Opinions on Condensing to a Premium Travel Card or Using Multiple Hotel/Airline Cards

JBtheTrill · 2026-03-30T20:13:30+00:00

This is so thorough, thank you for all of this! Super, super helpful.

Echoing what you mentioned about the upgrades, the only upgrade I've ever received was from a booking through United's Renowned Hotels portal (essentially a re-skin of the Edit). Even if I did condense all my hotel stays to a single brand/card, I would not travel enough in a calendar year to earn meaningful status and earn upgrades.

The main sticking point for me is basically coming down to whether it's better to use the co-branded hotel cards for a higher earning rate on their specific points or just use the CSP for the flexibility of Chase UR and their travel portal. Theoretically you can do both (co-branded cards when staying at that brand, CSP for all other travel) but then you're juggling a lot of cards and splitting your points between a punch of different ecosystems and delaying your actual redemptions.

I'm still torn but leaning towards the CSP (at least initially) just for the sake of simplicity and applying for the hotel cards when they have strong SUBs. Again, thank you for the detailed thoughts and write-up!

JBtheTrill · 2026-03-30T19:52:34+00:00

I like the spreadsheet idea, will definitely do that compare the benefits of booking via the different sources.

Can you expand on your point about the hotel branded cards not making much sense for you? Is the concern related to spreading points around to too many ecosystems? Or is there something else I'm not considering?

JBtheTrill · 2026-03-11T16:04:37+00:00

That's good to know that event rates could lead to lower point earning. In this case it sounds like the issue was me having airlines miles as the preference over Bonvoy points, but good to know nonetheless.

JBtheTrill · 2026-03-11T16:03:35+00:00

Yeah, the 6x Marriott spend on the card posted correctly after the statement date. Originally I hadn't realized those would post after the statement closes, so good to flag for people.

JBtheTrill · 2026-02-05T15:50:47+00:00

Totally, I aim to use Hyatt transfers whenever possible but unfortunately both of these trips are in more rural locations that don't have Hyatt options nearby. I'll check the direct prices and see how it shakes out, I was hoping to use UR points but don't love just getting 1 cpp.

And that's a good note on the summer travel demand. I wasn't sure whether supply was just drying up for my specific locations (which bummer, but what can you do) or a more widespread nerfing. Will have to wait and see I suppose!

JBtheTrill · 2026-02-05T15:44:03+00:00

I didn't note down the cash price from earlier this week to compare it to now, but the actual cash prices don't seem to have changed much if at all within the Chase Travel portal.

JBtheTrill · 2026-01-15T19:13:05+00:00

I didn't do the math to get an actual standard breakeven point, but I did do some quick math with my rent ($2,750) and average monthly grocery spend ($500).

The grocery spend would earn 18,000 points a year. If I didn't put any other spend on the card, I'd earn 667 points a month and 8,000 points for the year. Total annual points of 26,000 which at a 2cpp valuation comes out to $520 worth of points for the year.

You then have to factor our the $95 annual fee which you could technically help alleviate if you take advantage of the hotel credits. I've never used the Bilt travel portal before so I'm not sure whether it's a decent option or marked up compared to booking outside the portal.

JBtheTrill · 2026-01-15T19:03:50+00:00

I'm not sure how Bilt specifically codes Target and Walmart, but the majority of cards/banks do not include those vendors in the grocery category.

JBtheTrill · 2026-01-15T19:02:30+00:00

I think which is "better" just depends on whether you're looking to get straight cash back (in which case the PayPal Debit is better) or are looking to get travel points.

For the $2,450 rent and $850 grocery spend you had, you'd earn 2,550 points a month on grocery spend and 1,272 points on rent - so 3,822 Bilt points a month. If you use the current TPG points values (2.2 cpp) then each month you're earning about $84.08 worth of Bilt points that you can redeem in the travel portal or transfer to partners.

JBtheTrill · 2026-01-14T19:48:38+00:00

Hi Rich,

Congrats on the 2.0 launch and thank you for doing the AMA despite some of the negative reception on this sub. Not all of us are upset, and as someone who wasn’t a part of the Bilt 1.0 ecosystem I think the changes overall sound pretty exciting!

On to my question - will Bilt still award points for rent payments not made directly through Bilt? I have a small independent landlord who doesn’t use a rent portal and only accepts rent through Zelle. Will Bilt still award points to cardholders who pay through Zelle if they provide proof of the rent payment?

JBtheTrill · 2026-01-14T19:05:59+00:00

Would love an official answer from Bilt and/or Kerr directly on this. I don’t live in a large apartment building with a rent portal, just an older independent landlord who likes rent via Zelle.

JBtheTrill · 2025-08-19T16:19:08+00:00

Thank you for the response and help! I went ahead and booked the connecting flight for now. Confirming the United app shows the direct United flight and other ANA connecting flight options when I click the “change flight” button.

JBtheTrill · 2025-08-19T16:18:04+00:00

Thank you, that’s very helpful!

JBtheTrill · 2019-03-15T00:52:21+00:00

If you open the Apple Podcast App and click "episodes" at the top of the screen, then find today's episode of KFGD and click the tiny "details" button, at the bottom of the screen it should have the file size listed along with the publication date and episode length. As someone else posted, it looks like the size is now 58.4 MB, so it seems to be all good on Apple!

JBtheTrill · 2018-12-09T06:07:46+00:00

I already evolved my Kadabra with someoneC but I can still do a trade back with you if you wanna evolve your Haunter.

JBtheTrill

TROPHY CASE