CREDIT PROFILE
- Current credit cards you are the primary account holder of:
- Discover It, $4,300 limit, 07/2021
- FICO scores with source: Experian 778, TransUnion 776
- Oldest credit card account age: 4 years
- Cards approved in the past 6 months: 0
- Cards approved in the past 12 months: 0
- Cards approved in the past 24 months: 0
- Annual income $: 125,000
CATEGORIES
- Ok with category-specific cards?: Yes
- Ok with rotating category cards?: Yes
- Estimate average monthly spend in the categories below.
- Dining $: 300
- Groceries $: 400
- Gas $: 60
- Travel $: 150 (flights) 50 (hotels) 40 (Uber/Lyft) 20 (public transit)
- Using abroad?: possibly a summer abroad, but this would be far enough in the future to not need to factor in
- Other categories or stores: Utilities (~150/month)
- Other spend: Music (~$5/month), News ($6/month)
- Pay rent by card? No
MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS
- Big bank customer: Bank of America (but I don't feel strongly about being loyal)
PURPOSE
- Purpose of next card: Travel Rewards
- Travel rewards preferences: Delta and United (but I also fly other US airlines based on price)
- Cards being considered: Chase Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture
ADDITIONAL INFO
Long Term
I don't travel enough to really make use of a luxury travel card. But, I expect that I will in ~5 years or so. I want to take those years to get myself into a position where I can easily move into that world quickly when I realize that it's time.
For example, is having the CSP beneficial to getting the CSR in the future? That would be good to know and plan now. Same with the other banks. What's the best long-term strategy to set myself up well, while still earning points and not drowning in annual fees before I actually reap the benefits.
Short Term
I want to have a card to be widely usable abroad with no FTF. For this reason, it seems an AmEx card isn't the way to go (but I'm open to being wrong). This is the most important factor for me right now.
I'm expecting to move a few times in the next few years, so I'm intentionally not locked into a specific airline or anything regional like that at the moment, but United and Delta are my most frequent. Also on this note, I expect that my spending will change as I live in different places, so I don't want to e.g. go all in on a card that's only good for groceries.
Originally, I had been looking at the CSP and Venture cards because those are touted as good starter travel cards.
My biggest expenses are dining and groceries, but all in-person groceries and not online. From some preliminary calculations of last year's spending, it seems like the 3x on dining from CSP isn't enough to beat out the 2x for everything from the Capital One Venture card.
On the other hand, it seems like the Capital One points are less redeemable for US airlines, which is what I fly the most. I'm hoping to travel internationally more, and I'd be willing to fly other airlines; I just haven't done that a ton yet, so maybe this isn't super relevant right now.
Also, it seems like Capital One Venture cards may switch over to the Discover network in the future which doesn't help me with using it abroad.
Paying an annual fee doesn't scare me, but I'd definitely prefer a card that has product change to no-AF options since my credit limit, excluding any new card, isn't super high, and it would be nice to avoid a utilization hit if I decide to close this card because the AF isn't worth it.
I'm also open to getting multiple cards (e.g. one with an AF and one without) if there's a setup that works well like that.
Thanks!