In the Spring of 2016, Freddie and I traveled a RTW (Round the World) using Chase Ultimate Reward points. We flew from Los Angeles to Tokyo in Business Class and explored Japan for 10 days then took a low cost airline (Peach Airlines) from Osaka to Shanghai then Cambodia, Thailand, Qatar, Turkey and finally back to Boston. All of the long segments were Business Class and the short segments were on low cost airlines (Peach Airlines, Air Asia, etc.).
Learning the Chase Ultimate Reward rules
Chase has a rule known as 5/24: Only 5 new cards are allowed in 24 months. So pick your 5 first cards carefully.
Chase Business Preferred Ink Visa Card
The Chase card I’d recommend first is the Chase Business Ink Preferred card. It will earn you 80,000 Ultimate Reward miles after you spend $5000 in the first 3 months and has a $95/year fee. You can achieve the $5000 spend by using the card to pay your property taxes, federal or state income or estimated taxes, using Plastiq.com to pay your mortgage or any other large payment or large purchases. Yes, you may have to pay some fees to use a credit card to make these payments but think of these fees as vacation travel expenses…they will cost you a few hundred dollars but will get you a Business Class seat that would have cost you thousands of dollars.
Do you have income other than W-2 income? Perhaps you have property rental income or book royalties. Perhaps you have consulting income or you sell things on ebay. Maybe house solar panels produce income or you drive some for Uber. There are many ways to have some extra income and your business name can be your own name with your own Social Security #.
Are you married? Does your spouse have business income? Never add your spouse to your account…if you do, they will lose the opportunity to get signup bonus points. Always do a separate application for your spouse so they get the signup bonus points.
Do you have multiple businesses? It’s valid that each business would have it’s own Chase Business Preferred Ink card. It makes sense that you would keep transactions for different businesses on separate cards. It’s also nice that you earn a signup bonus for each business card you sign up for and make the minimum spend. Perhaps your spouse has multiple businesses as well.
In summary, the Chase Business Preferred Ink card is a wonderful way to accumulate Chase Ultimate Reward points.
Be aware that Chase may issue a 1099 for the value of the business points issued. This applies only to business cards.
Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa Card
My next favorite card for obtaining Chase Ultimate Reward signup points is the Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa Card. Don’t confuse this with the Chase Sapphire Preferred. You can only get one Chase Sapphire Card so be sure that you signup for the Reserve. Wait until Chase has at least a 60,000 Bonus point offer. The offers change and lower to 50K points which I think is too low for this card…wait until it’s at least a 60K offer. The Chase Sapphire Reserve Card has a $450 annual fee…but wait…it’s not that bad because the first $300 of travel expenses are credited back to you…and it will pay for your Global Entry membership which speeds up your re-entry through USA Customs and also gives you TSA Precheck. The Sapphire Reserve card also gives you primary automobile insurance coverage when you rent a car so you can decline all coverages and let Chase cover your insurance. Also, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card gives you Priority Pass membership for all of the Airport Lounges you’ll want to visit as you travel the World. And 3X Points for Travel and Dining expenses help increase your Ultimate Reward points.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve card is one that I keep year after year because the reimbursement for $300 travel expenses renews every year, we use this for primary rental car insurance, and we eat and drink and rest at many many Priority Lounges as we travel the World. This card is a keeper!
Of course you can collect and sell rare coins like my grandson Isaac, but I think I’ll stick with collecting Ultimate Rewards.