What's In Your Wallet?

[Parsad]

Article by a financial blogger on what he has in his wallet?  How many of you use credit cards and loyalty cards to rack up points?  What other interesting things do you keep in your wallet?  Cheers!

 

What's In Your Wallet? (boomerandecho.com)

[DooDiligence]

I haven’t carried a physical wallet in years. Thanks for reminding me to list my small pile of old wallets on eBay.

 

My iPhone wallet takes care of touch-less payments most of the time but I do keep a physical Amazon Chase VISA (paid off every month) & an NFCU debit card (no rewards) in my truck console or pants pocket for when touch-less isn’t available. This is actually the only reason I wear pants.

[gfp]

I still use a thin leather wallet despite using iphone's wallet and applePay.  I keep a credit card sized car key, drivers licenses and credit cards in there but try to keep it as thin as possible since I still end up sitting on it often.  Also in my city cash is still a big part of everyday commerce so it is important to have plenty of different denominations for tipping.  The main rewards points system we use is Chase ultimate rewards using their sapphire reserve card.  We also have one of those 5% cash back amazon cards and the similar 5% deal for Lowes.

[Gamecock-YT]

I'm a churner so any given month I'm cycling through new cards I'm getting and hitting the spending challenge on. I keep a chase sapphire reserve and a BofA card that I've had the longest to keep the credit history part of my credit score high. 

 

Looking now I have a World of Hyatt card and a hilton aspire card also in the wallet. My desk drawer has 12 cards that are in various state of cancelled or still open and I have to wait for the annual fee to post before cancelling (the credit card companies don't like you cancelling right after you get the bonus). So just have to wait it out. 

[Ross812]

I use mainly a mobile wallet with Samsung Pay. I really like the US Bank Altitude Preferred which gives you 3 points/$ on mobile wallet, restaurants, and travel purchases. The points are work 1.5c each so it is effectively 4.5% back on all in person spending. I have had the Chase Sapphire Reserve for 4 years but canceled it after spending down 250k points on with the reimburse feature for grocery and home improvement stores introduces during the pandemic. The only cards in my wallet are the Preferred referenced above for restaurants and a 2% cash back Fidelity card. I have a Hyatt card for travel. I stay at Hyatt's often when I travel for work because the Globalist perks are pretty sweet, and the $95 a year for the card gets you a tax free hotel room.  

[gfp]

34 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

I'm a churner so any given month I'm cycling through new cards I'm getting and hitting the spending challenge on. I keep a chase sapphire reserve and a BofA card that I've had the longest to keep the credit history part of my credit score high. 

 

Looking now I have a World of Hyatt card and a hilton aspire card also in the wallet. My desk drawer has 12 cards that are in various state of cancelled or still open and I have to wait for the annual fee to post before cancelling (the credit card companies don't like you cancelling right after you get the bonus). So just have to wait it out. 

 

Over the years it seems like Chase has limited eligibility for the big 80k - 100k sign on bonuses for customers that have taken advantage of them multiple times.  They call it the 5/24 rule or something like that.  We have found that you can get around that restriction by using their business cards.  I think it is "Ink" that we use.   For real estate development we would get a 100k sign-on bonus Ink card for the project level LLC that we would then charge all the materials and appliances on, using the point bonuses that you get from Chase by clicking through the chase portal onto the website of whoever you are going to buy from anyway (like Build.com, Lowes, Home Depot, ajmadison, Wayfair, etc...)  You can accumulate a quick 200k points this way including the sign on bonus.  Then cancel the card after the project is finished.  Next project level LLC is a separate business and seems to work fine.

 

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by gfp

[Gamecock-YT]

13 minutes ago, gfp said:

 

Over the years it seems like Chase has limited eligibility for the big 80k - 100k sign on bonuses for customers that have taken advantage of them multiple times.  They call it the 5/24 rule or something like that.  We have found that you can get around that restriction by using their business cards.  I think it is "Ink" that we use.   For real estate development we would get a 100k sign-on bonus Ink card for the project level LLC that we would then charge all the materials and appliances on, using the point bonuses that you get from Chase by clicking through the chase portal onto the website of whoever you are going to buy from anyway (like Build.com, Lowes, Home Depot, ajmadison, Wayfair, etc...)  You can accumulate a quick 200k points this way including the sign on bonus.  Then cancel the card after the project is finished.  Next project level LLC is a separate business and seems to work fine.

 

 

 

Yeah for personal cards 5/24 applies (5 personal cards the past 24 months on your credit report). So like you said, everybody hits the business cards which don't apply for 5/24. Two of the chase ink's don't have annual fees and had been doing like 50k/5k spend. the Ink Preferred was like 75k/6k. Used to be your were limited by Tax IDs so only 1 per social security number/EIN. But now seems like you can apply for as many business cards as you want just using a SS# and being a sole proprietor. 

 

Since the pandemic they've gradually reduced the strictness of business card approvals but the spend required has gone up along with the bonuses available. DoctorofCredit is usually a good place to see what are the good cards to get...

 

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-current-credit-card-sign-bonuses/

 

I've got a war chest of points to use once things get more back to normal. The bad thing in this game is that the airlines/hotels are constantly devaluing the value of points either through increasing the amount of points for redemption or cutting out partners where you points are better value. 

 

 

[bskptkl]

1 hour ago, Gamecock-YT said:

I'm a churner so any given month I'm cycling through new cards I'm getting and hitting the spending challenge on.

Me too.

I went from a Costco card and a 2% cash back Fidelity card in 2018 to 34 open cards currently and 28 closed cards since then. And that's just me. We are a family of 6, so the wife has opened around 30 cards and the kids maybe 10 each. The cards I use most; Amex Gold - 4x dining, Amex Biz Plat - 5x gas, Citi Double Cash - 2x on everything.

Optimizing spending is fine, however, the point of churning is opening new cards for the sign up bonuses.

 

[rkbabang]

I don't have much of interest in my wallet other than drivers license, boating license, AAA card, medical insurance card and a few credit cards.  I use a Wells Fargo Amex card for gas and restaurants, Amex Blue for groceries (other than whole foods), Chase Amazon for Whole Foods/Amazon.com, TJX Card, and Fidelity VISA for 2% for everything else.  One of my Amex cards I forget which either Wells Fargo or the Amex Blue gives me like 5% on streaming services too, so I have Netflix, Hulu, etc on there.

And some of those cards are not in my wallet anymore, like Amazon Chase and TJX because I use Apple pay at TJX stores and whole foods. 

Also I might have $20-$30 of cash in my wallet which has been there for like 3 years unused.

 

[Parsad]

7 hours ago, gfp said:

 

Over the years it seems like Chase has limited eligibility for the big 80k - 100k sign on bonuses for customers that have taken advantage of them multiple times.  They call it the 5/24 rule or something like that.  We have found that you can get around that restriction by using their business cards.  I think it is "Ink" that we use.   For real estate development we would get a 100k sign-on bonus Ink card for the project level LLC that we would then charge all the materials and appliances on, using the point bonuses that you get from Chase by clicking through the chase portal onto the website of whoever you are going to buy from anyway (like Build.com, Lowes, Home Depot, ajmadison, Wayfair, etc...)  You can accumulate a quick 200k points this way including the sign on bonus.  Then cancel the card after the project is finished.  Next project level LLC is a separate business and seems to work fine.

 

 

 

That's a smart loophole!  Cheers!

[TwoCitiesCapital]

My Primary is my AmEx Platinum. I use it for all major purchases (trust in their customer service to handle any future problems) and travel expenses (5% back in AmEx points w/ very flexible redemption). The lounge access and Global Entry fundamentally improved my travel experience and the AmEx/Delta lounges are 1000x better than most Priority Pass lounges you get with Sapphire Reserve or similar travel cards. 

 

I also carry a Citi Double Rewards card that gives me 2% cash back on all purchases with no cap. Simple and Easy. 

 

Beyond that, I have in my digital/Google Pay wallet a USAA branded AmEx for use on groceries (3% cash back) and gas (5% cash back) and some other specialty cards like the Amazon branded Visa for 3% cashback on Amazon purchases (or 5% when I'm finessing the free Prime trials). 

 

About once a year, I'll sign up for a promotional offer for one card. I sign up, get the promo, refer my gf for the referral bonus, spend the rewards, cancel the card, and then we hit the promos on her card too. We did this with the Southwest card for two years of companion passes, we did this with the Chase Sapphire Reserve back when they were still doing the 100k start up bonus, and have done it with the AmEx gold card when they had attractive signing bonuses. 

 

I'm told Discover IT allows you to sign up, get their promo of the additional doubling of ALL cash rewards in the year, and then cancel be eligible for immediate re-up for the same promo.  Have a friend who has been doing that for 2-3 years and getting the ~10% cash back which is lucrative, but I find having to keep up with the categories and opting into them every 3 months to be tedious and the additional earnings may not be worthwhile. 

 

I also have 2-3 cards that I keep around solely for balance transfer offers where I can float debt for 12-18 months for 2-4% in fees/interest as a cheap form of self-financing.