The hype about first Friday for 3x the points is just a ploy to lure you into signing up for the Cash Sapphire Preferred using affiliate links. You never heard of Citi’s Thank You Premier card offering 3x on dining everyday (until October, HT to Paul below). You will now with the advent of Citi’s Thank You Points being flexible with new transfer partners
I would go as far as saying that signing up for the Citi Thank You Premier is a great choice and would choose it over the Sapphire Preferred. I have the Sapphire Preferred, but not the Thank You Premier
- Citi has 3x dining every day
- Sapphire Preferred lost the 7% dividend
- Citi has added transfer partners not accessible to other flexible point programs
As a reminder, the transfer partners are:
- Cathay Pacific
- EVA Air
- Etihad
- Garuda Indonesia
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qatar Airways
- Singapore Airlines
- Thai Airways
- Hilton Hotels
This makes the Sapphire Preferred not as strong of a card as it used to be. If you add the Citi Thank You Premier into your wallet and own a Chase Ink card, there is no need for the Sapphire Preferred. The Citi Thank You Premier has you covered for dining/entertainment at 3x as well as 2x on airfare and hotels and the Chase Ink has you covered in the primary auto collision insurance as well as the Ultimate Rewards mall as the “premium” card. In addition, the Ink still had the other bonus categories like gas and also covers hotels.
With that strategy, the downside is the loss on the bonus in other travel categories like train travel. When you rebalance and don’t already have it, consider adding the Fidelity American Express would cover the rest of the gaps.
I agree with you completely in principle, and I had no idea that 3x dining was a thing with Citi. There’s just one problem for me keeping Ink Bold and ditching SP though — primary car rental insurance on the Ink is only for business trips, not personal. *sigh*
On insurance – that’s a great point that isn’t covered much and I didn’t include it either. Ink is for business purposes. While the Chase United cards do have primary on personal cards, the CSP would make it the only personal Ultimate Rewards earning credit card that offers the primary coverage
You both are wrong, with all due respect. Ink covers primary for personal use as well. Ink always covered personal use as secondary but they’ve given primary on personal use since Nov 1, 2013. Use it every time I travel business or otherwise. Call 888-320-9956, option 2,1 to confirm. Another great reason to have the Ink.
Thanks, great to know!
Yes, 3x dining is nice, but according to the T&Cs, it’s dropping to 2x in October (and airfare will be bumped to 3x).
Thanks! Didn’t realize there was updated T&C’s to it for the future.
My US Bank Cash+ offers cardholders two 5% categories and one 2% category; everything else is one percent. You can change them each quarter. Right now I have restaurants and electronics at 5% and grocery at 2%. During the last quarter of the year, when we make year-end tax donations, I’ll swap electronics for charity, but I knew I’d be buying a computer so went for the 5% electronics to cover that in quarter two. With no annual fee, it is a nice little cashback card for my “arsenal!”
I wish I kept the 5% electronics! I could totally use it for this quarter @ Best Buy and keep the warranty from the Visa intact
Silly me, I’ve been putting all my restaurant spending on an Amex GC (4% Lucky Rewards, now dead) using my SPG card (for which I’m not going to pay the annual fee). I use the same card at Wegmans too.
That’s a great plan
You don’t mention the AF here which is $30 more per year after the first year. Granted you may be thinking to cancel after the first year…but if you want the full 50k bonus you have to pay the 2nd year AF. So sign up bonus: 40k all at once for CSP without AF vs 30k the first year with TYP + $125 and 20k in year 2.
Also, there is something to be said for earning pts in the same program. If you earn 10k in TYP and 10k in UR pts (via Ink spend), then that is less useful than 20k UR pts (assuming you have CSP & Ink). Most people are not going to be spending 10s of 1000s of $s on BOTH cards, thus consolidating pts earning is key. UR has 3 other transfer partners (outside of Singapore…which is IMO the only useful transfer partner of TYP) that make them valuable to most people (United, Southwest and Hilton). While I agree the CSP is over-inflated in the blogosphere, not mentioning some of these points does not paint the full picture. I believe your blog caters (mostly) to the well-informed miles/pts earner, so maybe this is all a moot point.
Nope, didn’t mention the AF difference, I was gearing more along the lines of earning in dining and ability to redeem to other programs not available to other programs other than the Citi Thank You points.