First Blog Post

At lunch today, friends of mine were asking me if I was ever going to start posting on this blog, which I have been talking about ever since attending the New York Times Travel Show in January of 2015. In the interest of getting started, I'm posting something short.

Current available miles and points in my inventory: 4,038,897. In recent months, I have been using credit cards that provide cash back almost as much as points and miles cards, but I haven't taken time to specifically inventory that cash back just yet.

Most of those points and miles came from these primary sources: 1) credit card sign up bonuses; 2) shopping portals; 3) airline, credit card, and shopping portal promotions; and 4) finding ways to use a credit card for nearly every purchase. More about each of these in the coming posts.

What credit cards am I currently carrying? After having my wallet nicked on a Chicago train (at a train stop right by my office!) a few years ago, I significantly reduced the number of cards I carry with me on a day to day basis. I generally carry 3 cards these days and they change from time to time. The current lineup is: Chase Sapphire Reserve, Discover It, and USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards.  A fourth card gets used primarily for online purchases even though I don't often take it out of the house: the Citi AT&T Access More card.

Why these cards?

The Chase Sapphire Reserve provides 3 Ultimate Rewards points on dining and travel (and one Ultimate Rewards point on all other purchases). I value Ultimate Rewards points at roughly 1.7 cents per point, so that's roughly 5.1 cents per dollar on dining and travel spend.

The Discover It is a cash back card that has rotating bonus categories each quarter. This quarter, the bonus category is grocery stores. With the bonus, the card pays 5% on all grocery store spend (including amazon and other gift cards). During the first year of card membership, that bonus is doubled. I am carrying my third Discover It card, and this is the first year of card membership for "It-3", so the card is generating 10% on the first $1500 of "groceries" this quarter. The card also gives 1% on all other purchases, and that amount is doubled the first year, making the card effectively a 2% cash back card for non-bonus categories.

The USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards card is 2.5% cash back on all purchases, and the cash back becomes available shortly after each purchase posts to the account. Right now, I am using this card for most day to day spending that is not in a bonus category (i.e., most things other than "groceries", travel and dining). The one exception is online purchases.

Most online purchases go on my Citi AT&T Access More card, which generally provides 3 Citi Thank You points for online purchases. I value Thank You points at roughly 1.6 cents per point, so the card returns 4.8 cents per dollar for most online spending.

How about you? What cards are you using and why?

 

 

8 thoughts on “First Blog Post”

  1. Oh to have four million of anything at one point in life — congrats Ang on the blog launch!!

    This blog is “1, 2, 3 —HOT!!”

    Bri

  2. Love this blog… I have to admit that I’m point-envious of your 4M points, but I know you’ve earned it through your insights and hard work. Looking forward to learning and earning more. I would love to see a post on stair steps to earning miles. If the novice opens new cards and earns standard points what’s next? Also, I would be interested in how you keep track of all of this. It seems like I’m part of so many different programs, but I have no idea of how much of anything I have or where best to put my efforts.

    1. Thanks, Rand, and thanks for the suggestions on what’s of interest. As a preliminary matter, award wallet can be very helpful for tracking points and miles (and expiration dates), though the site does not interface with all programs. I actually use an excel spreadsheet that I manually update (which will make many people cringe, though for me, the manual process keeps me connected to balances and expiration dates.

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