In today’s episode, we’ll talk about a trick for getting great value with Delta miles, which has returned, how flying Emirates first with points has gotten harder, and the hard truth about how we have too many cards (and what to do about it).
Discarding our card collections
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Giant Mailbag
(01:52) – Using AAdvantage miles to book JetSmart and other tips for South America travel
Card News
(04:10) – Air France/KLM Flying Blue (read more about Air France KLM Flying Blue card here)
(15:38) – Capital One Venture Rewards: 75K + $250 travel after $4K spend
(18:35) – Bilt Cash details revealed (see the full list of Bilt Cash redemptions here)
Bonvoyed
(21:06) – Qantas Nerfs Emirates First Class Awards (read more about this here)
Awards, Points, and More
(23:34) – Delta trick lowering award prices by booking flights to/from Mexico, working once again
(25:20) – Alaska $99 Companion Fares can be used with the multi-city tool on the regular booking engine again (read more here)
(26:35) – American Airlines Awards flying Aer Lingus Now Available Online (read more here)
Main Event: Discarding our card collections
(28:14) – Find out which premium cards we think are keepers here
(31:41) – Greg’s thoughts about keeper cards
(35:25) – $795 Sapphire Reserve® Card Example (read more about our thoughts here)
(57:45) – $325 American Express® Gold Card example
(1:04:44) – $895 American Express Platinum Card® example
(1:14:58) – Cards Greg and Nick have discarded recently
Question of the Week
(1:14:58) – American Express® Gold Card with 4x dining vs Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Card with 3x dining + status… which one is worth it?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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I was also considering getting rid of the Amex Gold. But I continuously get offers to add an authorized user earning 10,000 points for $2,000 spend. So if I spend it all on groceries and dining, that’s 9X! Don’t see how to beat that without signing up for a new cc.
Great pod!
Data point for Hawaiian card: I called to cancel after my first year, I had no intention of keeping, didn’t ask for a retention offer but rep proactively offered to waive annual fee so I kept it for another year.
I am holding on to one Hawaiian card because it is the only chip-and-PIN card I have and I still occasionally run into places in Europe where I need one.
This methodology of “bundled travel benefits” is overcomplicating your original formula of deciding your pre-pay value of every credit. Instead, my conclusion is that you’ve just been overvaluing many credits because you haven’t factored in mental tracking effort enough.
Also, the recent deluge in booking platform credits has worsened the tracking “mental bandwidth” problem and cheapened the credit values overall.
Greg, I liked your Kroger coupon analogy. I tend to think of the “How much would you prepay?” question as like when somebody says, “Well if that is too much, make me an offer.” Let’s say I think about it and I decide that although the item could sell to someone else for a lot more, to me it would be a really good deal at $100. So I reply $100. Their response is, “Even better, I will sell it to you for $99!” Now at this point would I turn them down because I am only making $1? No, I decided $100 was a good deal so $99 is an even better deal. So if a card comes in at or below my prepay value I am probably going to jump on it.
I did get lost a bit with your second level analysis of the cards. I wonder if this is driven by your current desire to declutter your card collection. Perhaps you are looking around your house, realizing you have so many cards there is nowhere to sit, and so you are taking each card in your hands and thinking about whether it brings you joy. That seems reasonable to me because having too many cards can be too much, even if each individual one brings value.
LOL at “realizing you have so many cards there is nowhere to sit, and so you are taking each card in your hands and thinking about whether it brings you joy”.
Yep, anyone who made it to the Kroger analogy hopefully understood Greg’s point about his calculation not representing profit. If Greg explained it this way I missed it – but so many commenters were complaining ‘Why put up with the coupon hassle for just $XX minimal value/profit”. Greg tried to clarify that the $XX was not profit – another way of saying that is the coupon hassle factor was already baked into his conservative valuations of the coupons/bundles.
Another way of thinking of Greg‘s point of view is that we often pay for travel cards that have the opportunity to transfer to different points programs. Part of the benefit of these travel cards is a flexibility to be able to transfer them to certain points programs. That doesn’t mean that I’m always gonna use them but I have the opportunity should it arrive. That’s how I’m starting to think about the edit credit, which is that every year I get so many “ opportunities to get extra value out of booking a hotel through Chase.” I value it at an extra zero dollars, if I use it, great if I don’t, no loss.
Also commented on the AF post – but found the answer to the AF FB status/Bilt stacking question on this podcast!
Agree completely with Greg – access to saver level business awards is the intriguing benefit, not La Premiere.
I also wonder about how to game the timing. Feels like you have to get the AF card a couple of months before selecting the Bilt Platinum FB Gold status but then don’t do any flight crediting to FB until you get Gold? (I’m assuming the status match gets you to Gold and then it resets… so any crediting before you get Gold is not helpful).
Really wonder how long the AF limited time intro offer will last. Could see some illustrative timeline like-
January 2026 – get Bilt $495 card and run $50k on it by June 29, 2026.
April 1, 2026 – get AF card (assuming 100XP bonus offer still available), run $3k on it by June 30 ($3k/70k miles offer per FM), but don’t do the last of it until closer to June 30.
June 29 – finish your $50k on Bilt and select FB Gold. From July 2026 – June 2027, earn at least 40XP from FB from flying / crediting Delta or other SkyTeam flights to FB.
July-August / 1-2 billing cycles from the 90 days on the SUB – the 100XP from the AF SUB should post per the T&C.
Spend $22k more on the AF card by 4/1/27
April 1, 2027 – AF anniversary date. 160XP should post within 1-2 billing cycles of the anniversary date per T&C, so should be by end of May / early June (could be faster).
As long as the 160XP posts by June 29, 2027 (the anniversary of when you selected FB Gold with Bilt), and you’ve earned at least 40XP from flying, that gets you to 300XP and FB Platinum.
You’d then have FB Platinum from mid-2027 to mid-2028, for:
Bilt – $50k spend (if you have $66.6k of housing spend you’d get 3.33x points on that spend). So ~216.5k Bilt Points.
AF – $25k spend (put on dining / SkyTeam flights for 3x). 70k SUB +5k anniversary miles. So 150k FB miles.
Flying on SkyTeam – have to do some flying to get 40XP. (Or buy sustainable fuel for $X – have not done that math…)
Would have to be disciplined about it (and of course have the $75k of spend to move over) but it’s possible! I think the challenge is then in year 2 – you could still get 160XP from the AF card, but need to get another 140XP through flying. Still very doable of course. Not sure if Bilt gets you anything at that point though – if you are just matching to Gold versus getting a certain # of XP.
Nick, why did you product change your savor? Having a hard time thinking of a scenario where that makes sense.
Indeed, they are simply “premium” travel cards.