Time to re-evaluate our credit card lineup

Despite being active on Reddit's credit card churning forums, I don't actually churn very often. Our vacation time is throttled by work, and if I earn too many points beyond what I need, I get tempted to do stupid things with them.

The other looming variable on the horizon is that JetBlue's Mint has become so wildly successful that United's competing P.S. service is now occasionally pricing out well below Mint in my husband's employer's travel portal, which might mean he'll have to start flying United again. 

Right now I have:

• Platinum Amex
• Chase Sapphire Reserve
• JetBlue Plus Mastercard Authorized User card on my husband's account

My husband has:

• an Authorized User card on my Amex Platinum
• his own Chase Sapphire Reserve
• JetBlue Plus card
• Starwood Luxury card 

 

JetBlue, verdict: Keep

The nice thing about the JetBlue card is that it's from Barclays, and it supports a mode called "Chip + Signature with PIN backup". In my personal experience, this lets it work in many overseas kiosks and ticket machines where other American credit cards fail. For that reason alone, I won't get rid of mine (or my husband's). Plus, he's currently still a JetBlue traveler for work, so he really likes the annual retention bonus (which brings the effective annual fee to $29) and the 10% rewards rebate.

 

Starwood Luxury, verdict: Cancel

We both got regular Starwood Amex cards last year just for the signup bonuses, it was one of the only true churns I did in 2017, and I already canceled my card. He got the 100,000 point upgrade option for the new Starwood+Marriot Luxury card and was able to immediately use the $300 rebate with an upcoming stay we had at a Starwood hotel. The big problem with this card is that his work hotel options are often very limited and he can't be certain a Marriott property will always be available.

• Assuming at least one work trip per year ends up at a Marriott, the effective annual fee is $150
• Given Chase's recent loss of Korean as a transfer partner, these points end up being all the more valuable
• We get Marriott elite status from the Amex Platinum card, and all of these cards now come with Priority Pass memberships so that doesn't make this a keeper, either.
• I've used the Boingo Wi-Fi exactly once
• We don't stay in Marriott hotels when we travel, so the free elite nights are worthless, too

 

Amex and Sapphire

The Amex and Sapphire decisions end up a bit intertwined:

• Since Chase lost Korean as a transfer partner, United is the only partner Chase has that I'd ever realistically use.¹
• Chase also removed Price Protection from the Sapphire as well as Return Protection – clearly they're in cost-cuttting mode and those little niceties of the "high end" experience are getting trimmed… sorta like United's fabled "Polaris" class. 
• Many people seem to enjoy Chase's option to just redeem points for 1.5¢ each toward air travel, but at that point I'd rather just get a 2% cash back card and take the money. I generally won't bother with points if I can't get at least 2¢ each for them, and preferably a lot more.
• One really nice thing is that Sapphire offers awesome trip protection and delay insurance on all air travel purchases (even when you book with miles and charge just the taxes and fees to the Sapphire) and the Amex doesn't. But the Amex earns 5x per dollar on air travel whereas the Chase only earns 3x. We spent $13,500 on airfare in 2017, so 5x vs. 3x = 26,000 extra points.
• I upgraded my Amex Gold to Platinum for a points bonus, but in doing so I now have no card that gets me a bonus on groceries. Amex recently upgraded their Gold card to offer 4x on "supermarkets" and dining but I generally shop at small local markets for groceries so going back to the Gold likely won't help me there. For reference, my Gold card year end summary shows me spending $7700 on groceries in 2017.
• Another check in the Amex Gold box is that it earns 4x on dining at US restaurants. We spend about $10,000 a year on dining, so that's an extra 10k a year.

For now I think my plans is this:

1. Get my husband a brand-new Gold Amex account and test the card out for a few months – does our favorite local greengrocer code as "Supermarkets"? Do our favorite restaurants actually code correctly for the 4x? (Reddit is showing scattered reports of many restaurants not coding properly)
2. Kill my husband's Authorized User card on my Platinum Account. No sense paying for that anymore
3. Kill one of our Chase Preferred cards
4. Decide later if we also nuke my primary Platinum account (i.e., wait until after January so I can use the Saks credit and the remaining Uber credits before I cancel)

¹ JetBlue points have a fixed 1.3¢ value, so transferring to them is a waste; British, Virgin, Iberia, and Singapore also accept Amex transfers; I don't fly Southwest unless it's a dire family emergency; no direct transfer to Delta means I can't pool transfers to Flying Blue with my Delta miles