I like US Bank’s card that allows you to pick 5% back categories each quarter, as opposed to ones that tell you what the 5% back is.
Citi Double Cash for most purchases.
Savor One for dining/groceries.
Amazon Prime Card for Amazon
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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Been using the Citi Double Cash for years. I always paid the balance monthly, and generally request my cash reward every few months.
It's a cat and mouse game to achieve "the best" rewards. It's made this way on purpose and they change monthly/on a cadence (as you most likely all know). I always look around to research and modify our usage per expenses.
That said:
- Amex Platinum for travel (hotels, flights)
- Chase Freedom for gas (rewards are sometimes targeted)
- Chase Sapphire for streaming, bills and randoms because I like their points incentive(s)
- Citi Simplicity for balance transfers, since they tend to target my family for generous offers (like when we had to buy a new living room :/)
Other than the Citi card, we pay our balances. Our rewards points are pretty built up at this point and we'll use them for things like vacations, or vacation add-ons, rentals or gift cards for the kiddos.
I am planning to drop my Chase Sapphire Reserve because the service has suffered while the price increased (started at $250 and now it's $500/yr).
About how much do you spend on hotels and flights to make the Amex worth it? They charge $750 a year!
Edit: I'm also bitter that Amex bought all of the airport lounges that I used to get into for free with my Chase card.
I'm glad I'm reading your comment. I had just called Chase this morning and the Chase Sapphire Reserve is now $550/annual fee and the bonus is now 60k points (i think.ot used to be 100k, which is what I got when I signed up.for the Chade Sapphire Preferred card). I was interested in order.to get the bonus points but also for the Chase airport lounges - if I can't access those.lounges there.might not be any point (no pun intended). ETA: Can you use all of the Priority One lounges?
What other benefits do you get for that $550? Is the fee waived the first year?
Yeah I'm a bit sad that I picked the chase ecosystem instead of Amex now. I've got the non-business trifecta and don't want to switch because I have a ton of points, but it seems like the Amex rewards are "nicer" these days. Even if it's unlikely I'll fully utilize most of them. Although Chase is working on opening their own airport lounges so maybe that will help.
Yep, I agree about Chase. And the same could be said about Amex with the changes in perks + the Centurion lounges always being full. I have been an Amex customer for a long long time and regularly call to get my fee partially waived (it's hit or miss). I stay for their customer service. It's second to none. To answer your question, I travel a lot. I do gov consulting work so it's all reimbursed :)
I mostly use two cards:
- Citi Costco Visa - for Costco, gas, and restaurants
- Citi DoubleCash - 2% on everything else
That covers like 95% of my spending. I have other cards as well, such as:
- Bank of America Cash Rewards+ - home improvement stores; I don't bring it with normally, but it gets 3%, which is nice
- Delta Gold - we live near a Delta hub, so the free checked bags usually pays for the fee
- Discover It and Chase Freedom - rotating 5% categories, I check periodically and bring it if it's a category I use frequently
But most of my rewards are from signup bonuses. I'll usually have a card I'm working on, and I'll use that for any category that didn't have a better than 2% rate.
I use Amex blue cash preferred for groceries, Amazon card for amazon, Walmart card for walmart (still haven't gotten used to ordering groceries online, so only getting 2% for instore purchases after a year), and pnc cashback for 1.75% every day. I'm looking for a better catch all card with better cashback or benefits. I pay off my cards every week, just to make sure I don't carry any balance ever. I strictly use it as a cashback machine, and for security.
American Express Blue Cash Preferred. That 6% on groceries comes in clutch with as much food as we buy.
Citi Double Cash 2% for most purchases
Citi Custom Cash for specific 5% categories I can target, though in practice I usually use it for groceries
Discover Cash Back / Chase Freedom Flex for the rotating 5% categories
Personally I don't travel enough to bother with travel rewards cards but maybe that's an option for other people.
PS - I've found that Discover usually has higher discounted gift cards if you wind up using your cash back towards that, sometimes it works out better than just doing cash back against your balance.
BoA, 2.625% on everything, 3.5% on travel/restaurants.
https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/critical-points-stop-ignoring-bofa-preferred-rewards/
Doesn't it require holding over 100k with BofA?
Or Merrill. You can move an IRA or regular brokerage account.
Y'all getting rewards?? I only get to pay more if I don't pay back in time. 😅
I have a visa and master.
They do seem to collect some kind of points in my online banking, but I haven't bothered to find out how they work, yet.
I think I get 15% off car rentals? But I don't drive.
I've done it before too but it really is sort of ridiculous to jump through hoops just to stretch your spending power by 1 or 2%, isn't it?
If you make alone or with you S.O. $100K a year that's one to two twousand dollars extra. Not sure if leaving that on the table is something I want to do now that I found a card I can exploit paying monthly in full as if it were my checking account.
If it's just a card you like anyway and it's easy then great, but to spend time figuring out 2% vs 1% and meeting all the requirements, that's a damn small amount compared to increasing your income potential, learning skills, or getting various other life choices right.
I just think overall, personal finance folks spend too much time on these gimmicks vs maximizing their income or avoiding costs. Probably because it seems easy and you can do it from your couch.
Also, I shouldn't have said income. It's more like 1 or 2% of your credit card spend, which is hopefully a much smaller number (say $800 on a $100k income with $40k CC spend)
I don't anymore. The rewards are not only in exchange for the return business they hope for, but also partly for the data you allow them to collect on you. It is perfectly fine to make that trade, but it is good to factor that into any pro/con balance you make when deciding what programs to participate in. Seeing what was collected on me turned me off the idea, and I now use a standard credit card without benefits for my shopping.
I've been pretty happy with my United Chase card. I travel a lot, for work, though, so it adds up.
I use a variety of cards but mostly rely on sign up bonuses to give me enough points to travel with. Without those I would use a cash back.
Right now I use Bilt a lot. It alows you to pay your rent and earn points. My rent is probably ~75% of my monthly expenses. Their transfer partners are very good if not the best of all programs. It also has 3x dining which isn't a big spend for me but it's still good. Otherwise I have a several other cards for niche categories.
I used to be really into points and used those points to travel a lot in the last decade.
In fact, all these cards with their programs are evil, they make us spend more and more, it's marketing and business baby, nothing personal!