What's in your wallet?

pcbuck said:
That's smart. The last 2 times I bought a car I didn't finance, and they didn't let me put anything on a credit card. I may have to ask the question differently next time. I'll also have to make sure they don't charge a convenience fee to use the card.
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I have delt with the same dealer (Voss Honda) for more than twenty years. Back around 2005 they allowed the entire $11,000 to go on a credit card and we earned 1% cash back at that time so $110. In 2014 they said only $500 could be put on a card, so the 2% cash back we had then was not of any value with them.

I believe dealerships set their own criteria for accepting cards and how much can be charged to them. I was all set to put the full purchase of another vehicle in 2016 when they told me last second there would be a 2% convenience fee, negating my benefit of using the card. So yes, great point to make sure they are not charging you to use your card with them.
 
Just wanted to update how my credit card game was going after August.

I spent $1,207 on yearly annual fees (not late fees or interest charges). Sounds like a lot and it is, but luckily that's all I'll pay for the year.
I've gotten back $3,315 in cash back and free flights. The largest amount is $1,428 in free flights from American and Southwest. In case you were wondering American and Southwest both value their flights at 1.5 cents per point. 2 one way flights to Vegas on American cost 31,000 points valued at $465. 2 one way flights back to Cleveland on Southwest cost 64,204 points valued at $963. Technically these flights aren't "free" as there is a $11.20 government tax each way per person.

I'll update more details and how many points I still have later this weekend.
 
pcbuck said:
Just wanted to update how my credit card game was going after August.

I spent $1,207 on yearly annual fees (not late fees or interest charges). Sounds like a lot and it is, but luckily that's all I'll pay for the year.
I've gotten back $3,315 in cash back and free flights. The largest amount is $1,428 in free flights from American and Southwest. In case you were wondering American and Southwest both value their flights at 1.5 cents per point. 2 one way flights to Vegas on American cost 31,000 points valued at $465. 2 one way flights back to Cleveland on Southwest cost 64,204 points valued at $963. Technically these flights aren't "free" as there is a $11.20 government tax each way per person.

I'll update more details and how many points I still have later this weekend.
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I'll break down the $3,315 in cash back further. In addition to the $1,428 in free flights, I got $375 cash back from the Amazon Prime Visa and $400 cash back from the Amex Blue Sky. Both have no annual fee. Also received $260 off from credit card offers (Amex Platinum and Chase Southwest mostly). The last big category was $546 in benefits from the Amex Platinum card, like discounts at Saks, free Clear at the airport for 2 people and $15 per month Uber benefits. In addition to the monetary benefits my wife and I also used 4 airport lounges for free.

Unfortunately I wasn't really able to travel as much as I wanted to this year so I'm holding a lot of credit card points, which I don't recommend. This is because the card companies have a tendency to devalue points.
 
Delta is trying to limit entry into it's Sky Club Lounges. Delta currently has Sky Club Lounges in 34 cities in the United States. There have been issues with overcrowding.
First, if you have a basic economy ticket you won't be able to get in the Sky Club starting January 1, 2024. Even with having a premier credit card, you'll have to have Main Cabin, Comfort+, or First Class tickets to get in. Also they are limiting credit card entries to the SC to 6 per year for Americian Express Platinum and 10 per year for the Delta Reserve card. Their program year goes from February 1 to January 31 the following year. IF you spend >$75,000 in a program year, you get unlimited access. Yay. LOL.
 
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Last month I went on a quick weekend trip to Charlotte.
I flew there on American Airlines points and flew back to Cleveland on Southwest Airlines points.

I also rented a car at Hertz. If you sign up for an account at Hertz you get to skip the counter. They have a board with your name and the area where your car is. You get to pick any car in your area: Gold, Five Star, or President's Circle. I'm a President's Circle member so I rented a Class C car, like a Mazda 3, for $39 a day. I ended up driving off in a Camaro. Other options I could have picked were Chrysler 300, Ford 4 door pickup truck, or a Kia EV6, which surprisingly goes 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. The only time I talked to anyone to pickup the car was in the booth on the way out when I showed my drivers license. The whole rental car experience was very stress free with minimal human interaction, so I definitely recommended joining the rewards program just for the convenience.
 
One popular credit card bundle to get to maximize your points and earnings is the so called American Express Trifecta.
This involves the Amex Platinum, Amex Gold, and Amex Blue Business Plus.

Recently American Express made a change that would affect anyone trying to get this group of cards. The highest benefit of these type of cards is the welcome bonus. Amex just announced that if you have the Amex Platinum card, you can't get a welcome bonus for the Gold card. So basically if you are going for the Amex Trifecta, you need to get the Gold card BEFORE the Platinum card to get the most bang for your buck.
 
The latest credit card in my wallet is the American Express Blue Cash Preferred.
It will replace the Amex Blue Sky card. The Preferred has no initial fee but a $95 annual fee after the first year.
It has a $250 sign up bonus if you spend $3000 in the first 6 months.

The main highlights for this card are the 6% back on groceries on your first $6000 spent in a calendar year. This doesn't include big box stores like WalMart, Target, BJ's, or Costco. Others are 6% back on streaming services, 3% back on gas, and 3% back on parking, tolls, ride share, subways, etc.

This will basically be our new grocery and gas card.
 
In the last year or 2 I've made some changes in how I pay my bills.
The most noteworthy would be my cell phone, internet, and cable bills.

Instead of paying by mail I pay all 3 on my Southwest card. This card give 2X points on these charges.
So at the typical 1.5 cents per point for Southwest flights, I save about $240 per year by doing this instead of mailing in a check each month.
That doesn't include the 3 stamps per month.
 
pcbuck said:
In the last year or 2 I've made some changes in how I pay my bills.
The most noteworthy would be my cell phone, internet, and cable bills.

Instead of paying by mail I pay all 3 on my Southwest card. This card give 2X points on these charges.
So at the typical 1.5 cents per point for Southwest flights, I save about $240 per year by doing this instead of mailing in a check each month.
That doesn't include the 3 stamps per month.
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You still have checks?

I don't have any cards for airline miles. I fly 3_4 X a yr for work on that work card but the card is used daily gets me 5percent back on what I spend rhe most and 2 on the rest. IL easily getting 30 bucks plus a month in rewards and paying zero interest. Use that money couple times a yr for a free weekend of fun.
 
pcbuck said:
What's your favorite credit card as far as cash back, rewards, or other benefits?

I'll post mine if others are interested.
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PenFed VISA, bar none. ALWAYS a 5% kick-back on gas, 3% groceries, 1% everywhere else, pay off the statement balance every month. Then I mess with whatever Discover's 5% bonus quarterly vig is that quarter as well, unless it is gas.

Slam dunk choice for a vet. Pay the $20 bucks to join Military Fam Bene Society FCU once if you've never served, open a credit union acc't with a meager balance you won't likely touch, and you're good to go.

A friend that flips luxury cars claims you'll never find a better rate on a used car loan than the PenFed FCU, either, if you are a responsible borrower. But you have to be in their credit union to get the rate.
 
Thavoice said:
You still have checks?

I don't have any cards for airline miles. I fly 3_4 X a yr for work on that work card but the card is used daily gets me 5percent back on what I spend rhe most and 2 on the rest. IL easily getting 30 bucks plus a month in rewards and paying zero interest. Use that money couple times a yr for a free weekend of fun.
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That's a good amount of cash back. You're doing it right by paying everything when it's due and not buying things you can't afford to pay off on time.

I don't just use one credit card for my purchases. I have a total of 4 and my wife has another different card she uses for Amazon purchases.
I generally use different ones for travel, restaurants, gas, groceries, etc. The sign up bonuses are where the real rewards are at though.
One card I applied for gave me what amounted to $1500 or $2000 depending on whether I got 1.5 or 2 cents per point back.
 
cabezadecaballo said:
PenFed VISA, bar none. ALWAYS a 5% kick-back on gas, 3% groceries, 1% everywhere else, pay off the statement balance every month. Then I mess with whatever Discover's 5% bonus quarterly vig is that quarter as well, unless it is gas.

Slam dunk choice for a vet. Pay the $20 bucks to join Military Fam Bene Society FCU once if you've never served, open a credit union acc't with a meager balance you won't likely touch, and you're good to go.

A friend that flips luxury cars claims you'll never find a better rate on a used car loan than the PenFed FCU, either, if you are a responsible borrower. But you have to be in their credit union to get the rate.
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Never heard of that one but sounds like a great card to have. Thanks for the tip and especially thanks for your service.
 
pcbuck said:
Never heard of that one but sounds like a great card to have. Thanks for the tip and especially thanks for your service.
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I paid the twenty bucks. Had I served I likely would’ve spent a significant amount of time locked up with my asz beaten. Really dumb kid.
 
For those interesting in jumping in to the higher end credit card game I would suggest the Capital One Venture X.
It has an annual fee of $395 which is lower than the competition which would include the American Express Platinum ($695 Annual Fee) and the Chase Sapphire Reserve ($550 Annual Fee). The card has a $300 annual travel credit on bookings made through the Capital One travel portal. You also get 10,000 bonus miles at the end of your card anniversary. These miles are worth at least $100, making your effective annual fee essentially $0.

You get much more benefits but what I just posted should encourage some people to apply for this card and keep it in their credit card portfolio.
 
Just wanted to give a quick update of my credit card activity for 2023.
As mentioned previously I paid $1207 in annual credit card fees. For all that, I received $4702 in benefits back for the year.
This includes free flights, cash back, offer coupons, benefits, and reimbursements. This doesn't include points I have accumulated and didn't use, which was 324,106 points for all my cards.

I'll update this more in detail over the next week.
 
pcbuck said:
Just wanted to give a quick update of my credit card activity for 2023.
As mentioned previously I paid $1207 in annual credit card fees. For all that, I received $4702 in benefits back for the year.
This includes free flights, cash back, offer coupons, benefits, and reimbursements. This doesn't include points I have accumulated and didn't use, which was 324,106 points for all my cards.

I'll update this more in detail over the next week.
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Like fees for high reward cards?
 
pcbuck said:
Just wanted to give a quick update of my credit card activity for 2023.
As mentioned previously I paid $1207 in annual credit card fees. For all that, I received $4702 in benefits back for the year.
This includes free flights, cash back, offer coupons, benefits, and reimbursements. This doesn't include points I have accumulated and didn't use, which was 324,106 points for all my cards.

I'll update this more in detail over the next week.
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I have one card.
I use it for almost everything, as often as I can.
I pay a $95 annual fee, and the card activity accumulates points.
Each year in December I convert my points into dollars that can be used as a statement credit/payment. (Points can also be used for other benefits)
For 2023, it amounted to $1,348 paid toward my December card statement balance.
I'm satisfied.
 
EHS 2001 said:
😲 And I have a hard time justifying the $275 that I pay for the AmEx Delta SkyMiles platinum card.
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I was worried about the annual fees but I stuck to my plan and it ended up working out well.
I'll give a more detailed overview of my credit card journey in a couple weeks.

Now that I got the hang of things, I'm planning to be more aggressive over the next year.
 
Just wanted to give an update with my final numbers for 2023.

As mentioned previously I spent $1,207 in Annual Fees with nothing on late payments or interest for our 5 different credit cards.
We received $4,703 in benefits. The biggest categories for these are $1,761 in free flights, $1,100 in cash back, $1,220 in credit card perks, and $541 in credit card offers. We also used airport lounges 5 different times and benefited from upgraded status at Hilton and Hertz.

I'll also give a quick summary of points still available to use:
American Express Membership Rewards- 187,427
Southwest- 109,081
American Airlines- 17,819
American Express Blue Sky- 9,779
 
pcbuck said:
The latest credit card in my wallet is the American Express Blue Cash Preferred.
It will replace the Amex Blue Sky card. The Preferred has no initial fee but a $95 annual fee after the first year.
It has a $250 sign up bonus if you spend $3000 in the first 6 months.

The main highlights for this card are the 6% back on groceries on your first $6000 spent in a calendar year. This doesn't include big box stores like WalMart, Target, BJ's, or Costco. Others are 6% back on streaming services, 3% back on gas, and 3% back on parking, tolls, ride share, subways, etc.

This will basically be our new grocery and gas card.
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Just got the sign up bonus for the Amex Blue Cash Preferred 2 weeks ago. By getting the $250, you effectively get 8.3% of your $3000 in spend back. We also earned just over $100 in cash back. This is strictly a cash back card and you can't earn American Express Membership Rewards points with it.

I haven't decided what's next but it'll probably be either the American Express Hilton Surpass or Aspire, Capital One Venture X, or the World of Hyatt Credit card.
 
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I still have my AmEx Blue Cash card from 2007 which has no annual fee and offers 5% cash back on groceries, gas and drug store purchases and 1% on everything else. I think it was the predecessor of the AmEx Blue Cash Preferred card. The only downside is that every year American Express raises the threshold I have to reach to activate the 5% cash back--it's currently $6500. There is no upper limit on the spending or rewards though.

My favorite part about the card is buying gift certificates for Amazon, Home Depot, etc. at Kroger to get 5% cash back from American Express and 2x or 4x fuel points from Kroger.
 
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EHS 2001 said:
I still have my AmEx Blue Cash card from 2007 which has no annual fee and offers 5% cash back on groceries, gas and drug store purchases and 1% on everything else. I think it was the predecessor of the AmEx Blue Cash Preferred card. The only downside is that every year American Express raises the threshold I have to reach to activate the 5% cash back--it's currently $6500. There is no upper limit on the spending or rewards though.

My favorite part about the card is buying gift certificates for Amazon, Home Depot, etc. at Kroger to get 5% cash back from American Express and 2x or 4x fuel points from Kroger.
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Smart man buying the gift certificates like that.

I don't think they offer the Amex Blue Cash card any longer. The current card that's most similar is the Amex Blue Cash Everyday card. It has no annual fee and the sign up bonus is $200 if you spend $2000 in the first 6 months.. It offers 3% cash back on groceries, gas, and online retail purchases (up to $6000 spend a year for each category then 1%). There's no minimum spend to activate the cash back.
I see that you have other cards so if the minimum spend becomes an issue, the Blue Cash Everyday card is an option.
 
If you rent your apartment or home, the BILT Mastercard may be the credit card for you.
It is currently the only card out there that allows you to pay your rent without a transaction fee. Even if your landlord doesn't accept credit cards, BILT can charge your card each month and send a check to your landlord. So for the first time, people can earn points for their largest monthly expense, their home. Also, there's no annual fee for this card.
The downside to the card is that there's no sign up bonus. You also have to use the card 5 times each month to get membership rewards points.
 
I just signed up and got accepted for my first Hotel Credit card. It's the Chase World of Hyatt Card.
Their main competitors, Hilton and Marriott, have multiple personal and business cards. Hyatt only has this card and their one business card.
It has an annual fee of $95 and you get 35,000 bonus points if you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months. Those bonus points have a value of about $595 (at 1.7 cents per point valuation) or almost 20% back on your initial $3,000 spend. You also get a free night stay at a Category 1-4 hotel after every year you own the card. You can get an extra free night stay if you put $15,000 on the card for the calendar year.
 
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