- Current cards: Amex BCP, Wells fargo active cash, VentureOne
- FICO Score: 760
- Oldest account age: 4 years
- Income: 90k+
- Average monthly spend and categories:
- dining $250
- groceries: $600
- gas: $80
- other: $1000
- Open to Business Cards: No
- What's the purpose of your next card? Travel or daily spending. SUB for big trip
- Do you have any cards you've been looking at? venture/Venture X
I use the BCP for groceries/gas/transit/streaming and the Wells Fargo active cash for everything else. Having no purchase protection on the active cash bothers me. I will be taking a big trip later this year and smaller trips every year afterwards, if I open the venture or venture x for this trip, should I use it for everyday spending or continue with the WF?
I just product changed to the venture one from platinum. I don’t use it much
tl;dr. should I open a venture or venture X for a trip and yearly traveling, and if so should I continue to use the Wells Fargo 2% cashback or the 2x venture rewards for everyday spending
2% cashback vs 2x venture points
byu/ResponsibleEdge7368 inCreditCards
Posted by ResponsibleEdge7368
3 Comments
Would you be open to using transfer partners?
If you travel even a little, the “2X” Venture miles are equivalent to 2% cashback, since they redeem at 1cpp against travel expenses with Travel Eraser.
If you can redeem them for any more than 1cpp with the Cap1 travel portal, or with transfer partners, it’s worth more than 2% cash back.
I use my VX as my daily – earns points fast, floor is the same as a 2% cashback card since I travel a decent amount, but if you book through the portal you get the equivalent of 10% cashback on hotels and 5% cashback on airlines.
If you book through the portal with cash and also use Travel Eraser, hotel bookings look like this:
* Book hotel for $500
* Get 5000 miles
* Use 5000 miles with Travel Eraser to get $50 statement credit against your hotel
* Hotel net cost is $450.
Works the same for flights. Hard to beat 10% cashback on hotels and 5% on flights. Or, you can save those 5,000 miles points and try to redeem them at closer to 2-3cpp ($100-$150) against a future booking with the portal.
I have to admit I’ve never used “purchase protection” in the 21 years I’ve had credit cards (I don’t mean regular card disputes). So I’m a bit skeptical that this matters. I’m sure there are some stories of people benefiting but I doubt it’s super common.
Anyway if you do care then VX is a fine card to use. It’s pretty easy to get 1cpp back from it, although if you aren’t using transfer partners I think it’s kind of a hassle for something you can get more easily other ways.
I believe the Fidelity Visa also has purchase protection and is just straight 2% cashback which may be simpler.