I'm not sure if you can have both BCE and BCP at the same time. Not sure if I have seen that. Depending on her expenses and how involved she wants to be on CB, she can do the BCP for supermarkets and 5% Gas card like the Ducks Unlimited. Otherwise, if she can only do the BCP, then I would add another 3% grocery card (BoA Cash Rewards comes to mind with the select your 3% category).
I have BCE and BCP. Maxed out the BCP 6K groceries and put 3K groceries on BCE last year. BCE has no fee, so why not? You have to keep track yourself now, though. AmEx no longer gives the information online, and remember it is calendar year, not billing year.
@HeavenOhio wrote:What's missing is the reward earned for each transaction. Up until September or so, a Bonus Details link would be available that would list each category transaction and the reward earned. That way, you'd know if you actually got the reward you'd hoped for. As an example, I recently found out that Meijer gave me 3% in the store (as expected). But it only gave me 1% at the gas pump.
You can still get this information if you're quick. If you click on any of the seven recent transactions that appear on your home screen, rewards information might be available. The information appears a day or two after a transaction posts. The flaw is that by the time rewards info is ready to show up, a transaction could be easily crowded out of that list of seven.
AMEX says that customer service can tell you which rewards you've earned by calling in or chatting. I haven't tried that yet.
Funny that you should mention Meijer. I am lucky in that my Meijer codes as groceries at the gas station, too. It is a big part of the reason that my grocery spend gets so high.
@Anonymous wrote:Depending how far over the $6k you go. Discover IT or Chase Freedom may be decent picks for their 5% rotating grocery category each year. That will give you up $1500 spend at 5% each year.
@HeavenOhio wrote:What's missing is the reward earned for each transaction.
If you go to statements and activity there is a link to "preview new version" on the right side just under the summary and just above the recent transactions. Using that, you can see the cash earned (percentage, and dollar value) on all transactions as far back as you'd like. At least this is the case on my BCP.
This only tells rewards a transaction at a time, you have to click on each one. On the old one, it was a list you could download and total.