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Welcome! If you’re here, you might be brand new to the world of credit card points & miles. Opening credit cards, putting your regular spending on them, paying them off every month and collecting the bonuses is a fantastic and fun way to afford more travel. Because the sheer number of cards available to open might feel overwhelming, let’s start by talking about Chase, one of the biggest banks that offers the most cards, and discuss how to navigate them.
While there’s not one tried and true way to open the right cards, today we’re going to talk about why you might want to consider opening Chase cards before any others, the best ones to start with, and how you can use Chase Ultimate Rewards for your next Disney vacation!
First things first: understand the 5/24 rule.
1. The 5/24 Rule
There’s a catch with Chase Bank: they will stop issuing credit cards to you once you’ve opened any five personal credits cards from any bank in a 24 month time period. That’s why if you want Chase cards at all, you should start with them, open the ones you want, and then move on to opening cards from other banks (FYI, Chase will likely not issue you a credit card if you’ve never had a credit card before, or if you only have one and have had it for less than one year).
2.The Chase Card to Open First
After you digest the 5/24 rule, ground yourself in a foundational card with a substantial welcome bonus. Many agree that one of the best cards you can open first in your journey is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (earn 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening plus a $50 Annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit, and the annual fee is only $95.) That bonus equals $750 for travel when redeemed through the Chase Ultimate Rewards (CUR) travel portal, but redeeming points in the portal is not the best use of your points!
Because of all its transfer partners, this card will serve as a foundational Chase card for you. CUR are some of the most valuable, flexible rewards available, and reasons to open it include 1. the lucrative welcome bonus 2. low annual fee 3. transfer capability and partners, and 4. 25% additional travel value when you book through the portal or use pay yourself back statement credits in rotating categories.
Transfer Capability
Understand the power of your Chase card: while other Chase cards earn you CUR, only some allow you to transfer rewards to their partners 1:1, and the Preferred is one of them. Transferring points is almost always going to get you the most value out of CUR. There’s a long list of airline and hotel partners to whom you can transfer CUR, including:
Aer Lingus AerClub
Air Canada AerClub
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
British Airways Executive Club
Emirates Skywards
Iberia Plus
JetBlue TrueBlue
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards (Chase also offers SW cards*)
United MileagePlus (Chase also offers United cards*)
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
IHG Rewards Club (Chase also offers IHG cards*)
Marriott Bonvoy (Chase also offers Marriott cards*)
World of Hyatt (Chase also offers Hyatt cards*)
*Note the transfer partners that also have a Chase card listed next to them–those cards will potentially have a special relationship with your Preferred, should you open them. The most popular transfer partners on this list are Hyatt, United, and Southwest; we will discuss why below.
3.Chase Cards to Open After the Sapphire Preferred
Lucrative Cards to Open After the Preferred
The most lucrative Chase cards you can open are the Ink cards. Open the Chase Ink Business® Unlimited Card and earn 75,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $6000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening)–for no annual fee! This card earns you 1.5 points for every dollar spent, including your minimum spend; that means you’ll actually have either $810 cash back or, if you have the Sapphire Preferred, Reserve or Ink Preferred, 81,000 Ultimate Rewards.
The other card with an elevated bonus right now is the Chase Ink Business Cash Card, which you can also open earn 75,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $6000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening)–for no annual fee! The difference with this one is that it earns 5x miles in certain categories: office supply stores, internet and phone.
You don’t have to own a giant thriving small business or even an LLC to qualify for a business card; any sort of side gig at all might qualify you. The nice thing about these business cards is that while you have to be under 5/24 to open them, they doesn’t count against your 5/24.
To hear more about how almost anyone can open a business card, refer to this blog post and listen to this episode of The Disney Points Podcast:
Combine the Sapphire Preferred welcome bonus with an Ink Business welcome bonus and transfer your stash of Ultimate Rewards to whatever hotel/airline you choose!
The Trick to Never Running out of Chase Ultimate Rewards
Chase seems to be quite liberal with handing out Chase Ink Cards. Data points show that they prefer individuals to space out their applications, but as long as one waits at least 90 days in between, most people should be able to open multiple Ink credit cards. Here’s a few tips:
- Space out applications 90 days apart or more.
- Open one Ink Cash & one Ink Unlimited for each sole proprietor side income stream or each LLC/EIN, always 90 days apart.
- The fine print says individuals can earn each business card bonus every 24 months.
For example: if an individual has an LLC and also a side income renting out a room of their house online as a sole proprietor, technically that individual could open four Ink business cards every 24 months, one cash and one unlimited for the LLC and one of each as a sole proprietor.
4.Airline Cards
If you’ll be doing a lot of domestic travel, or you already fly Southwest a lot, you might consider opening the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card (Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months). The reason people love this card is because you can work towards a Companion Pass: to qualify, you’ll need to fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 125,000 qualifying points* in a calendar year. After you earn the Pass, it’s good for the rest of the calendar year and through the next year, which means that the earlier in the year you earn the Pass, the better! Once you earn the pass, you designate one companion at a time, and can change that companion three times per calendar year. When you book flights with cash or points, use the pass for an additional ticket for your chosen companion. Read more about how to earn one or two companion passes here:
Remember, with your Preferred card, you can earn and transfer CUR to SW Airlines! Combine your Preferred CUR with the welcome bonus from your SW card and the companion pass, and that could equal many free flights for several years, for you and your designated companion.
Disney tip: Lots of families use SW points to fly their family to Disney!
5.Chase Hotel Cards to Open
World of Hyatt
In case you missed it, people love Hyatt. They love the footprint, the hotels themselves, the way you can earn Globalist status and eat expensive breakfast for free, the all-inclusives in tropical locations, and not paying resort fees for redemption stays. There are many reasons to love Hyatt, and if you want to start a Hyatt journey, open the The World of Hyatt Credit Card (Earn 30,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. Plus, up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent in the first 6 months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 Bonus Point, on up to $15,000 spent).
I can see the benefits of pairing this card with the preferred, because you can transfer CUR to Hyatt and pair them with the welcome bonus from this card. What I don’t love about this card is the welcome bonus: earning 30,000 points for $3000 is fine, but having to spend $15,000 more dollars to earn the full 60,000 isn’t a great deal. The card does come with an anniversary free category 1-4 night certificate that you’ll receive annually having the card, for which you’ll pay a $95 annual fee.
Marriott
Last but not least, you can open a Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card, and earn 3 Free Nights (each valued up to 50,000 points) after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from your account opening. For a $95 annual fee, you’ll earn up to 17X total Bonvoy points per $1 spent at over 7,000 hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy® with the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Card; also, earn 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 25,000 points) every year after account anniversary.
In some circles, Marriott gets a very bad rep because they rank the value of a Marriott point quite low compared to Hyatt and Hilton (the latter two also don’t charge resort fees on redemption stays). I’ll tell you why I have this card and why you might consider it too: Disney. Marriott and Disney have a special relationship. Heck, at WDW you can use Marriott points to stay in a Marriott WDW Resort on property, and enjoy a bunch of resort perks like extra hours and park transportation.
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Takeaways
Now that we’ve compared the various Chase cards and transfer partners, you can embark on your Chase journey and choose the cards that are right for you! Remember: you can’t go wrong starting with the Preferred, and then pairing it with one or more of the other cards on this list. In no time at all, you will be earning and redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards, some of the most valuable points out there–and using them for your next Disney trip!
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