Greg and Nick have a LOT of cards between the two of them and they can’t possibly carry all of them in their real-life physical wallets. What happens instead is that they tend to rotate the cards in their wallets based on what the current bonuses are, whether or not there are cards they’re trying to reach a spend requirement on…and…whether or not they can find the physical card. In this episode, they’ll cover the major real-life spend categories and which cards they’re carrying for those purposes.
Coffee Break: What’s in Our Wallets? (Jan 2025)
Listen here…
Watch here…
(01:09) – Which cards do Greg and Nick carry for Grocery spend?
Learn more about the Savor card here.
(01:56) – Learn more about the Amex Gold card here.
(03:21) – Which cards do we carry around for Gas?
Learn more about the Wyndham Business Earner Card here.
(03:59) – Learn more about the Amex Business Gold card here.
(05:14) – Which cards do we carry around for dining?
(08:18) – Which cards do we carry around for Travel?
Learn more about the Sapphire Reserve card here.
(12:17) – Which cards do we carry around for Pharmacy?
Learn more about the Chase Freedom Unlimited card here.
(14:20) – Which cards do we carry for spend everywhere else?
Learn more about the Bank Of America Premium Rewards card here.
(16:40) – Learn more about the Bank Of America Unlimited Cash Rewards here.
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Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads
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I’m using the AMEX Gold for dining and grocery while we have it but those will go away at annual fee renewal time – I can’t justify an extra 1X in earnings in those categories when there are so many cards offering 3X with much lower annual fees (and no credit hoops to jump through). AMEX has a more restrictive dining category than other issuers so I’ll also miss out on earnings at cafes or combined taprooms & restaurants many times.
For everywhere else spend I’ve really liked using the Hilton Surpass card to spend towards a Hilton FNC. You can look at it as earning 8X minimum Hilton points everywhere (likely higher) and it can stay in your wallet a while since you need to get up to $15K spending. Works great as a P2 single card where you know you’ll earn that minimum and potentially more for the 6X dining, grocery, and gas categories plus 4X online shopping. I feel like that and the Citi Premier (3X dining, gas, grocery, travel) are the two simplest “just use this card” options.
I’m a little surprised neither of you have a Freedom/Freedom Flex card or a Citi Custom Cash you are carrying for 5X grocery. The Freedom cards come up to the top whenever the 5X category is useful (trumping the AMEX Gold right now).
I’ll spoil the surprise for you, Nick. You’ll only get Resy credit on the amount paid for the meal, not for gratuity, at an inKind restaurant. Source: I did the exact same thing back in September and only the amount for the meal that was leftover after using an inKind gift card triggered the credit.
It may not be consistent then, because in September 2024 I paid for a meal with InKind (covered the whole meal), and used my gold card for gratuity. To my surprise, I received the Resy credit on the gratuity transaction a couple of days later. I didn’t even realize at the time it was a Resy restaurant.
Good DP to share, but frustrating if it’s not a consistent experience.
What trips are you planning for 2025?
Surprised there’s no love for the Citi Custom Cash card. I use our two cards at grocery stores and at gas stations and that gets us 5x on that spend, at least up to $500 per month.
CCC is my gas card, and if I ever cancel Gold will likely become my grocery card.
Yeah, I thought Greg had several Custom Cash cards. I have 4 so they are most of my bonus categories (especially with Freedom having groceries as a bonus category this quarter).
I do have them but I haven’t been using them. As long as I have an easy 4x at grocery stores (Amex Gold), I decided that its not worth my time to juggle multiple Custom Cash cards to get just 1x more.