Credit Card Rewards Strategies

[Mike]

Capital One also offers 1.5% on all purchases.

This is the card that I use. I like to keep things simple and only use one credit card, so we use the Capital One card for most purchases. I also have a debit card and a little cash.

[Nancyscotty]

Citi double cash back for for all purchases. I've been throwing the rewards into their own category and have more than $1000 saved in less than a year. I like the citi card for online purchases because of the security offered by their virtual acct number

[John]

We recently (in the last 3 months or so) switched to Chase Amazon for all our purchases from the Chase Freedom card. We make many purchases from Amazon so it just seemed more logical to use/get the points from there.

We have several other credit/store cards that we may use for one off purchases like Target card at Target, but 99% of our spending is on the Chase Amazon card now. In fact, a strategy I like to employ is to charge all our utilities, doctor bills, and whatever else I can pay with a credit card online to the Amazon card. We do have a few companies that charge for this option so we either write a check or draft from our Checking account, but most we are able to charge to the card.

It also means I typically pay one credit card a month for most everything in my budget, and we get many more point than we would just using it for day to day transactions.

[Joel]

Does anyone focus on earning travel rewards instead of cash back? I'm considering trying to fund our vacations with rewards instead of getting the cash back, but it needs to be a better bang for my buck than what I currently am getting. Since we are hoping to buy a house in the next few years, I don't want to partake in the opening of a bunch of credit card accounts for the sign-up bonuses though.

[heyboots]

Every quarter I print out a little card to keep in my wallet to remind me what cards get extra cashback for certain kinds of purchases.

[Joel]

I just signed up for the chase sapphire reserve card.
- $1,500 in travel rewards with $4,000 in spending within 3 months
- $300 in reimbursement for travel spending
- $100 global entry or $85 tsa precheck reimbursement
- 4.5% travel rewards on travel and restaurant spending
- 1.5% travel reward on all other spending
- Chase freedom rewards can be transferred, so you get 7.5% rewards on the 5% categories.

$450 annual fee is waived for the first year. I will be canceling before the fee is due.

[jenmas]

Every quarter I print out a little card to keep in my wallet to remind me what cards get extra cashback for certain kinds of purchases.

There is an app called Wallaby and you can tell it which cards you have and it uses GPS to tell you which is the best card to use in each store you are in.

[Alex]

Does anyone focus on earning travel rewards instead of cash back? I'm considering trying to fund our vacations with rewards instead of getting the cash back, but it needs to be a better bang for my buck than what I currently am getting. Since we are hoping to buy a house in the next few years, I don't want to partake in the opening of a bunch of credit card accounts for the sign-up bonuses though.

It's definitely a better idea if you know you're going to be traveling. Just have to be careful with gotchas -- cashback doesn't have many gotchas.

[brennan]

I guess I've been on a little opening spree for the past year or so. Not as much as some people I've seen, but just here or there when I see good signup bonuses.

I have currently:

Chase Sapphire Preferred	This was previously used as a catch-all after getting the signup bonus. I need to keep this one active to get Chase UR points.
Chase Freedom	Used for whatever 5% category is rotating through this quarter.
Sallie Mae Rewards	This card gives 5% back on gas, groceries, and Amazon. It's unfortunately going away next March, though...
US Bank Cash+	This card gives 5% cashback on two chosen categories and 2% on a third category. I mainly use this to get 5% back on gym memberships, department stores, and charity at the end of the year.
Chase Freedom Unlimited	I just got this for the signup bonus last month, but this will replace the Sapphire Preferred as my catch-all card.
Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus	I just got this for the signup bonus last month, but will cancel the card before the annual fee kicks in next year.
Capital One Quicksilver	This is my oldest card, so I just keep it open to keep my credit score up.

I guess when the Sallie Mae finally kicks the bucket I'll have to look for another gas/groceries/Amazon combination!

[asromzek]

I got an email from Chase today letting me know that my Amazon credit card rewards bumped from 3% to 5% for Amazon.com purchases. Still the same 2% for restaurants/gas and 1% for other stuff.

[Joel]

I got an email from Chase today letting me know that my Amazon credit card rewards bumped from 3% to 5% for Amazon.com purchases. Still the same 2% for restaurants/gas and 1% for other stuff.

The only catch is you must have an Amazon Prime membership to be eligible for the 5% rewards.

[asromzek]

Yup, since we already have a Prime membership, it was a pleasant surprise. Which is rare when talking about credit card stuff...

With our normal spending, we earn roughly $20 to $30 a month in cash back, and pay the card in full so no interest is ever accumulated. The cash back just about pays for the Prime account over 3 to 4 months. Not the best cashback rates out there, but it gets the job done.

[Doomspark]

I signed up for the Amazon card yesterday.  I already had a Prime membership, so this looks like a nice way to defer a portion of the sales tax on purchases. Plus the $70.00 credit is no bad thing.

[Harvell]

Chase Amazon card (PIF) for 100% of our transactions. 3% cashback on Amazon purchases, 2% on fuel & restaurants, 1% on all other purchases. We were going to read this Gynectrol review for other types of rewards cards soon, so I'll be watching this thread.

That sounds like a good start! I should be getting my Amazon card soon.