RetireJapan

Hi all! I'm looking for advice on my credit card situation given that I definitely think I could be benefiting from some programs that I'm not currently aware of. Right now my situation is:

* SMBC Gold card VISA (5,500 JPY annual) - I see no benefit with this, don't use it, and will cancel it
* Rakuten Premium MASTERCARD (11,000 JPY annual) - Had this for furusato nozei & priority pass. FZ was nerfed, PF will be nerfed next year. I will likely keep this for the nerfed PF anyway, but open to hearing other options!
* Marriott Premium AMEX (49,500 JPY annual) - My main card, which I use for all day-to-day purchases.

I am not a consultant so I don't travel _that_ much, but I go on ~2-3 business trips a year and probably the same number of leisure trips. I very much value the platinum elite status I get from the Amex and hit a month of actual stays per year for this to be 'worth it'. It's end of July and I have hit the required 4m JPY spend on the Amex for Platinum this week. That gives me 5 more months of spending that could be spread to another credit card.

I travel exclusively with JAL, but hold absolutely no status with them (or any other airline). I'm working my way up slowly through the life point system but it will be years before it hits anything useful. I would have loved to open a JAL Amex or other card, but I can't find anything that seems like it actually provides value.

As an aside, I also have the free British Airways AMEX in the UK which gets me Avios & a companion voucher, which I generally use for JAL code-shared flights.

In summary - I've consolidated my hotel spend to Marriott, and flight spend to JAL, have status with the former through my card but nothing on the latter. I have additional spend that's not being used for any specific credit card bonuses, and would like to know what my options are here. I'm somewhat open to moving to ANA if that can help (though having family in the UK makes the Oneworld alliance slightly more attractive.

Thanks! And hope this can be a useful discussion for others too!

Viralriver wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 3:02 am I travel exclusively with JAL, but hold absolutely no status with them (or any other airline). I'm working my way up slowly through the life point system but it will be years before it hits anything useful. I would have loved to open a JAL Amex or other card, but I can't find anything that seems like it actually provides value.

Get the JGC (JAL global club) card somehow, then as long as you pay the fee you are sapphire with JAL and One World.

You can't get JGC without 1500 life status points anymore. You used to be able to get it just for qualifying for Sapphire once but that's gone now.

Yeah exactly this. My plan last year was to do the "training" but since they nerfed that program it's no longer an option. I'm on a lowly 215 points with JAL so quite far away but do have some trips coming up. I didn't explicitly mention it, but this is why I hinted at being okay with shifting to ANA if the Super Flyers club is worth the effort.

zeroshiki wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 4:32 am You can't get JGC without 1500 life status points anymore. You used to be able to get it just for qualifying for Sapphire once but that's gone now.

Damn, seems like I got mine just in time. Definitely not going to let it lapse now!

My understanding is that for those who had it before the change, they've had their life points 'topped up' to hit 1500, so you have nothing to worry about!

Actually, I just checked and apparently I have 1,555 JAL life status points

Seems like 6,000 of these life point things get you miles that don't expire, probably the most useful thing, and also priority award booking. New goal unlocked?

6k gets you to their second highest tier here. I know for the lowest tier (250 points) you get 2 sakura lounge coupons per year, and the second tier gives you 5. I'll be at that bottom tier after my next trip so looking forward to that .

So this got me researching. It seems that whilst the JAL cards are generally terrible, they do offer an additional pathway for more life time points. Every 2000 miles accumulated from spend on the card equates to an additional 5 lifetime points. As long as you go for the A Gold or Platinum then the miles are accumulated at 1% of shopping spend. I just can't tell if shopping spend actually means like supermarkets etc, i.e. what the restrictions are. There's a program which costs 5k JPY per year which then doubles that accumulation.

So I guess if you spend 100k JPY in a month on shopping spend (again, knowing what counts as shopping here will help drastically), then 100k JPY -> 2,000 miles + 5 lifetime points. It's really not much, but I guess it's something to think about ontop of the mileage that accumulates.

Since I would use this maybe 5 months in the year going on this years' spend, it'd cost me roughly 23k JPY (A gold + shopping program) to accumulate 12k miles + 25 lifetime points (2k bonus miles every year). 12k miles is apparently enough for a return domestric trip. Summary of the benefits I can see from the card are (minus the usual insurance etc)

* 1 mile per 100 yen spend (or 2 miles if enrolled into the shopping program for ~5k JPY) - shopping spend only
* 25% additional miles on flights (I can't tell if I have to purchase the flight with the card)
* 5 lifetime points per 2k miles earned from spending
* 2k miles per year
* 5k bonus miles on entry
* Can be used as a Suica which is cool!
* 10% off inflight purchases
* 10% off JAL duty free store
* 5% off bluesky/JAL plaza
* Check-in at the business class desk (super useful for international flights)
* Airport lounge access (I can't tell which, if this is just the card lounge or not..)

Out of everything I guess the lifetime points is the most useful in terms of just reaching status. My understanding is also that to get the sakura lounge benefits of 1 star+ (at 250+ lifetime points), one needs to hold one of these cards in the first place.

If I've missed anything, please let me know. It's not the best card but if you want to maximise the JAL life it's useful I guess. If there are better cards out there, or if you think ANA's program is better, again please let me know!