Hi All, I am a new grad and have discover, chase freedom unlimited , BOFA corporate, credit cards. My credit score is good as they have increased my credit line as well. I am looking to take one credit card that has no foreign transaction fee and considering amex gold (yearly 250$ charges) vs chase sapphire reserve (yearly 550$ charges). Could you please suggest which one would be better considering all the perks, benefits will overcome yearly charges or not. TC: 200k Yoe: 0 #finance #credit
Given that you have the freedom unlimited, the reserve is the choice given you have 1/3 of the chase Trifecta already
Amex card from my experience is kinda like a rebate card. You need to use to purposely use to to get that kind of perk. For example, Uber credit ( why do I care for it if I have a car? )
works on uber eats too
Amex platinum paid itself off for me this year after my rental car got broken into ($800 stolen goods + 500 damage to the car) and my phone needed a screen replacement for $250.
Amex platinum baby
I have explored the perks, but How do you offset its annual fee ? Just want to know a real experience
First of all the first year sign up bonus will offset it easily so if anything you can downgrade in year 2 and just reap the rewards for one year The other benefits I've used - $200 hotel credit, just used this in Portland and basically got a free night. Combined with the fine hotels perk which gives you a $100 credit, free breakfast and 4pm checkout, I got free parking and free dinner + breakfast and they even let me keep my parking past 4pm - $200 uber credit, combined with free uber eats pass I use this on food with no effort - $179 CLEAR credit, personally this has been great to have for skipping lines at airports and since I also have delta amex gold which gives clear discount, I was able to use the credit for me and gf - lounge access at every airport. The value obviously varies based on your usage but I've used this at almost every airport I've been to except a few times on late flights when the lounge was closed. You get free food and drinks, coffee etc - $200 airline fee credit. I always fly comfort plus on delta flights for leg room and this credit can be used towards those (if you book the economy ticket separately first), because econ+ is considered seat change and not upgrade Obviously there are others but these are the ones that have really given me value to offset the fee
Either works. Just called their customer service to get them to waive the fee once per year.
How do you do that? Do you simply tell them you’re going to stop using it?
This has never been successful
I had sapphire, citi prestige, and amex platinum. best: sapphire reserve! So easy to use benefits and you can really get all the benefits if you have more than one card (freedom, freedom unlimited trifecta). My favorite card, will be going back. Their CSAs are whatever though, doesn't really feel super premium. middle: citi prestige used to have good benefits and their csas are amazing! I loved this card but harder to use benefits compared to sapphire. Might get it again. worst: Amex platinum. I have this card and I hate it. It costs $700. The benefits are so convoluted and you have to read every tiny details. their CSAs are awful. only good thing about it is platinum lounge in select airports but I don't think it's worth it since most other cards you get lounge passes. Also useless in most foreign countries since they don't take amex. Points are harder to accumulate since they only mutiply it for very select categories. Fuck this card. Avoid.
If you’re spending is skewed towards bars and dining, chase sapphire reserved all the way
Chase all the way, I have both
Thanks folks for the responses, helped a lot to get a idea.
Chase Sapphire Reserve is amazing .. but now they have increased yearly fee to $550 (from $450) .. but if you use it enough, it is still a very good card .. and the UR points are very valuable and easy to redeem. I've not used Amex Platinum, but from what i've heard - CSR is better in terms of point redemption, also CSR is cheaper
amex sucks with point accumulation.
Amex platinum or chase sapphire reserve, both cost 550$
platinum raised its fee to $695
Oh, I was talking about amex gold