The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and the Capital One Venture Credit Card both have made a few waves in the ocean of rewards credit cards recently.

Chase has increased the bonus on the Sapphire Preferred Card from 50,000 Ultimate Rewards to 60,000 Ultimate Rewards without increasing the minimum spending requirement which is still $4,000 within three months of account opening. The 50k bonus was worth at least $625*, more like $1,000* if you utilize valuable airline loyalty program transfer partners. Now it's worth at least $750*, and more like $1,200* transferring to airline partners.

There are numerous ways to accrue travel rewards fast, and many people will fall into more than one of these categories.

Daddy Warbucks Type A: You buy expensive flights and book expensive hotel rooms which earn exponentially more travel rewards than booking cheap flights and accommodation.
Daddy Warbucks Type B: You spend tons on credit cards organically, whether that be personal use, through your business, or both.
Manufactured Spender: You figure out ways to increase your spending for a fee that doesn't outweigh the value of the rewards you're earning.
Road Warrior: You travel for business, get to charge paid

Update 9/3/18: MileValue's Chase Sapphire Preferred link leads to an application that still has the 24 month language as opposed to the new 48 month language which is on the public application.  

Yesterday Chase made it harder to get repeat bonuses on their Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred

Chase has got a new offer for their Sapphire Preferred card with an extra tier of bonus points to entice more spending on the card.

You'll earn 50,000 Ultimate Rewards for spending $4,000 on the card within three months of opening it (this is the standard offer, only difference is there is no extra 5k bonus for adding an authorized user)
You'll earn an additional 30,000 Ultimate Rewards for spending $20,000 on the card within the first year of opening it

The annual fee of $95 is also waived for the first year in this offer

The standard bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is 55,000 Ultimate Rewards for spending $4,000 on the card within three months of account opening (+adding an authorized user). With that offer, the $95 annual fee is waive for the first year of cardmembership

There is a new offer out for Sapphire Preferred: 65,000 Ultimate Rewards for spending the same $4,000 within three months of account opening (+adding an authorized user).

Today we learned of a new rule enforced by Chase regarding their Sapphire products. Applicants will not be approved for another credit card in the Sapphire family if they already have one open. These are Chase's Sapphire branded credit cards:

Sapphire
Sapphire Preferred
Sapphire Reserve

This rule will only affect applicants moving forward and should have no affect on the cardmember status of existing cardholders.
Where the Rumor Came From
Doctor of Credit was a sent a photo from someone who works at Chase of a memo that was sent to them by Chase. It went over four points.

Updated heavily 1/13/17 since you can now book these awards online.

It is cheaper to book the exact same Delta flights to Hawaii with Korean miles than with Delta miles.

Delta charges 22,500 miles each way in economy and 40,000 miles in First Class between the mainland and Hawaii or 50,000 in flat bed Delta One
Korean charges 25,000 miles roundtrip in economy and 45,000 miles roundtrip in First Class or Delta One between the mainland and Hawaii

That’s a humongous difference.

The Chase Freedom earns 1% cash back on all purchases and 5% cash back on categories that rotate quarterly.

At least that's how it is marketed, but in fact, the card earns points that can be converted to cash back or can be converted, through a process I call the Freedom Two Step, to much more valuable airline miles and hotel points.

The basic idea is that while the Freedom's Ultimate Rewards do not transfer to airline and hotel partners, if you have a Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus, you can transfer the points to those cards' accounts, and from

The Chase Sapphire Preferred now offers 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 on the card in the first three months. Plus it offers 5,000 bonus points for adding an authorized user.