Actually I think the CS on the Fidelity Amex (FIA) is pretty decent. Had a number of things happen to that card, including the Target breach and they always dealt with things well. Plus, since a week ago, their website doesn't suck anymore. The FTF is only 1%. Since the card gives 2% rewards, that's still 1% net rewards on foreign purchases. For me this is not a deal breaker, but it may be for you. If you travel a lot though, I am assuming you wouldn't want to do it with an AMEX anyway.
Now, I think what the poster above was referring to is what's called Manufactured Spend. Basically this works like this. Find some grocery store/drug store/gas station that will sell you gift cards and allow you to pay with your blue cash. Then Use those gift cards (somehow) to pay your Amex Blue Cash bill, so you get free credit card points and get to meet the minimum spending of $6500. I never got into this personally, but is perfectly legal, a bunch of people do it and if you can pull it off that makes keeping your blue cash the obvious answer to your initial question. From what I gather though fewer and fewer places are willing to allow people to pay with a credit card for purchasing gift cards, so you will have to go looking on this one. Of course you can keep doing this once you started earning 5% on your BC, which will be very profitable. Don't go too crazy though. AMEX is not stupid and you can get in trouble if they see you spending 100k a year when you only make 40k. But some people make obscence amounts of money doing this all the time, and the AMEX BC is actually the card of choice for this purpose because the 5% is unlimited.
Now, let's say you don't wanna do MS. Here are some other options to consider:
- Get an unlimited 5% gas card (from Pentagon Credit Union or Fort Knock Credit Union - if you get approved. Those guys are stingy with credit); charge your gas on that (if you are a Sam's club member look into their new 5-3-1 Mastercard, just released). Then PC your Amex to a BCP and use that for groceries to get 6% off groceries.
- Get the Sallie Mae Mastercard (5% groceries up to $250 a month; 5% gas up to $250 a month; 5% bookstores (read: Amazon.com) up to $750 a month; no annual fee) and max that out every month. Then charge whatever gas charges you have over that to your AMEX (after converting it to a BCE to get 3% back on grocery stores).
Those combos are a bit of a headache, but of course the more cards you use the more cashback you earn, but the more complicated it gets. It's up to you to draw the line.
And of course it's not even taking into account bundled cc/savings offers. Consumers credit union will give you 5.1% APY interest on up to 10k if you spend $1000 with one of their credit cards. One of them gives 3% cashback on groceries. So probably the most lucrative combo I can think of personally is
- deposit 10k at consumers credit union and get their VISA; move all your grocery shopping and a little random stuff to the CCU Visa; this nets you $500 (taxable) per year from APY + whatever the credit card generates
- get a PenFed Card; charge gas to that. This gives you ~$300 a year in cashback
- keep ignoring AMEX
