With my recent approvals, I finally have the lineup that (almost) maximizes rewards for all of my spending.
Two main cards:
1. Sallie Mae - 5% gas, groceries, and amazon. As a college student, most of my current spending is groceries and everything else is amazon so it works very well. Starting in June I'll have a car again and gas will also be factored in.
2. Amex BCE - 3% groceries, 2% gas/dept. stores, significantly high limit (for me). Although most of these categories overlap with Sallie, I frequently buy groceries for friends and get reimbursed which often puts me over the $250 cap. I also use the BCE as a general spend card because it is, by far, my highest limit card so I never have to worry about my balance or util.
Notable mentions:
3. Chase AARP - 3% restaurants/gas. I use this card exclusively for dinning but I eat out a lot so it's a great card to have.
4. Discover It - 5% categories, Discover Deals. Since getting approved for the previously mentioned cards, the It has been moved to the sock drawer. I do still like to keep it around for the occasionally beneficial categories and for the always beneficial Discover Deals. If I buy anything online (that isn't from amazon), you can bet I'm gonna go through Discover Deals.
Possible improvements: The only area of my spending that could be further maximized would be general spend, since I'm currently only getting 1% from BCE. Currently, getting an extra .5%-1% isn't a huge priority, especially because very little of my spending actually falls into this category. In the future, I'll consider the QS or DC (or whatever new and exciting general spend cards come out in the coming months!).
