Credit cards- change my mind

[hotwired]

credit cards

It really depends on your spending and your "needs". We use the Chase family of cards as follows:

1. around 100K business expenses go on Chase Freedom which gives us rotating 5% categories. So Walmart and Paypal right now.

2. We also have a Freedom Flex (same as freedom except we got 5% back on groceries for first year. Now we get one other bonus that I can't quite remember)

3. So we basically try to fill the 5% bucket with both cards, THEN all points get transferred to our Chase Sapphire Reserve ($550 per year fee). We get $300 travel credit reducing the "real" cost to $250. PLUS points are worth 1.5 cents when used for travel thru their portal (it's the ONLY portal we use) and for "pay yourself back" for dining and home improvement stores.

When covid hit, no one was traveling so they did the 50% bonus for groceries, dining out and home improvement. I had 700K points worth 11,000 dollars. We went a full 9 months with free groceries, 1 year free dining out 1-2x per week. (by free I mean using up our points). Whats' cool is you have 90 days to use them against dining charges, so even though I'm out of points, I accumulate then pay myself back at 50% bonus for those past dining charges (sometimes it results in a credit balance on my card, that's all)

We did use Gold Amex to use with Delta, but Delta has become a D- grade wise in my book so we let that go.

 

[rayvt]

Just work out all the math and you will arrive at the conclusion.
Do you have any monies at Merrill Lynch? (100k)
If so, the credit cards at BOA can work out better than the Fido/Citi 2% deals.

Right. 3.5% on groceries & Sams/Costco.

Get 2 cards, set one to 5.25% on gas, the other to 5.25% on online purchases.

Usually one card or another will have bonus cash-back for Paypal. Set up a paypal-key card (virtual card) and use that when possible.

 

[retire-early]

I can see that buying debit or gift cards for a 4-5% discount would be worthwhile, except I don't know how much spending I have that could be paid for with such cards.

insurance premiums (medical , auto , homeowner's , umbrella )
oil changes
post office box rental ; it is up to $146 a year for me

online donations to charitable organizations

In general, how do you extract the last couple of bucks from a gift debit card? All the profit on these will come "on the margin" - the last 4-5% spent is the profitable part.

It generally has to be done in-person.
Just the other day, I made a purchase at Dollar Tree.
I used up the remaining $2.16 on the $500 VISA gift card, then put the rest on my Citi Double Cash.

One way to use up that small balance online is to buy an Amazon eGift card.
They allow any amount over $1.