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For a hotel card, I prefer the Amex hhonors surpass card. They waive the annual fee via Relief act and you rack up points fairly quick on it. Comes with automatic Gold which is frankly almost as good as diamond. I have 65 hiltons stays this year between tdys and vacations!

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The Amex accumulates points faster. For example, you earn 12 points per dollar at Hilton properties vs 10 on the other card. Plus, Amex is hands down the best on honoring the SCRA. 

If you have free time, the points guy is a great blog for this kinda stuff. If you travel a lot, maxing your point potential is worth it. I have like seven credit cards right now and for you doubters, no it hasn't affected my excellent credit a bit. (And yes I pay them in full every month)

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For a hotel card, I prefer the Amex hhonors surpass card. They waive the annual fee via Relief act and you rack up points fairly quick on it. Comes with automatic Gold which is frankly almost as good as diamond. I have 65 hiltons stays this year between tdys and vacations!

Did you just call up AMEX to get the annual fee waived by SCRA? I have the no-fee Hilton Honor AMEX but this year I'm going to miss making Gold, so I'm looking into option for next year.

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Had the Amex, and now I have the Citi Hilton card. I do pay $90/year for it but I get a free night every year at any Hilton property so that's a wash (used mine last year at Times Square, so I saved $400+).

Citi doesn't have foreign transaction fees either. Having the Amex Platinum too, I have no need for two cards that are a PITA, like you said.

Any advise on how to best use/transfer Amex Platinum points?

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A slightly non-standard one, but I have the IHG Rewards by Chase.  $50/year after the first year, but you get one free night a year and 60K points.  The 60K points will generally get you two to three nights free (points vary based on location and room, but 15K-30K is the range I've seen with most around 25K.  So, after one year you should get at least 3 nights for $95.  The other big benefit is that it automatically puts you in one of their top tiers of the hotel loyalty program.  Was huge for me when I took my family to Disneyland and stayed at the Holiday Inn.  We reserved the cheapest room and ended up in a huge suite.  I also stayed at a Holiday Inn for a couple longer TDYs and got nicer rooms then and bonus points.  $50 for three nights free plus auto-upgrade is really nice.  Plus, if you can work out staying TDY at any IHG chain, your points go up quick.

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Did you just call up AMEX to get the annual fee waived by SCRA? I have the no-fee Hilton Honor AMEX but this year I'm going to miss making Gold, so I'm looking into option for next year.

There is a link on their website or you can call them.  I have been very impressed by Amex through the years.  (and consistently disappointed in nearly everything USAA does....)

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  • 1 month later...

I've been using a United Visa card for years now but no longer travel enough to find it that useful and am looking to switch to a points or cash back card. Never had a points card before so I'm not sure how flexible they really are in using the points. Does anybody have a good experience with any of them in particular? Or is it better to just stick with a good cash back card and forget trying to accumulate points?

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On 12/30/2015 at 7:02 AM, MilitaryToFinance said:

I've been using a United Visa card for years now but no longer travel enough to find it that useful and am looking to switch to a points or cash back card. Never had a points card before so I'm not sure how flexible they really are in using the points. Does anybody have a good experience with any of them in particular? Or is it better to just stick with a good cash back card and forget trying to accumulate points?

go do a little light reading over at thepointsguy.com and you can see how flexible points can be with the right card.

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  • 7 months later...

Anyone here have experience with the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card.  They advertise 100,000 bonus points if you spend $4000 in the first 3 months, 3x points on travel and restaurants, and $300 annual travel credit.  The annual fee is $495 but I was wondering if anyone knew if they offered a similar deal to AMEX by waiving fees to Active Duty individuals?

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Anyone here have experience with the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card.  They advertise 100,000 bonus points if you spend $4000 in the first 3 months, 3x points on travel and restaurants, and $300 annual travel credit.  The annual fee is $495 but I was wondering if anyone knew if they offered a similar deal to AMEX by waiving fees to Active Duty individuals?

No waiving on this one unfortunately. But the $300 travel credit is for calendar year so if you get it now you get the credit for 2016 and 2017 and can cancel the card before the next annual fee is due, netting you $150 plus the 100K points.

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No waiving on this one unfortunately. But the $300 travel credit is for calendar year so if you get it now you get the credit for 2016 and 2017 and can cancel the card before the next annual fee is due, netting you $150 plus the 100K points.

Thanks Goblin

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  • 4 months later...
I just signed up for the Citi Double Cash card.  No annual fee, 1% back on all purchases and 1% additional when you pay your bill.  Going to give that a go this year switching from USAA where I was getting 1% cash back.

Not a bad deal, but you should consider the offerings from American Express and Barclaycard. Both will waive annual fees for active duty, and Barclay offers 0% APR.

On the Amex side I have three Platinum cards (Normal, Mercedes, and Business) which all give me a $200 annual airline credit among many other useful perks. The SPG Business card (free Sheraton Club access), Hilton Surpass (HHonors gold status and a crapton of points on dining and fuel purchases), Delta reserve (annual domestic business class companion pass), and Delta Platinum Business (annual domestic coach companion pass).

As far as Barclay, I have their Arrival+, which effectively gives 2.1% back when redeemed for travel, Hawaiian Airlines, and American Airlines cards.


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On an added note, I've been able to redeem credit card sign up bonuses for several vacations. Last year we redeemed three free nights at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, then flew roundtrip to Hawaii on Delta and stayed 5 nights each at the Sheraton Waikiki and Ritz Carlton Maui. This spring we're flying First Class to Cancun and then probably doing Hawaii again in the fall, all on points.


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Dunno about all of those mentioned, but Barclaycard and AMEX Platinum are both waived for me.

My Barclaycard is also set at 0% APR. I churn points by purchasing everything I can with it, and going big on the card when PCSing pretty much always earns me enough points to pay for a couple tickets to someplace nice. All at 0% APR, so it's no-hassle when USAF decides to be a few months late repaying my travel voucher.


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On 1/2/2017 at 2:47 AM, ihtfp06 said:


Not a bad deal, but you should consider the offerings from American Express and Barclaycard. Both will waive annual fees for active duty, and Barclay offers 0% APR.

On the Amex side I have three Platinum cards (Normal, Mercedes, and Business) which all give me a $200 annual airline credit among many other useful perks. The SPG Business card (free Sheraton Club access), Hilton Surpass (HHonors gold status and a crapton of points on dining and fuel purchases), Delta reserve (annual domestic business class companion pass), and Delta Platinum Business (annual domestic coach companion pass).

As far as Barclay, I have their Arrival+, which effectively gives 2.1% back when redeemed for travel, Hawaiian Airlines, and American Airlines cards.


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I thought about some of these but didn't want to deal with paying an annual fee or closing the account after leaving active duty.

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I thought about some of these but didn't want to deal with paying an annual fee or closing the account after leaving active duty.

In many cases you can convert the account to a no annual fee version of the card.


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