SUB = sign up bonus.

Realistically, for international business class travel, unless you’re spending high-five-figures each year through a card (at minimum) you’ll likely need to supplement everyday earnings with one or two large sign-up bonuses each year. I haven’t dug into international business class redemptions personally as they’re often quite expensive and/or require a lot of flexibility and positioning (at least from my home airport, MSP) and so hopefully either someone else can provide more insight on that aspect as to which cards have the best transfer partners on that front.

That said, I don’t think you can go wrong by starting with a CSP + CFF setup, probably adding in the Unlimited for the 1.5x base earnings on unbonused spend. Cap1’s transfer partners are a bit more lucrative, but from my reading they also are more difficult to book/use (e.g. Turkish has cheap rates but for partner rewards may require calling in or emailing a bunch of ticketing offices - I’ve never done this but I’ve read about it on Flyertalk.) Chase has many decent ones, and most are relatively easy to use.

Right now I only have the CSP for the SUB (plan on cancelling after the year is up,) but I also travel a few times a year - enough that I feel comfortable being able to use the $300 somehow most years, and that I’m willing to do that for lounge access. My comment was more thinking to a point where if I was only traveling (at least by air) only once a year - and at that point I’d prefer a simpler, less credit-based setup. Although at that point I might just go completely no-annual fee, using Bilt to get some Hyatt points (since they have a lot of decent sweet spots) and then cash-back cards for the rest.

One big thing to note is that the Cap1 portal doesn’t have every hotel listed. They do have a lot, but I have a stay coming up that I couldn’t book through them and so had to book it through Expedia. Cap1 also won’t price match member rates, which most chain hotels have, so it’s quite possible that someone would pay more on the Cap1 portal vs. a direct booking.

That’s one of the reasons that I was able to join a Mastodon instance that didn’t revolve around people leaving Twitter. Sure, I became more active on it when I wanted to reduce my Twitter usage, but there was already a good community of people that I knew and I could interact with about everyday things, rather than just complaining about Twitter. Hopefully this instance becomes a bit like that, where it’s a separate community that’s kind of like Reddit but also its own thing.

If I’m only traveling once a year, trying to get good value out of the $300 portal credit on the Venture X would be difficult. The CSP, while more expensive on paper when valuing credits at 100% face value, would not tie me in nearly as much into portal usage (at most I just ignore the $50 Chase hotel credit and it’s a full $99 AF.) The Venture card could also work and has a better base earning rate, but I still think I’d rather have the rotating 5x categories and Hyatt transfers over the extra 0.5x on unbonused spend.

I’m just starting to figure it out, but I think it’ll work out to be its own thing, even if it won’t replace Reddit. Just as I enjoy both Mastodon and Twitter (though Twitter is becoming less and less enjoyable) I see something similar happening with Lemmy.

I’m also not opposed to a bit of fracturing. I grew up in the era of online message boards, and I still enjoy those and honestly think there’s some that are better than anything on Reddit. Having small areas where people can talk about one of their niche interests is cool.

I can’t get over how pompous Jacob Frey is acting during all of this. The mayor that’s had full control of the MPD for six years (at least according to him on the campaign trail back in 2017) and the ship is still just as bad, if not worse, than the day he came into office.

Doubt it’d be anytime soon. It seems that they’ve been focusing a lot more on SUBs for the Preferred - margins are likely better there between people not thinking about a $99 AF as much as a $550 AF at renewal time, and there’s fewer hard benefits that cost Chase money.