Quote:
Originally Posted by skunkworks
Please advise if I have any holes in my credit card rewards game:
Chase Freedom - rotating 5% categories
Citi Forward - approx. 4% on restaurants, Amazon purchases (5 TY points for $1, but point redemption is skewed unfavorably for this card)
Citi Diamond Preferred - rotating 5% categories
American Express Costco - 3% gas
American Express Fidelity - 2% on everything
Discover - rotating 5% categories
I guess the big thing is that I'm suboptimal with gas and travel. I'm sure I can find a 5% card for those. Any suggestions?
It depends what your focus is. If it's just cash back then what you have is pretty good. I would add the PenFed Cash Rewards card if you want a gas only card. You have to pay $5 deposit + $15 to charity to sign up if you're not eligible (armed forces or government employee) but its 5% on gas automatically credited to your statement.
If you have any interest in travel you would probably want a flexible Ultimate Rewards point card like the Sapphire Preferred but you may not like the annual fee from what I can see. Using your UR points from the freedom for cashback is fine but you can get better value by using for travel. For example, 22k points is $220 cashback or a free night in a top level Hyatt, like in Paris, which would retail normally for ~$1k. But without a flex card like the SP or the Ink Bold/Plus, you won't be able to transfer to Hyatt. But as I said, for strict cashback you have a good setup.
Only thing I would mention is to make sure you are using shopping portals as much as possible to get additional %. Always check a site like
www.evreward.com for what portal is paying the best wherever you are looking to shop and clickthrough them. There are some very good opportunities at some places through portals. For example, through the Chase UR portal Sears will occasionally go to 10x points. Sears is one of the few retailers that will pay out points for buying a gift card, and for using a gift card. So you go to the portal, buy a $500 gift card, and you will get 10x points (roughly $50). Then you go through the portal again, and buy a washer or whatever it is you need, and use the giftcard to pay, and you will get another 10x points. All of the sudden, you just got 20% off some appliance you wanted to buy anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Ames
The US Bank+ card is a good one. It has no AF and allows you to select two of their 5% and one of their 2% CB categories each quarter, but you can pick the same ones each quarter if you wish. The best thing is that one of the 5% categories is "Bill payment" which does not include all possible bills but does include utilities, cell phones, insurance, etc. You can also pick up a bonus $25 if you redeem $100 at a time. The downside is that if you are denied for the Bank+ card, they will substitute a lower-tier card.
I don't have the Bank+ card because there are too many other valuable opportunities for me at the moment, but a lot of people really like it and are very excited about it. I would wait a few weeks until a couple of ideas are tested. Basically it looks like you can use it for 5%, but with the $25 bonus its actually 6.25%, and potentially even more. This is a card to keep an eye on, especially if your focus is cashback.