Man I wish I was The Points Guy when I get emails like this, I could clean up! Heck, I could stop making up fake emails too! So the question today comes from Reader A. Here’s the message in verbatim:
Hello Matt,
Seriously in love with your network, your personal finance views, and the forum.
I am gearing up for my next app-o-rama and I just think you can really provide me with some recommendations, somewhat at a lost here.
Here are my current cards:
<List of cards, blah.. etc>
What do you think I should get next?
Thank you so much,
I’ve no idea.
The problem that we face when it comes to these app-o-ramas (applying for a bunch of cards at one time) is that everyone has different needs, balances and strategies. I’ll explain my own here:
I like to have all my major travel booked up 330 days in advance. Points can be devalued and space is limited so I really feel a pressure to lock in tickets. With that in mind I carry a balance of points to cover two areas:
An emergency fund
I use this for quick trips, weekend getaways, and real emergencies where I might need to get somewhere. For me I tend to use transferable points for this as it is a hoarding approach. Transferable funds are SPG, Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards. You could argue Thank You Points should be in there now, but I’ve never really warmed to them.
A ‘gap fund’
I use this for seats that aren’t open yet – IE something that is perhaps 12-14 months away, and will open soon but I just can’t book it today.
Everyone has a different ‘need’ here. A single person needs less miles than a head of household, and a person with family in driving distance needs less than an immigrant with a lot of close family many miles away.
So, that’s my strategy, and as such, I tend to carry a varying amount that hovers around 50-100K in SPG, MR, UR and then a similar amount in a couple of key programs like AA, US, or whatnot that come from opportunistic offers.
My plan may change soon as I am rethinking it… but the key is that it is a plan.
You need a plan
The two big issues that I see when trying to answer the App O Rama question is that I cannot see the goal of Reader A, and I cannot see progress towards that goal. The 11 cards listed could mean he has a balance of 5M points, and the strategy should be move to cash back only, or he could have 500K points around a few programs, but little in the way of Arrival dollars so a Venture card might seem attractive. In another situation he may have all the flights covered, but no hotel points.
Decide on your goal, price it out, do it.
Personally, I’m a bit ‘goalless’ myself right now, so I can understand this isn’t always easy. But you really should try to consider some bucket list places and find the best way to make it work. The best tip I can give here is that you shouldn’t overvalue your hard pulls.
Providing that you can manage credit, and that you have no big credit needs (such as a mortgage) you should be more comfortable applying for cards that otherwise might seem average. Some examples would be: Chase Hyatt, Citi Reserve. These two offer a 2night free offer(though Chase might be changing that..) for their sign up bonus. IE you trade a hard pull and some opportunity spend for 2 nights in almost any Hyatt or Hilton property. This can be worth it, though arguably isn’t worth as much as 100K AA miles.
A card that people love to hate is the CapOne Venture. It is reviled as they pull 3 times for this, but for most people that doesn’t matter. In exchange this offers 40K signup bonus and 2x everywhere, making it a slightly inferior version of the Arrival in some ways.
Once you have a goal, feel free to swing by the Forum to ask in our App o Rama thread, we will be glad to help. And if you want to apply for credit cards, remember doing so on Saverocity will mean a donation goes to charity.
In closing. I cannot recommend highly enough that anyone who is in the points and miles game gets traveling ASAFP. Forget cashback and MS and all that crap if you haven’t had a great trip at least once. Get a plan, and get out there.
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