Best Card lineup for most cash back/rewards

[Anonymous]

So, decided to go on a credit card app spree and product change spree. 

1. For rotating categories, Discover (quarter restaraunts) 5%

2. For normal restaraunt/food purchases Uber Card, 4%

3. For Movie Theaters and home utilities US Bank Cash Rewards 5%

4. All Travel Purchases Chase Sapphire Reserve 3% UR * 1.5 (woulld it be better to use this for restaraunts also?)

5. For chase rotating categories, Chase Freedom 5% UR * 1.5

6. For Amazon and Whole Foods Purchases, Chase Amazon 5%

7. Groceries Amex Blue Cash Everyday 3%

8. Everything Else, Chase Freedom Unlimited 1.5% UR * 1.5

9. Any huge Purchase that need to finance until better loan, Garden Savings FDU Visa, 8% APR no balance transfer/cash advance fee

Sitting Idle: Capital one old venture one Visa Signature, Costco Visa, Amex Everyday card (will use if any offer or membership rewards points are needed), Kohls and Macys card, Amazon Store Card (when I need to 0% finance something from amzn)

I am a big spender. What do you think? Overkill? Is there anything I can consolidate? Would you close Cap 1 or Costco card? How do you fit this many cards in a wallet (most places still no accept nfc/phone payments). Pain in the butt to manage so many bills (smaller costs such Groceries/theater autopay).

Share your setup!

[kdm31091]

Your strategy looks good to me, but IMO be careful not to over optimize. Do you need a dedicated card for expenses such as movies that may not be a huge portion of your budget? It can lead to diluted rewards and as you note, lots of bills to pay; the gains may not be worth it. So in my opinion yes this lineup could be overkill and you may take awhile to reach redemption thresholds for the programs that have them when you are using so many different cards.

If you do want to optimize every penny it looks like you've got it pretty much down.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I got US Bank card when I thought I wouldn't be able to get Chase Freedom card due to 5/24 (turns out I was approved), so now I have both. Maybe will remove Uber card from rotation(and just have it pay cell bill for protection) and stick with CSR, as technically it would be 4.5 cents per the dollar. Have to check minimum redemption values on each.

[longtimelurker]

As far as carrying, you can obviously leave some cards out if you know what you are doing that day (e.g. do you need the movie card today?  Are you going to WholeFoods or a different grocery store).   Also, the difference between putting non-WholeFoods groceries on a BCE vs CFU is pretty small, a max of $45 a year (assuming you reach $6000 apart from any 5% on Freedom etc)

Plus, get a modern Samsung phone!   Samsung pay works nearly everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Eh, more of a Pixel guy, have had Samsung phones in the past. Always fun watching the cashier look at me and figure out what I am trying to do with my phone next to the credit card terminal with the swipe machine . Also, only if in US they brought credit card terminals to the table, would be so much better!

I go to whole foods as there is one walking distance, but for most of groceries go to larger chains as whole foods costs are still higher (despit 5% discount, although maybe amazon is changing the game).  Probably do not need the amex blue cash.

[Anonymous]

This is close to my ideal lineup.  Glad someone else made this post to discuss exactly these cards.  I have a couple thoughts:

1) I'd echo above sentiment regaurding the US bank card (which, obviously, you already have)

2) The chase and discover rotating cards as basically identical, so you only need 1 unless you can find a difference that affects you (the CF if you're converting with the CSR)

3) The citi double cash at 2% beats the CFU at 1.5% (unless you're converting with the CSR)

4) If you don't travel much (I don't) Uber is a better travel card at 3% than CSR at 4.5% less the AF.  It just comes down to a breakeven calculation using expected spend & expected benefits (the calculation can actually get tricky if you're converting points from CF and CFU)

5) PNC has a 3% gas card, which could be worth it depending on how much you drive (It's not worth it to me)

[Kforce]

I have the "keep it simple" plan. (See Sig)

FNBO Cashback and Bank of the West in wallet

Others sock drawer except for specialized category.

Get about 3% from all my CC spend with this set.

Would need your full set to get 4% cashback.

For me the number of cards, splitting rewards, etc is not worth 1%.

Everyone has a different opinion at what number of cards make sense.

If you chase every dollar there is always another card to get you 3$'s more.

Happy with my set and no plans to add any more. Might drop one of them.

[Eagered2succeed]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

As far as carrying, you can obviously leave some cards out if you know what you are doing that day (e.g. do you need the movie card today?  Are you going to WholeFoods or a different grocery store).   Also, the difference between putting non-WholeFoods groceries on a BCE vs CFU is pretty small, a max of $45 a year (assuming you reach $6000 apart from any 5% on Freedom etc)

Plus, get a modern Samsung phone!   Samsung pay works nearly everywhere.

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+1 on the Samsung pay. I love the look on the employees face after they tell me I can't pay with my phone or watch. It has saved me plenty of times seeing that I don't like carrying a wallet everywhere.

[Anonymous]

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@Eagered2succeed wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

As far as carrying, you can obviously leave some cards out if you know what you are doing that day (e.g. do you need the movie card today?  Are you going to WholeFoods or a different grocery store).   Also, the difference between putting non-WholeFoods groceries on a BCE vs CFU is pretty small, a max of $45 a year (assuming you reach $6000 apart from any 5% on Freedom etc)

Plus, get a modern Samsung phone!   Samsung pay works nearly everywhere.

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+1 on the Samsung pay. I love the look on the employees face after they tell me I can't pay with my phone or watch. It has saved me plenty of times seeing that I don't like carrying a wallet everywhere.

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I always got the impression they thought I was 'hacking them'. Last year I was at a vending machine with credit card swiper (no nfc) and I was playing with phone for a good 5 minutes(left wallet at home), the amount of people that looked over and gave me weird looks was classic.

[MakingProgress]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, only if in US they brought credit card terminals to the table, would be so much better!

When we were recently in Canada I liked that they brought the terminal to the table.   Chili's has a kiosk to play games, and pay your bill at the table here in the US.  I hope more resturants follow suit.