Good to know DRE, Ihad no idea. Honestly surprising about your wife not being able to get the benefit without you.

Just pulled the trigger. Good thread. Thanks all.

Just as an FYI to all potential card users, the Houston EZTAG system is not considered travel. I have had two $100 postings hit with no credit. I just got off the phone and they are posting as Government Services. This is weird as all my Chase Freedom year-end summaries always had the EZTAG system as Travel. Now I need to find $300 of travel before 12/31...

Can you buy a $300 gift card or certificate off the SW or United website? Or one of the major hotel chains?

Not sure about that but you could probably book a SW flight then cancel it in exchange for travel credit.

PPAag06 said:

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Just as an FYI to all potential card users, the Houston EZTAG system is not considered travel. I have had two $100 postings hit with no credit. I just got off the phone and they are posting as Government Services. This is weird as all my Chase Freedom year-end summaries always had the EZTAG system as Travel. Now I need to find $300 of travel before 12/31...

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That is disappointing. Hope it is changed.

Uber says counts as travel if anyone uses it. So 3x and gets you the travel credit.

It's weird because I have now had 2 EZ tag rebills come through. The first one I did not get a travel credit, but the second one came through this week and gave me a $40 credit.

I also booked a home rental that was not classified as "travel" either, so I think their criteria is a little screwed up.

How quickly are you guys getting your cards after you apply?

Duncan Idaho said:

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How quickly are you guys getting your cards after you apply?

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Im not sure if they are still doing it, but soon after release they were expediting every CSR shipped out. I got mine within 2 days.

I got mine 3 days later

Less than a week

Thanks trying to time it with my travels

Getting mine in the mail today! Anybody know if a day sightseeing cruise would get the travel credit applied to it?

Most likely

Got mine in last night.

Bummer man. Sorry to hear that. Did you check with a local branch to see if you are "pre-approved"? I've read online some 5/24 people have luck applying in branch.

Question...

My original plan had been to apply for the Ink Plus in December / January then be done applying for cards for a couple years. But I have been thinking more about the SW Companion Pass lately and how it could be advantageous for the girl friend and I.

So I was thinking about applying for 2 SW Cards to get the 50k points points in Jan then have the companion pass for 2017-2018.

The Ink Plus would yield more points on a month to month basis but cutting our airfare in half at least 3-5 times per year would be pretty nice.

Only hang up is I am worried about getting hit with 5/24. I have 3 Chase cards over the last few months then an Amex from May then Sam's credit from over a year ago. So technically, I am at 5/24 but there is conflicting information if the Ink Plus counts towards 5/24 since it's a business card and/or if non Chase cards count towards 5/24. Plus I get prequalified offers from Southwest all the time, which may help me get around 5/24.

But I would hate to miss out on the Ink because of the SW cards or worse, get one SW card but not be able to get a second to get the bonus and qualify for the companion pass.

Any thoughts / experiences?

How are you planning on getting two SW cards to qualify for companion pass?

Complete rook here. Currently have an Amex Blue Cash Card and some crappy MasterCard just to use when I can't use the amex.

These 100,000 miles what are they worth? I don't play the frequent flyer game but am planning on a trip to Africa again. How many miles for a flight?

Guess I need to start Churning! Is there a primer for rooks?

There are 3 cards with a 50k sign up bonus. Premier, Plus, and Business.

I believe the Business has a public 50k offer. The Premier and Plus are 50k is you are referred.

I am going to see which offer comes in the mail in the next few months then go from there. If I have a 50k preapproved offer, I would apply for a Business first since that wouldn't be preapproved then apply for second preapproved shortly after to try to sneak one by the 5/24 goalie.

That's my theoretical plan anyway...

terradactylexpress said:

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How are you planning on getting two SW cards to qualify for companion pass?

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I have known people who have gotten both the premier and entry SW card and got two bonuses of 50K. Then I think you only need to spend 10k/year to get the companion pass.

BCOBQ98 said:

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Complete rook here. Currently have an Amex Blue Cash Card and some crappy MasterCard just to use when I can't use the amex.

These 100,000 miles what are they worth? I don't play the frequent flyer game but am planning on a trip to Africa again. How many miles for a flight?

Guess I need to start Churning! Is there a primer for rooks?

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There's a lot of information on reddit.com/r/churning

The community isn't very newbie friendly and there's a lot of acronyms thrown all over the place but you can pick up on a lot of stuff from reading through the sidebar material and then going through the big weekly stickied posts

BCOBQ98 said:

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Complete rook here. Currently have an Amex Blue Cash Card and some crappy MasterCard just to use when I can't use the amex.

These 100,000 miles what are they worth? I don't play the frequent flyer game but am planning on a trip to Africa again. How many miles for a flight?

Guess I need to start Churning! Is there a primer for rooks?

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At a minimum they are worth $1500 through Chase's travel booking portal. They redeem at $.015/point.

They could be worth more because of the opportunity to transfer to travel partners. For example, these points transfer 1:1 to southwest and united (plus many more including hotel partners) where you could find great values on point redemptions. Its generally easy enough for me to find redemptions worth .016 to .018 - to find much better than that you generally have to have great flexibility in your travel dates and itineraries (or get lucky).

Just booked a trip to Italy and got a little above $0.03 using points I earned on a United card. I find the airline points get more valuable when booking international. Flight to South Africa is 160,000 last I looked.

I'm gonna get the companion pass at the end of this month (have the business and premier card), also just got the Reserve. Now I just need to figure out where all I'm going to travel.

New Chase Business card out. 80k sign up bonus.

Aggie09Derek said:

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I'm gonna get the companion pass at the end of this month (have the business and premier card), also just got the Reserve. Now I just need to figure out where all I'm going to travel.

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Don't get it at the end of this month. What a waste!

Companion Pass is valid for two calendar years. Sandbag your spend until January.

It's good for the rest of the calendar year you get it and then the next year after. Not 2 calendar years. Your point stands though, getting it in January is best.

Details on the new Chase Ink Business Preferred...

http://thepointsguy.com/2016/10/chase-ink-business-preferred-card/

For those who have a Ink card but were denied for the CSR, the 3 travel could be worth doing a product change.

I think the Ink Plus with 5x points on utilities is more useful for me. The extra 10k-20k sign up bonus is tempting though, I wonder how quickly / easily I could product change from a Ink Preferred to Ink Plus.

I am still debating my best options of two SW cards vs an Ink card. I am worried about only being able to one card with 5/24.

GarlandAg2012 said:

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It's good for the rest of the calendar year you get it and then the next year after. Not 2 calendar years. Your point stands though, getting it in January is best.

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Surely it's just the year you start getting points towards it and then the following year and now the start date of when you achieve companion pass. Right?

It is when you achieve it. Many people apply in Nov to get it in Jan. It's actually not even the date you hit the mark, spend wise, it starts on the first statement after you hit it I believe.

7. These points do not count toward your Companion Pass:
"Points earned in a previous calendar year"


So I would have to have gotten the cards early in the year and acquired all the other points early in the year to get max value.


http://thepointsguy.com/2014/11/southwest-companion-pass-16-things-every-flyer-should-know/

GarlandAg2012 said:

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It's good for the rest of the calendar year you get it and then the next year after. Not 2 calendar years. Your point stands though, getting it in January is best.

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You just described two calendar years. If they get it now it's valid for 16', what's left of it, and 17'. That's two calendar years.

Yeah, don't hit your spend limits until January. Assuming your min. spend date is three months out from this month. If not, that stinks.