This is all very confusing to a newbie to travel points. I've always gone for the cash bonuses because I traveled rarely. Now retired for the most part, I expect to travel more and thought I'd look into travel points. I already have several Chase cards and probably don't qualify for any of their travel deals. The only other cards I have are Citi cards (Costco and Premier).

I'm figuring on paying my homeowners ins with the new card so other than AMEX (which my ins co doesn't accept) are there better travel points cards out there? I figure the airline specific cards are too restricting as I don't know where I'll go and who serves which areas.

Quote from Samson15 : I've done this. Problem is the sale has to be for the same room type/ date, or flight seat type/date/ticket type. Meaning, the conditions have to match exactly, and you can't be logged into an account, where the 3rd party may have given you a better deal. Sometimes you get a deal because you may have clicked through a Google link or promotion link, and that may not work because the capital one two needs to be able to do the same thing to get the same promotion, ie be in cognito mode and arrive at the same price.

Yup. That's why I never book with c1 except $300 credit that they give

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Quote from bestdeal113 : Yup. That's why I never book with c1 except $300 credit that they give

I book all my hotels through C1 portal. Get 10x points and also easy to get $300 credit. Hotel prices are easy to price match as they are almost always stable or better in other deal sites. The match to any website. I have matched the prices to Agoda, trivago etc

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Quote from desitoyota : I book all my hotels through C1 portal. Get 10x points and also easy to get $300 credit. Hotel prices are easy to price match as they are almost always stable or better in other deal sites. The match to any website. I have matched the prices to Agoda, trivago etc

I've only used c1 credit card portal for hotels in Asia. Perhaps the prices are better in the states. I've only tried to pricematch a flight and they were sticklers about it,even though I had a screenshot. They had to be able to see the lower flight price themselves.

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Quote from desitoyota : I book all my hotels through C1 portal. Get 10x points and also easy to get $300 credit. Hotel prices are easy to price match as they are almost always stable or better in other deal sites. The match to any website. I have matched the prices to Agoda, trivago etc

When I am in Agoda app I got a better rate for the hotel because of coupons. In incognito mode Agoda website has a higher price. Capital one will only match to that. So capital one travel portal price matching is useless even with extra 8% miles

Same with Airfare. I was able to get better price in other travel portals (factoring extra 3% miles)

Quote from NSN07 : If I apply it today and approved… can I start using immediately with card added to apple wallet Just like Chase sapphire ?

No, but the card does come quickly via Fedex in 2 days or so.

What is the best current card for rewards for daily purchases, bill pay, etc? Right now I split between southwest chase and citi cash which is 1 percent purchase back and 1 percent payment.

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Quote from petes67bird : What is the best current card for rewards for daily purchases, bill pay, etc? Right now I split between southwest chase and citi cash which is 1 percent purchase back and 1 percent payment.

Somewhat depends on where you spend the most. When I was doing construction I used my Chase INK cards a lot that gave me 3% back on home improvement/building supply type stores. My current Citi Premium card gives me 3% on restaurants, gas and groceries (I think).


Chase does something occasionally called "pay yourself back" which means that I can use points to pay for something I've already paid for and get the original amount back while getting a premium on the points value. Not sure that's clear but as an example, I paid $1335.71 for an Airbnb last fall and was able to use 106,856 points to have the original amount returned to me. That's something like a 25% premium on the points. They might only do that because I have 2 or 3 thousand dollars worth of points racked up but I'm not sure. Sometimes it's only a straight across trade offer which I ignore...

Quote from petes67bird : What is the best current card for rewards for daily purchases, bill pay, etc? Right now I split between southwest chase and citi cash which is 1 percent purchase back and 1 percent payment.

Amex Gold will be the best card. It has 4% on groceries and restaurants. If you spend most of your money there, then you can get that.
Citi double cash is a pure cash back. You get 1% when you spend and 1% when you pay them. So if you pay your CC bill in full every month, you get 2% cash back on all purchases.
BOA premier Cash back card can give u 2.62% cash back on all purchases as long as you are Premier Customer( 100K parked in in BOA in any way- Brokergae account qualify too)

Quote from petes67bird : What is the best current card for rewards for daily purchases, bill pay, etc? Right now I split between southwest chase and citi cash which is 1 percent purchase back and 1 percent payment.

Best at what?

If you want to maximize rewards you'll need to use multiple cards (at least 3-5 of them)-- doing that you can get 3-6x points per dollar of spend in all your common spend categories... and then 2-2.6x points in non-category spending.


At that point how much the rewards are worth depend on if you travel or just want cash.

For cash just swap out X points 1:1: for "cents" and you're done.

For travel you can pretty easily get 1.5 to 2.5 cents PER point (so 3x would mean 4.5-7.5 cents per dollar of spend in travel reward value) toward things like coach flights and hotels bookings...and 4-8 cents PER point (so 3x would mean 12-24 cents per dollar of spend in travel reward value) toward things like business and first class flights.

Is it cap that you can't have more than 2 active capital one cards?

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Quote from laku : When I am in Agoda app I got a better rate for the hotel because of coupons. In incognito mode Agoda website has a higher price. Capital one will only match to that. So capital one travel portal price matching is useless even with extra 8% miles Same with Airfare. I was able to get better price in other travel portals (factoring extra 3% miles)

I agree. Better prices for hotel and flights can be had using apps or simply logging into the third party's website. Capital one price matches only to booking searches that are incognito. I'll still keep my venture x card though. I was still able to recieve my $300 travel credit from a hotel booking that I canceled a month later. The same thing happened with my chase sapphire preffered card. Booked a hotel room and canceled 2 months later. The$50 credit wasn't returned.

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They charged me the annual fee right after getting the card. Only $655 from the points and you still need to cancel or downgrade within the year. I feel like it's still worth it at least for the 75000 points.

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Quote from Sonosan : I was approved and there was a digital card to use online. Can't add it to Google pay though until you have the card.

how did you got the digital card ?