Grocery: Amex Gold

Dining: Amex Gold or Amex Business Gold

Gas: Amex Everyday Preferred

Travel: Chase Sapphire Reserve

Airfare: Amex Platinum

Non-bonused spend: Capital One Venture X or Citi Double Cash

But recently, I’ve found myself questioning some of these orthodox choices. One of the reasons is that we have plenty of Amex Membership Rewards points and don’t necessarily need any more. Of course, we could just cash some of those out via Schwab at 1.1 cents per point, but that’s kind of boring.

One of the newer cards in my wallet is the US Bank Altitude Reserve card. It earns 3x on some travel categories like airfare, hotel and rental cars. It also earns 3x on mobile wallet transactions like Apple Pay. It’s surprising how many places you can use mobile wallet, even when paying online via your phone. My daughter has an authorized user card as well and she uses Apple Pay everywhere so the points really start to add up.

The points can be redeemed through US Bank for 1.5x on travel transactions. The interesting thing about redemptions is that there is Real-Time Rewards, where US Bank texts me each time an eligible transaction is charged to the card. I can just reply “Redeem” and the 1.5x redemption is instant. I’ve used it for many of my daughter’s Amtrak trips, airline award taxes and rental car charges since having the card. You can also set the eligible categories to make sure you don’t accidentally redeem points at less than 1.5x. So, for example, a $30 Amtrak ticket can be “erased” for 2,000 US Bank points.

Now I’m at the point where I’m using Apple Pay at the grocery store to effectively earn 4.5% cash back toward travel. While it’s only slightly more than the 4.4% I would earn via the Amex Gold and Schwab option, it’s allowing me to redeem to erase the cost of transactions that otherwise would have no redemption options.

For restaurants, we use the Bilt card, which earns 3x on dining (and 6x on the 1st of the month – Rent Day). Even though Amex Gold (or Amex Business Gold) earns 4x, the potential Bilt transfer bonuses make those points more valuable. I’m also working on keeping Bilt Platinum status which provides even higher transfer bonuses and other perks.

For Uber/Uber Eats, we use the Capital One SavorOne card which includes a reimbursed Uber One membership and earns 10x/10% (at least through November 2024). I can combine these points with my Venture X for great redemptions through Capital One partners. For Lyft, I still use the Chase Sapphire Reserve as it provides the Lyft Pink membership and 10x earnings. It also provides a Door Dash DashPass membership and a monthly credit while earning 3x so I use it for that as well.

For everyday non-bonused spend, if I can’t use the US Bank Apple Pay option, I will usually just pull out the Capital One Venture X. My wife has the Citi Double Cash and the Venture X so that I at least know she’s earning 2x on everything even if she uses the “wrong” card.

At the end of the day, using points and miles is about saving cash or redeeming for bucket list experiences. Out current card usage is allowing us to hit both of those goals.

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links.