and need a calculator, that's about $938-1,125 in points each month. After a few months, my father had enough to book his tickets on our same Lufthansa flights.