You’ve completed the Chase Trifecta either by yourself or in two-player mode with P2. You’re getting the hang of this and you have those two slots open. Where should you go from here? A lot is going to depend on your travel plans, goals and spending habits. I strongly suggest that you only focus on one card here and not two. You don’t want to use up those the last two 5/24 slots that you have, at least not yet.
At this point, you have four options.
1. Business credit cards
2. Airline credit cards
3. Hotel credit cards
4. The Bilt Mastercard
I’m going to summarize these options here but I’m also going to have more in depth articles that I suggest you read once they are uploaded. When they are done, the list above will appear as links.
Business credit cards
Business credit cards are a rather involved topic so I’m not going to get into everything here. There are other articles that get more into that. Before you apply for anything, I highly suggest that you read those articles first. Chase has several business cards that are not affiliated with any hotels or airlines called Inks. The Chase Ink Business Cash is one of my favorite cards. Getting it can really kick your game into high gear if you have what it takes to do that (more on that here). There is also another Chase Ink card, the Ink Business Unlimited that functions just like the Chase Freedom Unlimited where everything you spend is 1.5x.
There are two other Inks but they aren’t worth discussing here. The Business Cash and Unlimited have no annual fee which is really awesome. The sign up bonus was 90,000 points but it is currently only 75,000 points. A bit of a bummer but still an absolutely amazing deal when you consider that there is no annual fee! What’s the catch? Well you have to spend $6,000 in 90 days. Ouch. That’s gonna be difficult for some people to do. There are ways to do this of course even if you normally don’t spend $6000 in 90 days but that’s a topic for another post. If you think you can do this, I wouldn’t even consider the other options. What’s really nice is that these cards don’t take up a 5/24 slot but you have to be under 5/24 to get them.
And before you say “well I don’t have a business so…”, read this article first.
Airline credit cards
These are cards that most people have and while they certainly hold a place in your wallet, they are usually a poor place to start off. Of course in this example we’ve already completed the Chase Trifecta so we are considering what to get for card number 4. Every airline has a credit card associated with it. The first question is whether you should go for an airline credit card now or if something else makes sense. If you don’t want to get an Ink and you don’t really want/need a hotel credit card, then an airline credit card may make sense at this point. The next question is to what airline to choose.
Unfortunately, Chase does not partner with every airline. In additional to some foreign airlines, they partner with United and Southwest. I would strongly suggest picking one of those two cards so that you don’t take up a 5/24 slot with a non-Chase card at this point unless you know that you are not going to fly either one of those airlines. For Southwest, you’re either a fan or you’re not. I don’t think there are too many people that will fly Southwest on occasion, at least in my experience. I flew them once and I don’t plan on it again so I would never need that card. Of course, if I lived near Dallas or one of their other airports where they dominate, perhaps that’d be different.
United has hubs across the country and they fly almost anywhere so I think they are a really good option even if you don’t live near a hub. My home airport is TPA and the only United flights out of there are usually to hubs like EWR, IAH, ORD, DEN, etc where I will have to take another flight to get to my destination. A little annoying but its not the end of the world.
If fly another airline often and you don’t already have their card, it may make sense to grab that card with this slot if you think you can use the miles. Once again, this is where planning comes in. You should know where you want to go and who flies there. For example, if you wanted to fly the country X and United doesn’t actually fly there, wasting time earning United miles may not make any sense. If however you generally fly American but you want to fly to Tokyo, then the miles you get from signing up for the United card will cover most if not all of your miles to get there and back.
Hotel credit cards
These credit cards are not the most suitable cards for beginners. Instead, they are better for people that are more advanced and are working on status with a specific hotel brand. I don’t think the beginner will really be chasing hotel status anytime soon. I think the only card that would really make sense for the beginner is the Chase World of Hyatt card. Of course, this assumes that you need those points for a specific booking. As indicated previously, this is why it’s important to have a plan.
However, there are some business versions of these cards that may be better for you if you want to stay under 5/24.
The Bilt Mastercard
If you’re a home owner, you can skip over this. If you rent, you’ll want to strongly consider this. Not everyone agrees that this is worth of a 5/24 slot but I suppose a lot depends on the amount of rent you pay and a few other factors. It’s at least worth considering but since it’s involved, it has it’s own post which you can read here.
Spending requirements could make the choice for you
Only you can decide for yourself which way you want to go here but the most ideal situation is to apply for a Chase Ink Cash. It won’t count towards your 5/24 status, there’s no annual fee and the sign up bonus is great, even if it isn’t what it used to be. But spending $6,000 in 3 months could be a challenge for some people.