I have 4 personal AMEX cards and 1 business card. The SUB is usually what draws me in. I then calculate if there are features that make the card useful long term. Example: my AMEX Blue Cash Preferred is a 6% grocery cash back, my Gold card is 3 or 4% of dining, my Platinum is a great travel card, etc.... Hope that helps, at least my logic on it.
I've opened and closed a lot of Amex cards, some because I was just bonus chasing, some because of the stupid limit for 5 credit cards (doesn't apply to charge cards), etc. The ones that persisted are in my signature:
Platinum - Airfare + travel perks
Gold - Spending card in the same ecosystem as the Platinum
Bonvoy Brilliant - Staying at Marriott + basically a keeper card since the free night you get can be worth more than the $150 effective AF
Bonvoy Business - same as personal Bonvoy
Delta Blue - was a Delta gold that I downgraded to keep the history alive. Might want to re-upgrade one day
@wasCB14 wrote:EveryDay Preferred and Blue Cash Preferred: Not very useful outside of upgrading them for bonuses and then downgrading again later, then re-upgrading
Interesting. I find the BCP indispensable for grocery shopping, what with its 6% cash back and everything!
@wasCB14 wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:EveryDay Preferred and Blue Cash Preferred: Not very useful outside of upgrading them for bonuses and then downgrading again later, then re-upgrading
Interesting. I find the BCP indispensable for grocery shopping, what with its 6% cash back and everything!
I get 4x MRs with Gold, and Business Platinum gives 35% of MRs back on economy flights with one selected airline. So that works out to a bit over 6% in "Delta Cash" on supermarket spend.
Thanks for the explanation. That certainly makes sense.
Personally, I've given up on points cards as I realized along the way that I just prefer cash back.
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:EveryDay Preferred and Blue Cash Preferred: Not very useful outside of upgrading them for bonuses and then downgrading again later, then re-upgrading
Interesting. I find the BCP indispensable for grocery shopping, what with its 6% cash back and everything!
Right, @SoCalGardener, except that @wasCB14 reported having the Gold charge card for food. In some respects, it may be a lot better than the Blue Cash Preferred or Everyday Preferred, depending on spending and how you value MRs. If MRs are worth 1 cpp to 2 cpp roughly, the 4x MR on Gold is worth somewhere between 4% and 8% return on up to $25K in grocery spending. Purely from the grocery angle (and discounting some incremental gains from 6% on streaming), the Blue Cash Preferred earns (at best) 4.4% on $6K in groceries after subtracting the AF, and that is only when you spend exactly $6K. Spend less and you're trying to overcome the burden of the AF; spend more and you lose with only 1% cash back. If someone is able to maximize the available $240 in credits on Gold, the effective AF on it is only $10 whereas BCP has no credits to overcome the $95 AF. So valuation can be quite different based on use of credits, valuation of MRs, and annual grocery spending. Meanwhile, if someone has high spend on dining out, the Gold also delivers well there with 4x MR on dining, uncapped.
