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What's Your Rewards Strategy?

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NoHardLimits
Established Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

Amex Amazon Business Prime:  5% Amazon (Amazon is my biggest spending category)

Amex "old" Blue Cash:  5% grocery, gas, drugstore

Amex Platinum:  5 MR points on airfare, plus many statement credit offers

Chase Ink Cash:  5% internet and cell phone

Chase Freedom:  rotating 5%

Citi Dividend:  rotating 5%

Discover More:  rotating 5%

Capital One Savor:  4% dining and entertainment (may not be worth the annual fee during the pandemic)

Capital One Venture:  2 points on miscellaneous spend until I receive the 100k SUB

Citi Double Cash:  2% on miscellaneous spend after I receive the Capital One Venture SUB

 

The rest of my cards aren't really used for rewards.  They have value in perks and/or utilization padding.

May 2025 Scorecard: Clean, Thick, Mature, New Revolver
FICO8:
FICO9:
VantageScore3:
Inquiries (n/12, n/24):
AAoA: 12 yrs | AoORA: 37 yrs | AoYRA: less than 1 yr | New Accounts: 1/6, 1/12, 2/24 | Util: 1% | DTI: 1%
Message 31 of 48
lyTENciL
Regular Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

I'm just getting into this game, so my strategy is basic. Not willing to jump into AF cards yet:

 

Discover it CB - 5% categories, 1% miscellaneous while in my first year match period

Chase Freedom Flex - 5% categories, 5% groceries in first year, 3% dining (temp bonus?)

Navy MoreRewards - 3% gas 

 

I also like to max the 5% rotators by buying gift cards for that category, to use on off quarters. I quit using the Navy card for most things because I hate that I can only redeem rewards in $50 increments. I'm hanging onto the Chase points for if I get the CSP later this year and can use the multiplier and PYB.


FICO (12/22): EX8 838. TU8 826. EQ9 837.
Profile: Clean/thick/aged/new. Revolvers: 7 open, 1 closed. 1 Install.
AoOA/RA 20y. AAoA 4.5y. AoYA/RA 6m. TCL $128.3K.
Message 32 of 48
notmyrealname23
Established Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

AMEX Gold- groceries/dining 4x MR

AMEX Green- travel catchall (except as mentioned below)

AMEX Hilton- gas

Rent: my rental company now uses a service where I get charged a flat fee for debit cards ($9.99) such that Paypal Key + a 2% card or my hotels.com Visa (2.2% in hotel rooms) actually nets a small rebate on rent every month. Not amazing but a few hundred a year in cash or hotel rooms. I may use this in the future for generating SUBs, assuming it doesn't get nerfed. (Problem is that this is now useless for Team AMEX, since Paypal Key doesn't work with AMEX, also useless for a tax bill I have coming up).

College tuition: whatever card needs a SUB or general spend (my kid's college accepts credit cards with no surcharge).

General spend: a 2% cashback card or whatever card needs a SUB

AF cards that are kept for specific reasons: AMEX Bonvoy Brilliant (new SUB that makes this card very positive through Dec 2023, may downgrade to $95 AF version before third AF hits) AMEX Hilton Aspire (kept because $250 airline misc fee reimbursement + $250 resort + free room night means this card pays for itself), Cathay Pacific VISA (they waived the AF this year).

DiscoverIt CB: whatever is the hot category, it goes from 10% to 5% at the end of the month.


Essentially I am on Team AMEX for now, with occasional plays with Team Cashback. My rewards are aligning nicely for a 6 week round the world trip in May/June/July 2022 plus future trips in 2021 and 2022. I estimate that I've come up with something like 750k-800k points and miles in various currencies during 2019-2020 between SUBs and native spend (almost NO gift card/MS trickery), which will be a business class trip around the world to Europe/Asia/Australia starting from and ending in the USA.

 

2021 will be a lot of gardening and earning. AMEX is mostly tapped out for SUBs until/if I go for the Schwab Platinum or business cards (save for the AMEX Everydays and Delta cards, which I am very "meh" on), AMEX upgrade offers are "not yet", the other credit cards I am interested in are all flashing yellow "you're doing too many cards, slow down please" or, in the case of Chase "you're LOL/24, no card for you, come back one year" (and actually it's 18 months).

Charles Schwab AMEX Platinum NPSL | Amex Platinum (I know) NPSL | Amex Gold NPSL | First Tech FCU Choice Rewards World MC 35k | AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant 18k | AMEX Hilton Aspire 17.5k | Chase Southwest Priority Visa 15.5k | Bilt Rewards MC 14k | Capital One Venture X 13k | Fidelity VISA Signature 11.5k | Citi Custom Cash 11.9k | Citi Premier 8.9k | Chase Freedom Unlimited 9k | SoFi MC World Elite 8k | Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red 8k | Capital One SavorOne 7.5k | Amazon/Synchrony 7.5k | Citi Custom Cash 6.9k | PayPal Synchrony MC 6.4k | DiscoverIt Cashback 5k | Hotels.com 5k | Apple Card 3k | Target 800 | Ch 13 filed 12/13 discharged as paid 1/19
Message 33 of 48
credit_is_crack
Valued Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

My OCD is really gonna shine thru on this one Smiley LOL I actually completely flipped my lineup to cashback only as I got annoyed tracking the "value of each point based on where I used it". I've also been on a mission to eliminate all AF cards unless I can gain value from it. With the lineup below the AF's are a total of $149, but I cash out about $3,000-$3,300 a year in cashback from them. Based on how much I spend in each category, I'm averaging about 4.4% average cash back on everything I put on cards at the end of the year. 

 

My Dining, Gas Stations and Non-Category have alternating cards that I flip EOM (every other month). The difference in rewards is negligible and it keeps them alive with organic spend so I can maintain the high limits on them. 

 

DINING:

  • 4% USB Go and 3% Marvel MC; alternate EOM

GROCERIES:

  • 6% Amex BCP

GAS STATIONS:

  • 5% USAA Amex and 4% PNC Cash VS; alternate EOM
  • 10% Shell MC (used exclusively for Shell in store spend on snacks, beer, anything but lotto gets the 10% back)

NON-CATEGORY SPEND

  • 2.5% USAA Limitless and 2% Citi DC; alternate EOM

MONTHLY BILLS: 

  • 6% BCP (Netflix, Apple subs) 
  • 5% PCM MC (auto & renters insurance, TV/internet/phone, MyFICO, food delivery subs, and the car note paid thru plastiq)
  • 5% Cash+ VS (electric, cell phone, and every 6 months the bill for audi nav/wifi)
  • 3.3% BofA Cash VS (Rent - I have two of these cards and I max out the $2.5k per card/per qtr -- it falls under online categories)

RETAIL & TRAVEL:

  • 5% Amazon, Chase Amazon VS - big spend area!
  • 5% BestBuy, bestbuy V - big spend area!
  • 3% Macys Amex
  • 3% Synovus Cash V, all other retail spots
  • 5% Any Hotel & Any Airline, GreenState WMC

I have the Freedom Flex, Discover IT and Dividend for rotating categories and use them if they beat out any card in the current setup.

  • Flex/Discover mainly get used for PayPal quarters
  • Discover, I'll buy $750 in grocery gift cards during the grocery quarter in case I'm going to go overthe $6k BCP cap
  • Dividend will get used when its 5% home improvement since Citi lets you spend the annual $6k budget in one quarter for the $300 cash back, instead of capping each quarter at $1.5k/$75 cash back like Disco/Flex

My spend is very predictable so I've been chasing cards that max each area out. Each November I cash all my rewards out and even though I alternate some cards, they still always seem to manage to hit the minimum redemption amounts so nothing gets left behind. Every other card in my sig not mentioned above is SD and I'll put $3 amazon reloads on them every 60-90 days just to keep them alive. My setup is a bit much for some, but for me..it works Smiley Happy

Message 34 of 48
iced
Valued Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

Airfare: American Express Platinum

Travel/Dining: Chase Sapphire Reserve

Purchases under $5: Citi Rewards+

Everything Else: Chase Freedom Unlimited

 

Random offers here and there will go on targeted cards (aka groceries on CSR when it's 3x).

 

That's it. Focus is on UR accumulation to add to my UA pool and MR accumulation to add to my DL pool. I'm beyond uninterested in cash back, and with my spending and travel patterns this is the best return option for me.

 

The Citi points are such a small accumulation I'll just throw them away on a token gift card or something every now and then.

Message 35 of 48
K-in-Boston
Epic Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?


@iced wrote:

Airfare: American Express Platinum

Travel/Dining: Chase Sapphire Reserve

Purchases under $5: Citi Rewards+

Everything Else: Chase Freedom Unlimited

 

Random offers here and there will go on targeted cards (aka groceries on CSR when it's 3x).

 

That's it. Focus is on UR accumulation to add to my UA pool and MR accumulation to add to my DL pool. I'm beyond uninterested in cash back, and with my spending and travel patterns this is the best return option for me.

 

The Citi points are such a small accumulation I'll just throw them away on a token gift card or something every now and then.


Just a thought, but every little bit helps - have you considered just moving the TYPs to Virgin Atlantic or FlyingBlue that you can combine with transferred MRs for a Delta/SkyTeam award?  While I have been spending mine through the portal for the 1.25 cents plus 10% rebate so I can still earn miles and elite-qualifying miles that's my plan for emptying my account before I PC or close my Citi cards in the next couple of months since Premier isn't a good option for me post-April.

Message 36 of 48
iced
Valued Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?


@K-in-Boston wrote:


Just a thought, but every little bit helps - have you considered just moving the TYPs to Virgin Atlantic or FlyingBlue that you can combine with transferred MRs for a Delta/SkyTeam award?  While I have been spending mine through the portal for the 1.25 cents plus 10% rebate so I can still earn miles and elite-qualifying miles that's my plan for emptying my account before I PC or close my Citi cards in the next couple of months since Premier isn't a good option for me post-April.


I don't think the Rewards+ gets the transfer partners than the Premier/Prestige do, and I'm not going to go grab one of them to open it up when my total spend on that card amounts to maybe 1-2 thousand a year. It's not even accumulating 10k points per year, and compared to the hundreds of thousands of UR/MR I'm pulling in annually, it's just not really an endeavor worth pursuing.

 

I could just throw that spend on the CFU and be done with it altogether, but it's my lone MC so I'll humor it.

Message 37 of 48
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

3% Groceries-Amex Blue Cash Everyday except when Chase Freedom or Discover It has groceries(Discover has it now)

4% Dining-Capital One Savor(grandfathered in for 4% no af) except when Chase Freedom or Discover It has dining

4% Entertaiment-Capital One Savor

2% Everything Else-Citi Double Cash(using this one now 1.99% promo until August 2021)

2% Everything Else-Penfed Powercash(not using right now because of balance transfer on this one)

3% Apple products, 2% Everything Else-Apple Card

3% All things Travel related-Wells Fargo Propel

5% Select clothing stores and home utilities[this quarter]-US Bank Cash +

5% Rotating Categories-Chase Freedom[wholesales, streaming, tv, cable, and phone]  and Discover It[groceries, walgreens, cvs]

5% Gas-USAA Amex Cashback Rewards Plus

 

I just want bank of america cash rewards for online purchases and then im done.

 

Message 38 of 48
K-in-Boston
Epic Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

@iced I didn't realize you didn't also have one of the AF TYP cards.  In that case definitely moot, as I think JetBlue may be the only transfer option.

Message 39 of 48
fatcomic
Regular Contributor

Re: What's Your Rewards Strategy?

The plan in my head was....

  • Citi DC - 2% on recurring charges (this was our primary card for years, everything went on it).  
  • Chase FF - 5% rotating categories + 3% dinning
  • Chase FU - my daughter is an AU - 1.5% on everything + 3% on eating out
  • Chase CSP - used for 80K SUB and to pool UR points from Freedom cards.  The CSP has become the new miscellaneous use card.   
  • Verizon Visa - 4% on gas and grocery.  Pays Verizon bill for 2% and gets some 3% dining spending on it.  Daughter is an AU too for gas spending.
  • Discover - 5% rotating

 

In reality....  my DW and DD have no interest in keeping up with categories and which card to use when and where.   My wife uses the CSP as her primary (probably because it's "pretty") and she knows it has "plenty of limit".  My daughter just uses the Chase FU becuase she "didn't think about it"  

Facepalm GIFs | Tenor

 

 


Message 40 of 48
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