First Time Parent - Changing Cards

[Anonymous]

Hello all - first time post,

My wife and I just had our first child, and this has caused us to reexamine our long term credit card strategy. With current travel restrictions and changes in spending, we're hoping to simplify/optimize our long term strategy. Before child, we focused a lot on maximizing our spending to help with international travel redemptions, using both Chase and Amex. We currently have:

- Amex Gold (since 2018)

- Amex Hilton Aspire (since 2019)

- Chase Freedom (since 2016)

- Chase Freedom Unlimited (since 2018)

- Chase Sapphire Reserve (since 2016)

Since having our child, we've been grocery shopping more at Target/Walmart, and less at local grocery stores. We do not anticipate any international travel the rest of the year, unless the Canadian border opens (we live close to a larger Canadian city). We also are eating at restaurants less. We're hoping to simplify our credit card strategy to reflect these changes, but don't know what the first step should be. We'd love to just have 1-2 cards that all of our spend go on, rather than having five accounts to keep track of (even if they are sock drawered). Do we close accounts first? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[K-in-Boston]

Welcome to the forums and congratulations on your new addition!

The easiest one is that if you don't feel like you will recoup the annual fee on Sapphire Reserve by way of transfers, 3x earning on travel and restaurants, travel credit and the numerous new offers they keep throwing out since all of this began, consider downgrading to Sapphire Preferred or the Sapphire card with no annual fee (note you cannot transfer URs to partners with the no AF Sapphire card, and it does have foreign transaction fees). Eventually, you may want to begin travel again, and it would just take a quick call to change back to CSR (or to CSP).

Freedom Unlimited when used for cash back rather than paired with CSP/CSR is a pretty lackluster card, but Freedom's 5% categories can still be quite useful even when not moved to CSP/CSR.

For Chase, change your due dates to the same day.  That way you only have to check once a month on all 3 accounts even if they are sock drawered.

If Hilton Aspire is no longer feasible, consider downgrading it to a no AF Hilton card after the annual fee is due.  Alternately, if there is another American Express revolving card that does appeal to you, you could apply for it and move most of the limit from Aspire to it prior to closing (I would wait at least a year after opening and the AF has come due, preferably 2 years, before closing, though).

For Amex Gold, if the card no longer fits your needs between its credit and grocery/restaurant earning, consider closing it.  I would wait until the annual fee is due, as there may be decent incentives offered by Amex.  Just be sure to use any Membership Rewards first.

If you decide to keep Gold and downgrade the Hilton card, as with Chase consider changing your due dates to the same day so you only have to log in once a month.  You can easily change Hilton, but you would likely need to call to change Gold's due date.

If you're primarily looking for cash back now, there are a lot of options for 2-3% back.  If you're making trips over the border, I would strongly suggest a card with no FTFs as those can add up quick.

If you find yourself shopping at Target a lot, consider their debit card which gives you the same 5% off your purchases as the credit card but without the new credit card account.

[Anonymous]

I agree. Don't close anything. Just change the cards that charge fees to cards that charge lower/no fees. From recent experience: Babies change rapidly. Many also travel better than you would expect, especially if you get them used to it.

[Caught750]

Op, as someone who had DS#1 last year and DS#2 a few weeks ago, things do change rapidly.  DS#1 was/is an amazing kid.  We flew with him and have stayed in hotels as well.  DS#2 is here now and we are only planning to totally shut down travel for a year or so, maybe less if he's as chill as DS#1.

I've found myself favoring Altitude Reserve and CSR.  AR as Target accepts Apple Pay and, though I haven't, I could RTR to offset purchases.  

I've always found Chase to super generous, and have had no issues, while I've been racking up a pretty good number of UR as well.  Hyatt has been amazing when traveling with children!

[Anonymous]

I essentially split my spending half and half between MR and cash back. I think the first thing I'd look to do in your case is look for a 2% card that works for you... There's a lot of them out there. Then I would look into something like a Target or Walmart card (Walmart is good for online/pickup at least) if shopping is shifting there a lot. If you anticipate going back to grocery stores Amex BCP could make sense. I would keep the Chase Freedom as is, good to have a 5% rotating card. 

I agree with others about at least waiting for annual fees to hit before closing. There have been some good offers and additions to most AF cards due to COVID and there's no reason to not get the most out of them for now. Then look to downgrade or close as others have said.

I'm not as adverse to closing cards as some and also appreciate having a small number of cards so I get where you're coming from there. But if a downgrade makes sense I'd still probably do that before closing an account. 

[randomguy1]

Good info provided here. Before canceling, I would look into retention options (call credit issuer) and see if they make sense to you. I would cite lack of spend in the categories you want due to Covid-19.