My 2024 Credit Card Strategy: Maximize Points, Airline Status, Free Night Certificates

in today's video we're going to look at my credit card strategy for 2024 I'll talk about what I'm doing and my setup and also some alternatives for normal people that don't want to go overboard big favor before we dive in is to give us a thumbs up to help about the algorithm and if you are new and you like points and travel then consider subscribing in terms of card setups we pretty much have three major everyday expenses that's going to be restaurants groceries and wh/ Uber for restaurants we typically either use the Chase Sapphire reserve for 3 EXP back or the American Express gold for Forex back we prioritize the gold but it depends on the restaurant for groceries it's either the American Express gold for Forex back on up to 25,000 in spend per calendar year for US supermarkets or the city custom cash rationale for the city is that you're earning 5% which is 5X thank you points on up to 500 spend on your highest spend category per building cycle there are some smaller Asian Mars that we go to that just don't take American Express one that we don't really count as berries which we go to for work classes main rationale is that we buy it during their annual sale for about 30 to maybe 35% off so that just makes more sense and that help us with an intro bonus last one is Uber as well as wio we don't have a car and we actually like walking since the weather tends to be pretty nice but sometimes if it is a bit too far away we will take either Uber or weo so yes we're the people that actually don't mind the Uber credit we have been using wh a bit more but price is a bit higher now and you do have to wait a bit longer so some sometimes not really worth it but yeah for us ride chair is the case for the Chase Sapphire preserve another big expense that's not really a normal one is going to be travel we try to use points when possible especially if we're getting value but there are a lot of cases where that doesn't happen so for example we were just in anderman and Switzerland to go skiing and sadly there's no Hiatt options or other point options we did do a cheap BNB but that's still 300 per night then we did a fancy hotel for a night that was north of $1,000 the nice hotel which is called the ch was on fhr but we ended up working through virtuoso since it was a little bit cheaper and had an airport transfer I not go check out Mandy's video on Mandy RS after this one this tends to be a great spot for the Chase Sapphire reserve for General travel especially if you are going somewhere but you still have to take other trains or transit for a lot of the big hotel chains we do have a lot of their cards but we'll get into that in terms of booking flights it ends up being the chase safire Reserve or the American Express Platinum so same idea if it's a flight that makes a lot of sense on points then we use points so for example flying from the US to Japan in business class is going to be points the domestic flight from Tokyo to saporo is going to be out of pocket so that's when we use the card even for domestic travel if we're flying from SFO to LAX or to JFK generally speaking it doesn't really make sense to use points we'll pay out of pocket and then either use a Delta R Regional upgrade certificate or the JetBlue mint upgrade certificate if we're going to New York same exact idea for Vancouver Salt Lake City or Denver if we're going skiing and I mean you can use points if you don't want to pay anything out of pocket at all but I think there are higher leverage points that you can use them to get more value along with these we do have a lot of other General business expenses for our businesses obviously a lot here and it might be too into the weeds but for the most part we're using these to hit intro bonuses main reason being that they move the needle the most and it's just good business given the current meta and the fact that we're under 524 it just makes a lot of sense to go for ink cards we pretty much get a new ink cash ink unlimited or ink preferred card every month or two it also does help that we legitimately have multiple different businesses with different eins so it does feel pretty defensible benefit though is that these are also accessible to so Proprietors so pretty much anyone that works on anything on the side for example to chase Inc cash is a pretty good pickup for pretty much everyone no annual fee and you're getting 350 back after spending 3,000 in the first 3 months and then an additional 400 when you spend a total of 6,000 in the first 6 months net result being $ 750 for 6,000 and spend in the first 6 months the cash back here is marketing and you technically are getting points that means that $750 is 75,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points which do have more upside in our case pretty much two kns at a top of the line High it or one business class flight if you're a sole proprietor that's been operating for a year even if it's not consistently and you have about 5,000 in projected income then I think it's worth looking into with that said if you are someone that wants to learn more about this card or pretty much any other card card out there and you want to support the channel we do have links on the website ask.com and also Down Below in the description box make sure the links are competitive and that the cards make sense for you but otherwise it is a huge way to support the channel so thank you guys in advance if you don't have as many business expenses and you are a s prop then I would look into estimated tax payments as a s prop you have to make these payments anyways so you might as well either hit intro bonuses or other spend incentives keep in mind that there are deadlines with different quarters to avoid penalties in interest so for example if you drive for Uber or you do instacart you have to pay these taxes anyways so you might as well hit an intro bonus there is a fee but you're looking at between 1.82% upwards to 1.98% in contrast intra bonuses are generally in the 10% to 40% range so for example the Inc cash card that we talked about 750 for 6,000 in spend in the first 6 months that's 12.5% return on spend I'm happy to pay 1.82% to get 12.5 5% if you're in t or finance and you have rsus or a sizable bonus then this can also be a strategy it's not uncommon to change your withholdings for that amount and then to do estimated payments yourself so for examples for rsus sell to cover is a pretty standard strategy to do risk but it's not mandatory by any means a lot of people do estimated payments to either hit minimum spend get Elite status or get free nights also some people do it in order to let their stocks ride and see what happens that's a different strategy but still an option intro bonuses are pretty straightforward here but you can also play for free kns a lot of the hotel cards we talk about come with free Knights when you spend a certain amount every year the ones with the highest value proposition are probably the Hilton ones because they're anywhere once so for example the W of for Storia Mal Dives or Park City or a lot of other destinations that tend to be expensive the surpass has a free night after 15,000 in spend the Spire has one after 30k and then another one after 60k if you do have an Aspire or surpass card that's more than a year old it's not uncommon to downgrade to the surpass for 1 month to hit that 15K KN and then just re- upgrade back to the Spire card and pretty much keep it as an Aspire for the rest of the year and also to potentially work towards that 30k KN you're still earning the night and it's not free by any means but this is a pretty common strategy that people have been using since the cards have existed mean rationale being that $115,000 in spend times 1.82% as a fee to pay taxes is only $273 in fees in order to get that night I would happily pay that or even 300 for an anywhere night within Hilton reminder that the card does need to be at least 12 months old to do any of this upgrade or downgrade stuff given the card acts one question I get a lot is whether upgrades and downgrades affect the anniversary date and the night in my experience no the anniversary date is the anniversary date they basically do an adjustment based off the upgrade and downgrade stuff to kind of account for the fee but anniversary date is the same so given that if you do have the expire card you do want to make sure that it is an asir card during the anniversary otherwise you might end up losing out on a free night along with business expenses and estimated taxes another great option is rents it might make sense to look into tools like builts for this purpose Beyond a card they're also a tool so intro bonuses are a pretty easy Target and same thing with fre Knights but you can also do this for lead status if you're somewhere like San Francisco or New York and you're paying aggressive rent anyways then you might as well get value from it if you do own then you can pay your property taxes depending on where you live and your HOA fees if you are looking for a set it and forget it option then it might make sense to use your Alaska card with the built-in Alaska partnership you can pretty much buy Alaska miles for 1 cent per Point even with the changes we do value Alaska miles and it does make sense to do this in the short term we're probably going to focus on free nights and also Elite status but that is worth considering as you can tell you do have a ton of options and it just depends on how you want to blend it together for us in the past we ended up using our businessman to hit Delta Elite status specifically diamond with the new changes we are kind of questioning whether it makes sense to chase in the future at the same time though it might be a question for future sebie main reason being that I have enough MQM to roll over to have Diamond status for 2025 so you can kind of Punt that decision we were also debating spending our way towards American status but that might also be a 2025 decision main reason being that we did do the Alaska match towards the end of last year so we do have one World Emerald status for 2024 I think Mandy really does like one world over Sky Team so we'll see what happens in the meantime probably stack more Hilton certificates since we do have a lot of aspire cards probably only the 15K surpass and the 30k Aspire since the 30k is only 15K additional so if you do 30 you kind of get two knights from it 60 is a bit too much we're debating going to the conad motives to do a review since we skipped it last time and then probably going to the W for story hls because that's on the list happy to pay $273 as a fee for taxes in order to avoid paying the rack rate here speaking of which we do have a lot of other Hotel cards pretty absurd but for the most part A lot of the other lower annual fee ones do a pretty good job of covering random nights for example the chase world of H card has a category one to four night and we ended up using it at the high place at the Zurich Airport during our Andro mat trip so we're paying a $95 annual fee in order to get a coupon for free night that would otherwise run us maybe $2 or $300 we pretty much have every Hotel keeper card because it works for us given how we travel but might not make sense for everyone else the other high value leverage one is the American Express Bond boy brilliant that has an 85k certificate if you top off of additional points you can use this at a lot places whether you want to go to a nice resort or you want to go skiing somewhere like NCO for us at least a free night Elite status and also the credits outweigh the annual fee we do have a bunch of Airline cards and for the most part they're either break Break Even or keeper cards so for example the Chase United QUEST card is a keeper card given the miles and the credit but it also is a hassle for us though given our SFO to LAX flights it kind of works out so by itself let's say it's a break even the cherry on top is going to be free checked bags so for example if we're going to Denver or Vancouver to go skiing since we don't currently have United status we would have to pay for checked bags and that can get pretty expensive you're pretty much looking at 100 per person per trip so if you do two or three trips it does start to add up even if you don't like United out of SFO it is a bit tough because we are in a hub and for some airports that you're trying to go to it might force you to do one or even two connections we also do have Delta cards but that was more so to spend our weight of status and we might change this whole strategy for next year for right now though given the credit update they're pretty much keeper cards ironically if they did not add those credits I probably would have canceled already I might still change one out for another bonoy brilliant or another Hilton Aspire card but we'll see okay so that sounds like a pretty intense setup what should a normal person do I'm going to start off by saying that I genuinely like this rabbit hole and I've pretty much been in it before even starting YouTube I think I started off the Channel with 20 cards and it's grown since for normal people though if you want to take away the complexity I would probably go with one of two setups so American Express makes a ton of sense just get the platinum card for lounge access and then the gold card as your Workhorse the one that's earning the points you can add a third card and pick your poison for a catchall card alternatively number two is the Capital One setup so you get the Venture X as a travel card and lounge access card and also catch all card and then the SA or saver one for a lot of other categories like supermarkets and also eating out regardless of the setup I probably would still add some Hotel keeper cards depending on your tolerance at a minimum the Hilton Aspire and probably the bonvoy brilliant again very happy to pay X to get X Plus y value especially if you or your player 2 likes a certain type of travel Hotel keeper cards are pretty much the only thing that scales in the late game if you do have tolerance to get more cards then I would go for intro bonuses if you're over 524 then pretty much anything that has an elevated intra bonus and ideally a downgrade path in year two just because you have a lot of cards doesn't mean that you have to use every single one all the time some of them are just there to help your credit history if you're under 524 then I would probably go for ink cards given the pretty good value again if you want to learn about any of these cards we have links on the website ask and also Down Below in the description box if you made it to this point leave a red book emoji in the comments down below for red book and I'll try to hard it and also respond my question for you is what's your setup for 2024 so what do you mostly run and do you have Hotel cards Airline cards how do you think about all that let me know and everyone else know in the comments down below big favorite thumbs up consider subscribing but otherwise hope you liked it see you next time

Channel: AskSebby

Views: 87,596

Keywords: ask sebby, asksebby, chase sapphire reserve, amex platinum, amex gold card, best credit cards 2024, credit card points, best credit cards for beginners, best travel credit cards, best credit card setup, american express benefits, credit cards 101, best credit card dining, capital one venture x, best travel credit card, chase sapphire preferred vs amex gold, credit card strategy

Id: j-KOirSlSv8

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024