It’s hard to believe that most credit card holders are not educated in the benefits they could receive with their cards. You can get points towards free travel, hotel stays, and food. You can get up to 15% cash back if you shop online through your credit card company’s app. You can get premium lounge services in airports. You can earn cash back on rotating categories or everyday purchases. Some cards even come with free insurances, discounts with partnering brands, and other perks.
For my wife and I, our largest eligible expenses are groceries and restaurants with gas stations coming in third place. Here is how we maximize our benefits using only 4 Credit Cards.
Cash Back on Restaurants
My wife and I use the Discover It Cash Back Card to earn 5% Cash Back on rotating categories and 1% on everything else. For Q3 of 2021, we are saving 5% on Restaurants. During other times, we use the Chase Freedom Flex card for 3% cash back on Dining and Carry Out. Bank Of America Customized Cash Rewards Card also allows us to earn 3% on restaurants with its customizable 3% category, 2% for groceries, and 1% for everything else.
Cash Back on Groceries
As I mentioned, our Bank of America Customized Cash Card already gives us 2% cash back on Groceries. However my Chase Freedom Flex is offering 5% cashback on groceries for Q3 2021. At least for this quarter, we are using the Chase Freedom Flex for groceries. Discover’s quarterly bonus could also include 5% cash back on groceries, but not for the remainder of 2021.
Cash Back on Drug Stores
My family has not been sick in over 12 months due to the mask mandates. After we were vaccinated, we removed our masks. Guess What? We got sick. We avoided COVID but still had the common cold. When we need medicine, vitamins, or Band-Aids, we utilize our Chase Freedom Flex for its 3% cash back rewards on drug stores.
Cash Back on Travel
The Chase Freedom Flex is our travel card. All cash back is earned in the form of points that can be redeemed to purchase travel at a discount through Chase Ultimate Rewards. The Chase Card offers 5% cash back or 5X Points on travel and they give great pricing on the IHG family of hotels that include Holiday Inn and Crown Plaza. I compared the Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Booking app to the Kayak app – Chase was slightly cheaper. If you also get the Chase Sapphire Preferred to get a 25% points boost on travel across all of your Chase cards when you book through Chase.
Cash Back on Gas
Depending on the quarterly bonus, I could be earning 5% cash back through Chase or Discover. Otherwise, I select gas stations as my eligible 3% customizable reward category on our Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards card.
Cash Back for Everything Else
There is one card I have not mentioned yet. The Capital One Quick Silver Card offers 1.5% on everything. If I can’t get a better reward through my other cards, I choose Capital One.
Other Perks Available
· Redeemable Rewards at PayPal or Amazon.com
· Daily Credit Monitoring of your Experian credit report.
· Fraud Monitoring
· Freeze your account with Freeze It
· Trip Cancellation Insurance and travel emergency services
· Free Credit Score and Identify Restoration
· Fraud Monitoring
· Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver
· Cell Phone Insurance that covers up to $800
· 5% cash back on Lyft Rides through March 2022 (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
· 5% cash back on HelloFresh (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
· 3 months of Dash Pass with Door Dash. (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
· Discounts on movies through Fandango (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
· World Elite Concierge, your own personal assistant (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
· Free ShopRunner membership to get free 2-day shipping and free returns from 100+ stores. (MasterCard Elite Benefit)
Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards
· 2.62% Cash Back or 2.62 points on Travel
Capital One Quicksilver
· No foreign transaction fees to use your card in other countries
· Extended Warranty on eligible items purchased with your card.
· Travel accident insurance and 24hr Travel Assistance Services.
· Capital One Shopping online tool that automatically applies coupons to your order.
· Instant purchase notifications
· Complimentary Concierge Service.
· Redeem Rewards through PayPal or Amazon.com
Could I get better credit cards?
There are better cards out there. I could replace the 1.5% cash back Capital One Quicksilver Card with the Citi Bank Double Cash Card offering 2% on all purchases. I could get the Citi Custom Cash card offering 5% cash back on my largest eligible category, automagically. I could get the $95 annual fee Chase Sapphire Preferred card to get $50 annual credits for hotel stays, more value on points, 10% anniversary points boost, 5% on Peloton, and more. The anniversary points boost alone is enough to pay for your annual fee.
I like to play the credit card game, but I don’t like having too many credit cards. The top card on my list is the Citi Custom Cash because it can allow me to get 5% cash back on groceries, gas stations, restaurants, or whatever eligible category I choose depending on the quarterly bonuses offered by my other cards. Plus, they are currently offering a $200 bonus if you spend a certain amount of money within 3 months of activating the card. I also want to get the Citi Premier card for the intro bonus, then downgrade to 2% cash back Citi Double Cash card after 1 year.
Other Strategies
In the credit card world, there are Trifectas where people use only 3 credit cards to earn the maximum rewards. Some use 4 or 5 cards. I will soon be posting comparisons between the Chase, Citi, and AMEX Trifecta’s to show how people use these cards to travel for free and earn maximum cash back. Most of the credit cards we have are from different stages of our lives. Instead of cancelling them and trying out one of the trifecta strategies, we figured out a way to maximize our rewards with the cards we already have.
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