It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at which cards are in our wallets and if the points we’re earning are the ones we want to earn. We’re finally starting to burn down some point balances and some currencies are lower than others. I’m going to switch things up to replenish the transferrable points that are getting low while moving some expenses to take advantage of bonuses for meeting yearly thresholds.
When we first started this blog, we joked in our bio that we were a husband who was into miles and points and his wife who didn’t really care. That’s changed a bit (Note from Sharon: not much! I still really don’t give a crap, LOL!) but Sharon still doesn’t want to have to worry about which credit card to use for each purchase. I have more flexibility with my wallet than I do with Sharon’s and I can keep 4, or even 5, cards to maximize each spending category.
Joe’s Wallet
At the moment, my wallet is pretty straightforward.
AMEX Platinum
Due to a great upgrade offer, the AMEX Platinum is back in my wallet. I have a reasonable spending requirement of $6,000 in 6 months to earn 75,000 Membership Rewards points. More importantly, the card will earn 5X points on up to $15,000 of supermarket, restaurant and gas station spending. Even when I meet the spending requirement, it will stay in my wallet until I max out those bonus categories or hit 6 months.
Citi Premier
With the bonuses I’m getting from AMEX, this card will not see much light in the next several months. I’m keeping it mainly if I go somewhere that doesn’t like to take AMEX or have a problem with my card.
World of Hyatt Visa
Once I hit the $6,000 spending on the AMEX Platinum, this will be my card for all non-bonused categories. I just hit my cardmember anniversary and I’m going to spend the 15K required for an additional category 1-4 free night. We’re starting to stay at more Hyatt properties and are looking to build up our World of Hyatt points balance.
Sharon’s Wallet
I need to keep Sharon’s wallet simple. I try to keep to having her use 1 card for everything. I did get her to agree to split spending between two cards (granted, with some near-begging).
Citi Premier
This is the card I’ve asked her to use for grocery stores and gas stations. The Premier card earns 3X ThankYou points for these categories and we used a large portion of our ThankYou points to pay for our flights to Iceland last year.
Freedom Unlimited
The Freedom Unlimited is the card she’ll use for everything else. It earns 1.5 Ultimate Rewards for all spending (and 3X points for restaurants and drugstores.) I want to rack up some additional Ultimate Rewards that we’ll be able to transfer to Hyatt.
American Express Green Card
I still let Sharon keep this card in her wallet (Note from Sharon: “LETS me.” Ha! He knows I won’t LET HIM take it out of my wallet). Seriously, the card does some great bonus categories but we have more Membership Rewards than we need at the moment and I’m focusing on Chase and getting more Ultimate Rewards since I think I’m going to have to pay for another trip to Hawaii after our recent visit.
Wildcard
Ink Cash
I’m adding this to the list last because it will not stay in our wallet. However, I plan to take it to the local office supply store and stock up on some gift cards. At a minimum, I’ll pick up some Amazon and Starbucks cards. That’s an easy way to earn 5X Ultimate Rewards on those expenses. It’s been a while since I’ve visited, so I don’t even know what they have in stock.
Final Thoughts
Contrary to my advice, I don’t have an actual travel goal in mind right now. We have plans in place through the fall but after that, we’re not sure. It all depends on what happens over the next several months. Will we want to take a major overseas trip or will we want to focus more on trips closer to home? Maybe we will like our cruise and want to go on another one?
I have some things in mind, but I want to keep my points diversified and not put all of my points into a single program until I figure it out.
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