What’s In My Wallet Spring 2024 HUGE REWARDS

Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, a.k.a. the Credit Shifu, and I have spent the past five years or so earning cash back and collecting points on credit cards to use for free luxury travel. And I have redeemed points for over fifty thousand dollars worth of luxury travel, like this hotel that I'm staying in right now. The Moxie in Chelsea, New York City. It would have been two hundred and seventy three dollars a night if I paid cash. But redeeming Marriott points, it was completely free. So in this video, I want to share with you what credit cards I am using in spring twenty twenty four to earn rewards points for free travel based on what deals are available right now. So let's get back to the studio and do just that. Oh, and this video is brought to you by Fabric by Gerber Life. But more on that later. So this is what's in my wallet spring twenty twenty four. First card, the Amex Green. So Mrs. Credit Shifu downgraded her Amex Platinum to the Amex Green recently to avoid the six hundred and ninety five dollar annual fee. We aren't planning on any big trips right now, so it really doesn't make sense for both of us to have a high tier travel card like the Platinum. So she downgraded to the green, which is just a one hundred and fifty dollar annual fee. And if you're wondering, downgrades are a great way of lowering annual fees without closing an account so you can preserve the points balance in your account and the credit line on your credit report. Amex Green is the common downgrade path from the Amex Platinum. And I was an authorized user on my wife's Platinum. So I also received a green card in the mail. Now, I have found myself going into New York City a bit more often recently. So I've started carrying this card with me for the transit category, where it earns three points per dollar. Transit is things like taxis, Ubers and subways. And out of all the cards I have, the green earns the best points multiplier on transit. It's beaten on other things like travel, OK, which is typically airfare and hotels. I have other cards that earn way more or dining. I have cards that earn more. But on transit specifically, this is my go to card. And thus it is in my wallet. The points go to my wife's account, of course. But the reality is we use them together. And Amex does let you transfer points out to the frequent flyer or hotel programs of your authorized users anyway. So she could potentially still transfer them out to my account with any of Amex's airline or hotel transfer partners. All right. Let's look at the next one. The Chase Freedom Flex. Now, this is the card that I've been using for dining. And that is because the Chase Freedom cards, both the Flex and the old Freedom are offering five points per dollar back on dining this quarter. And if you didn't know, the Freedom cards have rotating quarterly categories where you can earn five points per dollar on up to one thousand five hundred dollars in spending for the quarter. The categories for this quarter are Amazon hotels and restaurants. But the Freedom Flex already earns three X on dining, which is made up of one X on base spend plus two bonus points. And now, since we have the five X category on dining, which is one X on base spend plus an extra four points to make five, it actually works out at seven points per dollar because you get the one X on base spend. You only get that once. And then two X on dining and four X for the quarterly category of dining. I actually converted my old Freedom to a Freedom Flex because of this, since the old Freedom doesn't have the three X dining category. And as you can see here, I've used about half of the dining allowance and I'm very easily going to max it out. You can see all my purchases at restaurants here. And look, I earned one thousand nine hundred dollars on one Chinese hot pot meal alone right there. So I'm thinking I will convert my other old Freedom card to a Freedom Flex, too, and see if I can max out that one as well. So I get three thousand dollars at seven percent in total. And perhaps this is Chase's plan to get people to convert their old freedoms to a Freedom Flex, give them a really enticing offer. All right, let's move on to a few more cards that I'm using for spending categories, and then we will look at the card with a welcome bonus that I am currently working on. But first, I want to speak to all the parents in the audience. As parents, we all want our kids to grow up to be happy, successful and financially independent. Well, with a kid's investment account from Fabric by Gerber Life, the sponsor of today's video, you are arming your child with a powerful financial tool to help shape their journey towards financial success. Fabric was designed by parents for parents to make it easy to plan and manage your family's financial path with a kid's investment account from Fabric, you can start investing in your child's future today. You see, kids can't invest on their own, but you can do it on their behalf. The process is all online, takes five minutes to set up, and you can start with as little as one dollar per day. Fabric will ask you a set of questions like how long until your kids need the money, your risk tolerance, et cetera, and will then suggest a portfolio for you or you can choose the portfolio you want. Contributions are exempt from any gift tax as long as you keep under the annual limit of $18,000 and $36,000 for joint filers, although you can go over that if you want. The account also offers other tax advantages. What is more, you can share your child's unique gifting link with family and friends so they can help grow your child's investments with gifts on birthdays or other special occasions. Accounts are SIPC insured up to $500,000. There's no trading commission and just a low flat monthly maintenance fee. My kids both have these types of accounts steadily accumulating wealth for their future, and yours can, too. Start investing in your child today at Meatfabric.com slash Ben or click the link below. So let's give you a few quick fire cards that I'm using in different categories. And I do this because these are the same cards that I often use in those categories so that we don't kind of repeat ourselves. First up, we have the Amex Gold for 4x on groceries. I would normally use this for dining, too, but we currently have that 7x on the Freedom Flex and 5x on the old Freedom. Then we have the Wyndham Business Rewards earn a card for gas and utilities. And actually, in our last video, someone gave me a heads up about utilities. I was in the past just using this card for gas. Since this is a business card, it's generally just for business expenses, though. So the utilities are the utilities at my Airbnb cabin. Then we have the Charles Schwab Amex Platinum, and this is what I would call my flex card. I when you want to impress someone, hand them this. But it's also a useful card if you want to cash out Amex points as cash back, because I can get one point one cents in value per point from this card. It also gets me access to the fine hotels and resorts collection, which is one of my favorite perks of the card. I will probably use that this summer in Washington, D.C. And also, if you want to get into an airport lounge, whether that's Centurion Lounge or Priority Pass or whatever, I'll need this card as well, because none of the other cards that I currently have give airport lounge access. Then for spending this past weekend at that hotel that I showed you right at the beginning of the video, I use the Freedom Flex since it is currently offering 5x on hotels. Don't forget that we focused on restaurants, but hotels are part of this quarter's category, too. What is more, if you book a hotel through Chase Travel, it would actually be nine points per dollar, OK? Since you normally get five points per dollar on Chase Travel anyway with the Freedom Flex and the way it works out, they only do the 1x on base spend once. So it works out at 9x. All right. Now I'm going to talk about the welcome bonus I'm currently working on, and that is on the Amex Blue Business Cash. Now, this is the card, and it's actually pretty rare for me to get a cashback card. But I got a targeted mail offer for a $500 bonus. I forgot to bring the letter to the studio today to show you. So here are the details of it off Doctor of Credit. It's $250 for $5,000 in spending in six months Now, you may think that this isn't that great of a deal considering the high spending requirement. It's not actually that much of a bonus per dollar spent. And you would be right. Not a personal card, especially if it was earlier in the game. I wouldn't even touch this. But when I can get this card, put a load of business spending on it and have it not show up on my personal credit report, not count towards my 524 status with Chase, et cetera. It's quite an attractive offer for me, at least. Since this is spending, I wouldn't be putting on personal cards anyway. I'm just putting all my business spending right now on this card. I do admit I'm normally more of a points guy, not the points guy, but a points guy. You get what I mean. But at the moment, I'm really concentrating on my businesses. So I'm traveling less by air. All right. I did mention I'm going down to New York City a bit more, but I'm not doing much air travel, et cetera. So I don't really need points and miles at the moment. So instead, having my business put a load of spending on this card is a good strategy to get an easy cash bonus. While I think about my next moves, the new city strata premiere and the Chase Sapphire Preferred are both looking pretty attractive with 75,000 point bonuses. But guys, that is what is in my wallet for quarter two of 2024. In quarter three, it'll probably all change since we'll have new bonus categories on those rotating category cards. And maybe I'll have completed the welcome bonus on the blue business cash. So I'll give you an update at that time. But for now, leave me a comment. Tell me what you think of these cards and tell me also what cards you're using this quarter to maximize your points, miles or cash back. I'd love to hear about your setup. Thank you so much for watching, guys. Don't forget to set your child up for financial success for their future with a kid's investment account from Fabric. Go to meetfabric.com slash Ben or click the link below. Please subscribe to the channel if you knew. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.