Need a new credit card with travel benefits

[dreamshark]

we are using the Venture one card. We haven't had a chance to redeem any "miles" yet. I checked the erase feature and we have enough miles to erase our recent two night stay in Reno! I'm saving my miles for STJ, of course! Our plan is to use the Venture card to pay for absolutely everything we can, groceries, gas, electricity, etc. and hopefully rack up a free trip to st. john someday!

Have you found a way to pay for gas and electricity with your credit card? Where I live, most utilities can be autopaid for free from a bank account, but not from a credit card. Cell phone, internet service, and Netflix can all be autopaid by credit card, but that doesn't really add up to a lot. I can pay my fuel oil bill with a credit card, but I really hope that by next year we have replaced the old oil-guzzler with a gas furnace. I wonder if the city would let me pay my property taxes with my Barclay card?

[mbw1024]

Going from memory here but this is what I pay by CC - cell phone, internet/cable provider, netflix, electric bill, auto ins, EZ pass tolls, sirius radio. My city recently added CC payment for water bill so I will add that next time I get a bill. We also charge all gas, grocery, and whatever other nonsense we buy. It adds up!
I could pay my car by CC but for a fee that I don't feel is worth it.

[Marcia (Mrs. Pete)]

We are able to put all of our State Farm insurance on our credit card: Homeowners, cars, umbrella policy & personal items policy. This year, we even put our upcoming STJ villa rental on our credit card.

[mbw1024]

As with Cap One, Barclay's offers 2 cards with the same "Arrival" name. Only the card with the $89 dollar annual fee gets you 2x points for every dollar spent.
For a 40k intro this may be worth it for us. We are about to expire our one year on Cap One and will need to pay the annual fee if we continue. Really had no intention of switching but.....hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The annual fee is waived for the first year, so you might as well get the good one. The problem with points-based programs is... if you cancel at the end of the first year, you lose any unused points. The way this card works, the only way to get full value for your points is to use them to "erase" a travel purchase from your statement. You have to save up enough points to erase an entire purchase at once - hard to do without points left over.

Dreamshark, in the statement above about erasing an entire purchase at once, are you referring to the Barclay's card? I thought I read that you could "erase" your travel purchases in $25 dollar increments. So you could choose to only erase a portion of a purchase. Do I have that wrong?

[PointPeeps]

Great thread!...... I've been researching "no foreign transaction fee" credit cards and am down to the Venture One vs the Quicksilver ( for the freedom and slightly higher rewards). Both have no annual fee and same promo right now. Any thoughts or experience?

Thanks!

[dreamshark]

The way this card works, the only way to get full value for your points is to use them to "erase" a travel purchase from your statement. You have to save up enough points to erase an entire purchase at once - hard to do without points left over.

Dreamshark, in the statement above about erasing an entire purchase at once, are you referring to the Barclay's card? I thought I read that you could "erase" your travel purchases in $25 dollar increments. So you could choose to only erase a portion of a purchase. Do I have that wrong?

Hmm. When I search online I'm finding contradictory information on partial redemptions. The Barclay's site itself uses the phrase "After you redeem your points to pay for a purchase..." which sounds like you have to cover the entire purchase. But I found at least one review that strongly implies that this used to be the case but the policy has changed to allow partial redemptions. So far I only have 850 points, so not enough to try it out.

[mbw1024]

I had read this after you first posted about this card. Just sharing...
http://thepointsguy.com/2013/06/travel- ... val-miles/

[dreamshark]

mbw - I found another, newer blog post from someone with the same question who had experimentally verified that you CAN do partial reimbursement. This is cool. The catch (there's always a catch) is that you can only apply points in units of $25. That's 2,500 points (which requires $1,225 in spending to accumulate).

I figure we can generate about 2,000 points/month on the card if we use it for gas, groceries, eating out, and the few monthly bills that can be paid directly to credit card. That seems worthwhile, but it's only $240/year - not even enough for one airline fare. The real payoff with this card is the 40K intro offer. Not sure if I'll renew it after the first year, or transform myself into a serial credit-card flipper.

[mbw1024]

Got approved for the card yesterday. Thanks for the info on this!