I love credit cards so much!

[Livelovedance]

I'm a newbie to this thread and the credit card rewards system! I am trying to read through this very long thread for information and I'm ready to switch from using my debit card for every day purchases to my credit cards! Thank you for the massive amounts of information! I apologize if anything I ask has already been mentioned, I'm only on page 125 of 291, and most of this information is foreign to me!

I currently have 4 major credit cards with no annual fees. The best ones I have for rewards are AmEx Blue Cash & Chase Freedom. I was considering applying for either the Marriott, Southwest, or Disney Visa cards. I only want one. Lately we (there's two of us) have traveled at least once a year to WDW/US and once somewhere else for a mini vacation. We always travel Southwest, and when going to Florida we always stay at the same Marriott hotel. I was first considering the Marriott card because we always stay in a Marriott (Friends & Family rates), but I recently found out that the hotels we stay in are category 6, which means we wouldn't be able to take advantage of the free night stay each year. So now I'm leaning towards Southwest, but we only fly once or twice a year so I don't know if it will be worth it.

I'm a little nervous about a card with an annual fee, and I want to make sure my savings will be enough to make the fee worthwhile. I know I'm not going to be able to work the credit card wonders that so many people on this thread do, but I would like to earn some points or cash back on my every day spending to apply to our vacations. I am also considering opening a DVA account to start saving for a future trip. Any suggestions or advice on any of those three cards? Thanks in advance!

 

[Narnia_girl]

Below is a post someone wrote on another Disney savings group on FB. Can you savvy CC folks look this over and tell me if it would still work? It's a few months old. I'm not so much interested in the final wipe out ($600) as I am in paying for a bulk of a cruise with UR. We do not have the CSR (yet), or the business ink, and are unlikely to get the business card. My husband has Sapphire Preferred and I am AU.

Our cruise was $7000 and I wrote of all but $600 of it with ultimate rewards. I'm paying for the rest with the Barclays card to "wipe out" the balance.
I transferred all of my husbands ur to my reserve card. I transferred all my ur to my chase reserve card. That made the points worth more. There's a phone number on the ur website that you call and they book it for you over the phone. It took about 20 min to book because they had to get the Disney cruise line on the phone but it was pretty easy. I used all my ur points to pay for the trip and it left a balance of approx $600. That balance isn't due till 90 days before sailing so I'll pay on the Disney cruise website with my Barclays card and "erase" with points via the Barclays reward website.

You can only make one payment with ultimate rewards so I had to wait till all our bonuses hit. on the chase reserve, we got 100,000 pts each so 200,000 pts. On the preferred card we got 50,000 pts each so 100,000 pts. On the business ink we each got 80,000 pts so 160,000 pts. And then of course the normal spending points. I chose to move them to the reserve card because you get 1.5 times the points on the reserve cards so it made the points go further.​

 

[MrPTato]

I'm a newbie to this thread and the credit card rewards system! I am trying to read through this very long thread for information and I'm ready to switch from using my debit card for every day purchases to my credit cards! Thank you for the massive amounts of information! I apologize if anything I ask has already been mentioned, I'm only on page 125 of 291, and most of this information is foreign to me!

I currently have 4 major credit cards with no annual fees. The best ones I have for rewards are AmEx Blue Cash & Chase Freedom. I was considering applying for either the Marriott, Southwest, or Disney Visa cards. I only want one. Lately we (there's two of us) have traveled at least once a year to WDW/US and once somewhere else for a mini vacation. We always travel Southwest, and when going to Florida we always stay at the same Marriott hotel. I was first considering the Marriott card because we always stay in a Marriott (Friends & Family rates), but I recently found out that the hotels we stay in are category 6, which means we wouldn't be able to take advantage of the free night stay each year. So now I'm leaning towards Southwest, but we only fly once or twice a year so I don't know if it will be worth it.

I'm a little nervous about a card with an annual fee, and I want to make sure my savings will be enough to make the fee worthwhile. I know I'm not going to be able to work the credit card wonders that so many people on this thread do, but I would like to earn some points or cash back on my every day spending to apply to our vacations. I am also considering opening a DVA account to start saving for a future trip. Any suggestions or advice on any of those three cards? Thanks in advance!

Depending on how much you spend on groceries, it may be wise to upgrade to the Blue Cash Preferred or open a new one for sign-up bonus. You get 6% back in grocery spend per year. A lot of the grocery stores sell both SW and Disney Gift cards, so that is 6% CB right there. You also get 3% back from gas. I had the Blue Cash before, and once I crunched the numbers, with the the AF, I make out ahead.

We also use the Disney Premier for the 2% back at Disney, 10% discount on merch purchases (if you don't have AP or DVC), and the photo op in Epcot. I think they also have a $200 signup bonus too right now.

Those are our cards and are the only ones we use day to day.

 

[hsmamato2]

Below is a post someone wrote on another Disney savings group on FB. Can you savvy CC folks look this over and tell me if it would still work? It's a few months old. I'm not so much interested in the final wipe out ($600) as I am in paying for a bulk of a cruise with UR. We do not have the CSR (yet), or the business ink, and are unlikely to get the business card. My husband has Sapphire Preferred and I am AU.

Our cruise was $7000 and I wrote of all but $600 of it with ultimate rewards. I'm paying for the rest with the Barclays card to "wipe out" the balance.
I transferred all of my husbands ur to my reserve card. I transferred all my ur to my chase reserve card. That made the points worth more. There's a phone number on the ur website that you call and they book it for you over the phone. It took about 20 min to book because they had to get the Disney cruise line on the phone but it was pretty easy. I used all my ur points to pay for the trip and it left a balance of approx $600. That balance isn't due till 90 days before sailing so I'll pay on the Disney cruise website with my Barclays card and "erase" with points via the Barclays reward website.

You can only make one payment with ultimate rewards so I had to wait till all our bonuses hit. on the chase reserve, we got 100,000 pts each so 200,000 pts. On the preferred card we got 50,000 pts each so 100,000 pts. On the business ink we each got 80,000 pts so 160,000 pts. And then of course the normal spending points. I chose to move them to the reserve card because you get 1.5 times the points on the reserve cards so it made the points go further.​

This seems doable, if you get the same cards,and combine/use them. If the cruise is the same cost as they paid in points also. When I did CSR/cruise I took a different tack. Paid about $300-400 oop, used 3 CSR travel credits to offset the rest of the cost,used 0 points. (and got 3x points on the balance of cruise) I felt this was a stellar price for 4 people for a week+ vacation. (it was awesome) But that was b/c of the timing to the new csr cards that allowed me to do that.ANd it was a great cruise sale too. (I love cruising now!)

 

[brownhaired_girl]

Have you thought about the Chase Ink Business Preferred (CIP) with 80k UR points after $5k spend? If you apply in branch with a Chase business relationship manager, I believe the bonus is 100k UR points (double check that this offer is still ongoing). You mentioned your DH has dairy cows? Do you ever rent out your timeshare? It sounds like you might have a legit business or at least a colorable claim to business(es). Besides the high signup bonus, the conventional wisdom is that the the CIP won't count against 5/24, but you have to be under 5/24 to get it.

Well, I applied for the CIP just now and got the 30 day notice. My stomach has butterflies. My hay supplier is willing to open up a Paypal account so I can process with CC. I told him I would be willing to pay the extra that Paypal would deduct.

 

[Lain]

Below is a post someone wrote on another Disney savings group on FB. Can you savvy CC folks look this over and tell me if it would still work? It's a few months old. I'm not so much interested in the final wipe out ($600) as I am in paying for a bulk of a cruise with UR. We do not have the CSR (yet), or the business ink, and are unlikely to get the business card. My husband has Sapphire Preferred and I am AU.

Our cruise was $7000 and I wrote of all but $600 of it with ultimate rewards. I'm paying for the rest with the Barclays card to "wipe out" the balance.
I transferred all of my husbands ur to my reserve card. I transferred all my ur to my chase reserve card. That made the points worth more. There's a phone number on the ur website that you call and they book it for you over the phone. It took about 20 min to book because they had to get the Disney cruise line on the phone but it was pretty easy. I used all my ur points to pay for the trip and it left a balance of approx $600. That balance isn't due till 90 days before sailing so I'll pay on the Disney cruise website with my Barclays card and "erase" with points via the Barclays reward website.

You can only make one payment with ultimate rewards so I had to wait till all our bonuses hit. on the chase reserve, we got 100,000 pts each so 200,000 pts. On the preferred card we got 50,000 pts each so 100,000 pts. On the business ink we each got 80,000 pts so 160,000 pts. And then of course the normal spending points. I chose to move them to the reserve card because you get 1.5 times the points on the reserve cards so it made the points go further.​

I want to say I've read this story before (or lots of similar stories) in this very thread, so yes it's doable, but may be harder for you than OP.

The big reason being OP signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve when the signup bonus was still 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points per card, and OP and SO each got a card for a total of 200,000 UR points. In March, Chase decreased the CSR's bonus to 50,000 UR points per card, per 24 months. So if you and your husband were to both sign up for the CSR, the best you could do for the combined bonuses is just 100,000 UR points. The Chase Ink Preferred has a big 80,000 UR points signup bonus per card, so if you and your husband don't sign up for this business card, then you two are out a combined 160,000 UR points, plus whatever points you would've earned from meeting minimum spends. So just from these two caveats, you are running behind OP by at least 260,000 UR points. A UR point is worth 1¢ in statement credit, but when you redeem UR points through Chase for travel like a Disney cruise using your CSR account, 1 UR point is worth 1.5¢. So those missing 260,000 UR points equate to $3,900 that you have to make up somewhere else, if not in cash. There aren't many Chase UR cards left with a big enough bonus.

I don't know the status of your husband's Chase Sapphire Preferred, like when he applied for it, whether he hit the minimum spend to earn the 50,000 UR points bonus. I also don't know your and your husband's credit card histories, and most importantly how many new credit cards you've opened in the last 24 months. Chase has a rule to automatically deny credit cards to applicants who have opened 5 or more credit cards from any issuer in the past 24 months (the 5/24 rule). So before you start applying for Chase's UR credit cards, you want to be sure you are under 5/24 and have enough slots open to get the UR-earning cards you want to get. You may also want to have your husband remove you as an AU on the CSP and have the removal reported to the credit agencies because that could appear on your credit report like a credit card account that counts against the 5/24 rule. Then your husband should probably send you a referral to apply for the CSP, because if you're approved for the card, he earns 10,000 UR points for the referral and you can work on the minimum spend to get the 50,000 UR points bonus.

I'd note that the OP seems to be talking about using the Barclay Arrival+ to wipe out some of the remaining balance. This is worth considering if you're over 5/24, because opening this card under 5/24 would take up a slot that could go towards opening a Chase card. The Arrival+ comes with 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in 90 days, which is good for a $500 statement credit, plus at least another $60 credit in points from meeting minimum spends.

 

[Albort]

I'm a newbie to this thread and the credit card rewards system! I am trying to read through this very long thread for information and I'm ready to switch from using my debit card for every day purchases to my credit cards! Thank you for the massive amounts of information! I apologize if anything I ask has already been mentioned, I'm only on page 125 of 291, and most of this information is foreign to me!

I currently have 4 major credit cards with no annual fees. The best ones I have for rewards are AmEx Blue Cash & Chase Freedom. I was considering applying for either the Marriott, Southwest, or Disney Visa cards. I only want one. Lately we (there's two of us) have traveled at least once a year to WDW/US and once somewhere else for a mini vacation. We always travel Southwest, and when going to Florida we always stay at the same Marriott hotel. I was first considering the Marriott card because we always stay in a Marriott (Friends & Family rates), but I recently found out that the hotels we stay in are category 6, which means we wouldn't be able to take advantage of the free night stay each year. So now I'm leaning towards Southwest, but we only fly once or twice a year so I don't know if it will be worth it.

I'm a little nervous about a card with an annual fee, and I want to make sure my savings will be enough to make the fee worthwhile. I know I'm not going to be able to work the credit card wonders that so many people on this thread do, but I would like to earn some points or cash back on my every day spending to apply to our vacations. I am also considering opening a DVA account to start saving for a future trip. Any suggestions or advice on any of those three cards? Thanks in advance!

at some point on the thread, its just too much information. It is a good thing you ask straight out.

It really depends on what you spend your money on the most. It sounds like Marriott and Southwest are the 2 you want to redeem on. The best suggestion would be one of the general cards. Chase Sapphire Reserve(has the $450 AF) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred($95 fee). both cards allow you to send your points to Marriott and southwest. The Freedom can also send their points over to the Sapphire line and then to the marriott and southwest too.

CSR($450)
3x travel
$300 credit(this tech brings your AF down to $150)
Priority lounge membership
GE or TSA pre credit
a host of a bunch of insurance

CSP($95)
2x travel
Free AU
waived AF for the first year.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

at some point on the thread, its just too much information. It is a good thing you ask straight out.

It really depends on what you spend your money on the most. It sounds like Marriott and Southwest are the 2 you want to redeem on. The best suggestion would be one of the general cards. Chase Sapphire Reserve(has the $450 AF) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred($95 fee). both cards allow you to send your points to Marriott and southwest. The Freedom can also send their points over to the Sapphire line and then to the marriott and southwest too.

CSR($450)
3x travel
$300 credit(this tech brings your AF down to $150)
Priority lounge membership
GE or TSA pre credit
a host of a bunch of insurance

CSP($95)
2x travel
Free AU
waived AF for the first year.

I agree. The CSP is flexible and you can use it for a lot more. Whichever you need, air or hotel, you can use Ultimate Rewards (UR).

 

[calypso726]

I'm a newbie to this thread and the credit card rewards system! I am trying to read through this very long thread for information and I'm ready to switch from using my debit card for every day purchases to my credit cards! Thank you for the massive amounts of information! I apologize if anything I ask has already been mentioned, I'm only on page 125 of 291, and most of this information is foreign to me!

I currently have 4 major credit cards with no annual fees. The best ones I have for rewards are AmEx Blue Cash & Chase Freedom. I was considering applying for either the Marriott, Southwest, or Disney Visa cards. I only want one. Lately we (there's two of us) have traveled at least once a year to WDW/US and once somewhere else for a mini vacation. We always travel Southwest, and when going to Florida we always stay at the same Marriott hotel. I was first considering the Marriott card because we always stay in a Marriott (Friends & Family rates), but I recently found out that the hotels we stay in are category 6, which means we wouldn't be able to take advantage of the free night stay each year. So now I'm leaning towards Southwest, but we only fly once or twice a year so I don't know if it will be worth it.

I'm a little nervous about a card with an annual fee, and I want to make sure my savings will be enough to make the fee worthwhile. I know I'm not going to be able to work the credit card wonders that so many people on this thread do, but I would like to earn some points or cash back on my every day spending to apply to our vacations. I am also considering opening a DVA account to start saving for a future trip. Any suggestions or advice on any of those three cards? Thanks in advance!

@Livelovedance -

Welcome to the thread and to travel hacking. We only used to travel locally and maybe fly once a year or less. That all changed with this hobby. Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed I could travel the way we do now. If someone had told me, 5 years ago that I would be traveling as often and in the style the way we do now, I would have said they were insane. Fortunately, no one told me that and I simply discovered it on my own. It started with a dream trip that was not in the budget for us or something we ever thought we'd be able to afford to do. But I wanted to do this trip so badly that I began to think outside the box and see if we could make it happen. Along the way, I stumbled on this hobby. From there, our lives changed completely and irrevocably.

[DISCLAIMER FROM CALYPSO] My advice is not to go into the hobby with the idea of how to save with what you are already doing. That part will fall in place naturally if you start with the idea of where would you love to visit or vacation, but never thought you'd be able to go because the cost would exceed the budget. Start with a goal or dream, then make it happen. [END OF CALYPSO DISCLAIMER/UNSOLICITED ADVICE]

Ok, now to answer questions. The Freedom is one of my favorite cards for the category bonuses. However, on its own, isn't very valuable to me. I know you're nervous about annual fee cards but I'm still going to recommend one to you and it's the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The points can be used as cash to redeem through the travel portal and can also be transferred to airlines, including Southwest. Prior to the CSR card I had the CSP card ($95 annual fee) and would transfer my UR points from the Freedom to the CSP so I could then transfer them directly to airlines which often gave me far more value than the 1.25 I could redeem with the CSP as cash in the travel portal. To break even on the CSP's AF you'd need to earn well over 9500 UR points each year. Since you can earn 30,000 UR points with the Freedom by maxing out the bonus categories and transfer those UR points to the CSP then it's an easy card for to pay an AF since the 30,000 UR points would be $375 instead of $300 in the travel portal. These points could be worth more than that by transferring to an airline that has award availability on a high cost ticket. This is not even taking into account how many points I would have earned with the CSP in the 2x dining and travel categories. Currently, the bonus offer is 50,000 UR points (worth $625 in the UR portal) for $4,000 spend in the first 3 months and the AF is waived the first year.

The rule of thumb is get your "affected by 5/24 rule" Chase cards first while you are still under 5/24. Once past 5/24, a really great card to have is the IHG card since the AF is only $49 and you are not restricted to a hotel category for your free annual night which comes every anniversary.

There are at least 3 different Marriott properties near WDW that are in Marriott village and all are cat 5 or lower. There is a Courtyard Marriott, Fairfield Inn and Suites and Springhill Suites. We've stayed at all 3 with our annual night certificates at some time or other. DH and I each have the card and use our certificates for a weekend whenever we make a last minute trip and can't find a DVC room or wish to not use DVC points. I do find the Marriott card valuable with 2 cards to get a weekend out of it. I do not find it more valuable than the Chase Sapphire Preferred card simply due to the the options one has with UR points.

We use our DVA account to pay for all of our Disney trips. We load it with Disney gift cards that we have purchased either at a discount or at 5x with the Freedom or Ink+. I know some have had issues with the DVA, but so far we haven't had any serious issues.

I do have a Disney Visa decorating my sock drawer. I used to use it for everything before discovering travel hacking. As you can see, using it for everything still got me practically nowhere. DH and I earned enough points on it to be able to do a Disney cruise. Had I known then what I know now, we would have been able to do several Disney cruises back then with the same spend we put on that card. The main value in the Disney Visa is the ability to put a Disney vacation on it and have 6 months to pay it off at zero interest. That could be a huge benefit to some. It wasn't a benefit that we ever used. We keep our Disney Visa cards but have cards that are far more valuable for our travel goals. We don't close it because we've had them forever and I don't want my credit score to drop because I closed an old card. I use it once a year to keep it active. There are some no fee cards that are far more valuable than the Disney Visa. Citi Double Cash and Amex Everyday are 2 that come to mind. Plus, since the Disney Visa isn't under 5/24, I wouldn't waste an application on it until I was past 5/24.

I'm out of my element when it comes to the Southwest cards. We do have some super savvy SW card peeps here though. I will say that even though I don't fly SW and prefer to redeem for international first class awards, the 2 SW cards and companion pass deal is outstanding!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

So I finally found award availability for a quick flight we wanted to do this weekend but the fees are $80 per ticket! Is this common? I'm used to the fees being $5-10. Do they go up as you approach the flight date?

 

[Alice Sr.]

DVA ending?

 

[hurt817]

Has anyone received an email regarding your DVA (Disney Vacation Account) that they are discontinuing it? I just received one a few minutes ago from Disney Destinations. I hadn't heard anything about it!!!!! It says.... At this time, we are discontinuing the program & no new accounts or contributions are being accepted.

 

[Lain]

Well, I applied for the CIP just now and got the 30 day notice. My stomach has butterflies. My hay supplier is willing to open up a Paypal account so I can process with CC. I told him I would be willing to pay the extra that Paypal would deduct.

Fingers crossed, but I'm not even worried. Almost all CIP (business card) applications seem to go to the 30-days message. Just follow the flow chart posted a few pages back:

Here's a flowchart from Reddit that is helpful when dealing with Chase cards that aren't auto-approved. http://imgur.com/a/oXlPW

And keep calling the automated status line to check if your application has moved any:

800-432-3117, #, 3, 1, SSN.
I used this one, which is the one Redditors always point to.

If and when it gets approved, you can call CIP customer service at 800-945-2028 to request your card expedited to you.

Good luck!

 

[kmc8826]

I thought this was helpful. I am definitely keeping my Reserve, but am on the fence with DH's. I probably will keep it if for no reason other than that since he has had his name/SS#/address stolen we have a freeze on new cards in place and I don't see him getting any new cards any time soon.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/keep-downgrade-cancel-chase-sapphire-reserve/amp/

 

[SBWB48]

I'm coming at it from an EIN perspective of actually paying taxes from a business. I have an EIN and an LLC myself. I also hustle other stuff on the side and just attach to my personal income tax.

Here is a good article from Doctor of Credit on the matter of multiple EINs and biz cards.

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/can-get-business-credit-card-multiple-times-different-businesses/

The article from DoC while not extremely dated is from August 2016 and DPs are limited. There is one recent DP in the comments section that states:

"I was assured by a CSR (BRM contacted CS at the time of the application) that the bonus will apply, and indeed it worked as promised. CSR said that getting the bonus under EIN does not disqualify the owner/officer from receiving the same bonus as SP."

The distinction here is that this is Chase and he applied once with an EIN and once as a SP with just a SSN. While I don't doubt this could work, though YMMV in my opinion since he was dealing with a BRM, there's enough DPs over on reddit that are more recent where multiple EINs on its own, doesn't work. Again, those on FT and reddit are 'live' when it comes to digging up every possible way to churn the cards, so undoubtedly, if this were an avenue, we would see more DPs. However, as mentioned, I don't doubt that you can use get a bonus twice via an EIN (as a corp) and SSN (as a SP), but I don't think multiple EINs would work with the same SSN for the owner/officer. Someone can also try as another company officer to use the same EIN and see if they would get the bonus after another officer has already applied for the same card.

 

[calypso726]

DVA ending?

Has anyone received an email regarding your DVA (Disney Vacation Account) that they are discontinuing it? I just received one a few minutes ago from Disney Destinations. I hadn't heard anything about it!!!!! It says.... At this time, we are discontinuing the program & no new accounts or contributions are being accepted.

Grrrrr ... Looks like it. DH just messaged me the email. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

 

[laceltris3]

So I guess my problem with maxing out the DVA bonus isn't a problem anymore. I guess that 3X UR is what I'll go for instead of the 5% cash back on Disney gift cards, and I'll just save in a savings account in the interim. I am all for saving $, but the hassle of keeping up with GCs and calling my TA with the numbers isn't appealing at all. Heck, I only was willing to deal with $500 GCs in any case.

 

[hurt817]

Grrrrr ... Looks like it. DH just messaged me the email. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

If we charge our DVC Dues Directly to the CSR will that trigger the $300 travel credit?

 

[calypso726]

I we charge our DVC Dues Directly to the CSR will that trigger the $300 travel credit?

Yes. Dues code as travel. I will likely continue trying to buy Disney gift cards at 5x with the Freedom and Ink+.

 

[Narnia_girl]

I want to say I've read this story before (or lots of similar stories) in this very thread, so yes it's doable, but may be harder for you than OP.

The big reason being OP signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve when the signup bonus was still 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points per card, and OP and SO each got a card for a total of 200,000 UR points. In March, Chase decreased the CSR's bonus to 50,000 UR points per card, per 24 months. So if you and your husband were to both sign up for the CSR, the best you could do for the combined bonuses is just 100,000 UR points. The Chase Ink Preferred has a big 80,000 UR points signup bonus per card, so if you and your husband don't sign up for this business card, then you two are out a combined 160,000 UR points, plus whatever points you would've earned from meeting minimum spends. So just from these two caveats, you are running behind OP by at least 260,000 UR points. A UR point is worth 1¢ in statement credit, but when you redeem UR points through Chase for travel like a Disney cruise using your CSR account, 1 UR point is worth 1.5¢. So those missing 260,000 UR points equate to $3,900 that you have to make up somewhere else, if not in cash. There aren't many Chase UR cards left with a big enough bonus.

I don't know the status of your husband's Chase Sapphire Preferred, like when he applied for it, whether he hit the minimum spend to earn the 50,000 UR points bonus. I also don't know your and your husband's credit card histories, and most importantly how many new credit cards you've opened in the last 24 months. Chase has a rule to automatically deny credit cards to applicants who have opened 5 or more credit cards from any issuer in the past 24 months (the 5/24 rule). So before you start applying for Chase's UR credit cards, you want to be sure you are under 5/24 and have enough slots open to get the UR-earning cards you want to get. You may also want to have your husband remove you as an AU on the CSP and have the removal reported to the credit agencies because that could appear on your credit report like a credit card account that counts against the 5/24 rule. Then your husband should probably send you a referral to apply for the CSP, because if you're approved for the card, he earns 10,000 UR points for the referral and you can work on the minimum spend to get the 50,000 UR points bonus.

I'd note that the OP seems to be talking about using the Barclay Arrival+ to wipe out some of the remaining balance. This is worth considering if you're over 5/24, because opening this card under 5/24 would take up a slot that could go towards opening a Chase card. The Arrival+ comes with 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in 90 days, which is good for a $500 statement credit, plus at least another $60 credit in points from meeting minimum spends.

Thanks for walking me through that. Yeah, that is a huge difference in the CSR bonus. I wasn't planning on the business card because I don't think there's anyway I can honestly claim a business. No selling on Etsy or Ebay, no rentals; I used to freelance write but haven't done that in a few years.
We have excellent credit and are at 1/24 for Chase. Thanks again for the ideas. I'm going to work through these steps to process them in my head.