What's in your wallet!?: Which cards you use where, and why!

[Anonymous]

BOA- Nothing until my new points kick in, then im going to start paying my rent on it.

Citi Amex- Random purchases- food, things for work.

Chase Freedom- gas, groceries, cable, cell phone, power

Macy's- things at Macy's

[Anonymous]

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AlishaR wrote:
BOA- Nothing until my new points kick in, then im going to start paying my rent on it.

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Oh, how I wish I could pay my rent with a CC.

[Anonymous]

haha putting my rent through should look good to BOA since it will be 1/2 my cl.. I'm hoping for a large increase by doing this

[Anonymous]

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thrasher865 wrote:

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rratss wrote:
Amex Blue Cash
- gas
- supermarkets
- drugstores

Amex Starwood
- everywhere else that accepts Amex

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That's not doing you any good.  I'd say it'll be hard to hit $6500 on gas, drugs and groceries alone.  In which case, 1% is the standard rate on most other cashback cards and then you can earn bonus rates on top.

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When picking out a rewards card, I chose to stay away from Blue Cash for exactly that reason. No one person could spend spend much more than $6,500.00 on those categories. It'd even be difficult for a couple or family to spend that much. If you're buying that much in gas, groceries, convenience stores, drugstores, etc. it makes much more sense to get an AmEx True Earnings for way better rewards.

Even my Fidelity Rewards Visa gives me better cash back than the AmEx Blue Cash! I get 1.5% back on every single purchase. Once you sit down and do the math to see how much you need to spend to actually get 5% back, Blue Cash is a pretty terrible rewards card.

On the other hand, if you do spend $20,000.00+ per year on the above categories, it might be worth it.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to spend $6500 per year just in those categories to get bumped up to the next tier with Blue Cash.  You just need to spend $6500 total for the year, at which point all future purchases in those particular categories will earn 5% cash back, but the purchases that get you to $6500 don't necessarily have to be in those categories.

That's still a hefty amount for a lot of people, and I still think this card is overrated.  Just wanted to make this clarification.

[thrasher865]

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jaybird201 wrote:

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thrasher865 wrote:

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rratss wrote:
Amex Blue Cash
- gas
- supermarkets
- drugstores

Amex Starwood
- everywhere else that accepts Amex

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That's not doing you any good.  I'd say it'll be hard to hit $6500 on gas, drugs and groceries alone.  In which case, 1% is the standard rate on most other cashback cards and then you can earn bonus rates on top.

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When picking out a rewards card, I chose to stay away from Blue Cash for exactly that reason. No one person could spend spend much more than $6,500.00 on those categories. It'd even be difficult for a couple or family to spend that much. If you're buying that much in gas, groceries, convenience stores, drugstores, etc. it makes much more sense to get an AmEx True Earnings for way better rewards.

Even my Fidelity Rewards Visa gives me better cash back than the AmEx Blue Cash! I get 1.5% back on every single purchase. Once you sit down and do the math to see how much you need to spend to actually get 5% back, Blue Cash is a pretty terrible rewards card.

On the other hand, if you do spend $20,000.00+ per year on the above categories, it might be worth it.

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No, my point was he needs to drop the starwood and put everything through the blue cash.  Just putting the bonus categories through, he'll never hit paydirt.  But if you do the math, you really only need around $10K a year through the blue cash for it to blow other cards out of the water.

You can earn 3% on the same three categories for Chase Freedom, the next best card IMO, and 1% on everything else all year, at least up to the monthly cap on bonus categories.  But if you hit 5% and 1.5% on the blue cash on month 7, you catch up a LOT quicker than you would think.

I just use my Freedom because I don't want to be a slave to my blue cash, but if my expenses were more, I'd use it in a heartbeat.  I could make it work on my current expenses, but I don't want to feel bad every time I use another card.

P.S. there is no bonus category cap on the blue cash, so you can really make it work if you spend more than $10000 yearly.

[Anonymous]

I use my Discover More wherever I can, but then it is my Amazon.com Visa card for everything else. It is easy to get rewards with those cards than my Amex.

[Anonymous]

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thrasher865 wrote:

You can earn 3% on the same three categories for Chase Freedom, the next best card IMO, and 1% on everything else all year, at least up to the monthly cap on bonus categories.  But if you hit 5% and 1.5% on the blue cash on month 7, you catch up a LOT quicker than you would think.

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It really depends on what portion of those purchases are in the three categories to qualify for the 5% rate, even after the $6500 threshold is reached.  Let's give it the benefit of the doubt, and say that a full 50% of annual spending is in those three categories, even though that is probably very high.

Assuming the $6500 spending level was reached after 6 months, that means the rewards on the Blue Cash would be:

$3250 * 0.5% + $3250 * 1% + $3250 * 1.5% + $3250 * 5% = $260

Remember, also, that Chase Freedom gives $250 cash back for every $200 you redeem, bringing the total cash back to 3.75% on the top spending categories.

So under the same circumstances, Chase Freedom would get you:

$6500 * 3% + $6500 * 1% = $260 (redeemed at a rate of 250:200 = $325)

So even spending $13K a year, $6500 of which is in the Blue Cash 5% categories, Chase Freedom still wins because of the $250 for $200 redemption rate.

[athensguy]

Doesn't the regular Chase Freedom limit your total bonus cash back to like $12 per month (600 spending limit)?

Anyway, I bet a regular person that used a Penfed Gas card vs. the Blue would get more rewards from the Penfed.

[Anonymous]

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athensguy wrote:
Doesn't the regular Chase Freedom limit your total bonus cash back to like $12 per month (600 spending limit)?

Anyway, I bet a regular person that used a Penfed Gas card vs. the Blue would get more rewards from the Penfed.

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Yes.  In the example I gave above, the top three categories were $6500 per year, which equals $542 a month, still well within the Chase Freedom caps.