So I need a little bit of advice....a few of my fellow soccer parents know about my little URs addiction that I have and our soccer coach just asked me for help about how to earn airline flights using credit cards. He's from England and wants to earn international flights - most of my experience is domestic and I fly almost exclusively on SW. We travel for soccer tournaments, hubby's marathons, and to Disney.
Which credit cards should I recommend to him? I always say CSP. I don't think he could stomach the CSR annual fee. I was going to recommend the CF-CSP-airline card trio. I always say Chase first, but what about Barclay's?
I also think someone new to the game, who's under 5/24, should start with Chase first, but which card first is kind of the big question.
I'd hesitate to recommend the CSP first because of the one Sapphire rule, which would preclude the CSR or a CSP+CSR double dip for at least 24 months. Admittedly, the CSR's $450 AF is a sticker shock and the idea of signing up for two credit cards (CSP+CSR) at the same time and needing to spend $8,000 in 3 months puts off a lot of people, but I don't like the idea of foreclosing the possibility of getting comfortable with either option by applying for the CSP right when someone's starting out.
The other side to this is I do think a BIG signup bonus early on can really open someone's eyes to the possibilities, so that points to the CIP (or CIC at 50,000 UR bonus), CSP and/or the CSR. All of which kind of require taking a big leap into this game. With the CIP or CIC, being comfortable applying for a "business" card; and with the CSP and/or CSR, as discussed above.
The Freedom could be a good starter card because it offers a $150 (actually, 15,000 UR) signup bonus and earns 5x UR on up to $1,500 spend in rotating bonus categories each quarter (potentially 7,500 UR every 3 months/30,000 UR every year) for no AF. The current Freedom Unlimited offer of 3x UR on everything for the first year is also very tempting and easy to understand (i.e., just swipe the CFU pretty much everywhere and watch your UR balance grow), but the downside is it doesn't have any (big or small) signup bonus that makes an immediate impact. I think a lot of us who have been in this game long enough wouldn't use a */24 slot on a CF or CFU, but all of us would agree that these are cards you should have in your wallet eventually, so it's not necessarily a wasted 5/24 slot. And maybe when your coach gets comfortable with the idea of earning points and wonders how he can earn more, you can point him to the big offers.