Considering what’s in our wallet
October 12, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69
I’m trying to decide what to do with our travel cards – we routinely use the Marriott Bonvoy and CSR cards. Broadly speaking, I don’t see us using the Marriott free night to offset the annual fee anytime soon, and we aren’t going to get our money’s worth out of the CSR anytime soon either. I prefer to only have two active keeper cards so I need to do some in depth research here.
American Express
Replacing the Marriot Bonvoy?
I intend to stick with AmEx because their customer service has always been good to us, but does carrying on my usual hotel points hoarding makes any sense given we have no intention of traveling for probably a year.
Perhaps it’s time to downgrade the card to something without a fee. The best of both worlds would be an AmEx with great earning potential and slightly better cashing out options.
They have stated: Points expiration is paused until February 2021. Starting February 2021, points will begin to expire 24 months after your last activity.
That’s good. I’m not worried about expiration right now since we continue to earn points every month but I will have to remember we have 2 years after I change cards to have activity on the account.
Initial Research for replacements: Meh.
Cash Magnet: 1.5% cash back on everything, redeemable as statement credits whenever reward balance is $25 or more (meh). Free ShopRunner membership. No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
AmEx EveryDay card: 1 point/$ on all purchases; 2 points/$ on groceries; 20% more points when the card is used 20+ times per billing period less returns and credits. No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Blue Cash Preferred® Card: 6% Cash Back at U.S. Supermarkets (capped); 3% cash back on Transit; 3% cash back on Gas; 1% On Other Purchases redeemable as a statement credit. Annual Fee: $95 (meh), 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Blue Cash Everyday® Card: 3% Cash Back at U.S. Supermarkets (capped); 2% cash back on Gas; 1% On Other Purchases redeemable as a statement credit (meh). No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Chase
Replacing the Chase Sapphire Reserve?
I’m far less attached to Chase. Their customer service isn’t much use. I enjoyed the CSR card for a while because they had a decent set of perks but those perks are declining in real life value.
I do like that Ultimate Rewards can be cashed out and that I have some reasonable flexibility in earning potential. Perhaps this current stash should just be cashed out and this card downgraded as well. Once upon a time, I was happy with the Chase Freedom card, the current Chase Freedom Unlimited might work for us. I like the flat 1.5% cashback, I dislike the foreign transaction fees. I won’t need to worry about that any time soon but I typically plan for the long haul with keeper cards (vs churn cards I don’t care about).
I haven’t had time to do any Chase related research but I am willing to consider ditching Chase entirely and using our Citi Costco as a regular keeper card to save me the trouble of thinking about this too hard. The perks aren’t as varied but that may not matter much since we haven’t been using many of Chase’s perks lately.
I did like getting the choice to redeem points at 1.5x for restaurant purchases but I didn’t end up doing too much of that. I suppose I’d just rather have the cash in hand.
I tend to do the rotational game – get the same card every 2 years or so, so I get a signing bonus after spending, say, $3k in 3 months. I keep another card that’s affiliated with my credit union for all the rest of my spending.
I’d had a very exciting Paris trip lined up for this spring, including coach class there, first-class ticket home, and 5 nights free thanks to points. By the time *all this* is over I almost expect I’ll be starting over at square one for travel perks.