My Credit Card Strategy for 2025

So I'll be using this card for groceries, and I have credits that just reset on this card. And then I have this one. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. And on this channel, I talk about US credit cards and how to earn cash back or points and miles so that you can travel for free. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. And in this video, we will be looking at my credit card strategy for 2025 to earn the maximum rewards. And this video is brought to you So I am a Chase and Amex guy. I do have one other card from Barclays, which I'll talk about later. And I used to have Capital One cards, but I've closed them all now. So every other card I have, apart from that Barclays one, is either a Chase or an Amex card. We're going to go through some of the common spending categories, and I'm going to show you which cards I'm going to use for which. And then we're going to talk about how I'm maximizing credits on my Amex cards as well. So for grocery, which is a big category for me because I have a family of four and we all need to eat, I will be switching all of my grocery spending in quarter one of 2025 to the Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Flex cards, which have grocery stores as one of their 5x quarterly categories for the first quarter of 2025. Now, how this works is you get 5% cash back, which is also redeemable for 5x points per dollar back at grocery stores, excluding Target and Walmart. Those ones code as super centers, although some Walmart neighborhood markets will code as grocery. And that is on up to $1,500 in spending for the quarter per card. But I actually have two of these cards. OK, that's right. Chase doesn't limit the number of freedom cards you can have. OK, there are limitations on the bonus, like you can't get the bonus on a freedom if you already have another freedom open or if you closed it, but you've got a bonus on it within the last 24 months. But with the number of cards that you can have, there seems to be no set limit. OK, so since I have two, I have $3,000 in grocery spending that I can earn five points per dollar on. I might not be able to max that out, but if I don't, there's actually another bonus category just for March. OK, and this is to celebrate the Chase Freedom's 15th year anniversary of the 5% categories, if that makes sense. OK, not the anniversary of the card, but the categories, apparently. I don't know. It's a little before my time. It seems it didn't used to have those categories. Anyway, this extra category that we're going to have only in March for 5% is insurance and tax preparation. So my taxes cost a little over $1,000. All right. That's what I pay the CPA to prepare them for my business and personal. And I also have an insurance premium of about $400 for an umbrella insurance policy. If you don't know what that is, that's like an insurance policy that covers on top like an umbrella over all your other insurance policies like car, home, rental properties. So just in case anything happens in any of them that that insurance doesn't pay for, it gives you an extra $1,000,000 in coverage. OK, my premium of that is $400. That comes to you at the beginning of April. Maybe I can prepare it in March. So that's another way between those two things. They can probably help me max it out. And that will generate $150 in cash back or 15000 Chase points. If I transfer those points to the Chase Inc. Preferred, which I also have, they take on 1.25 cents in value on the travel portal. So that's a value of $187.50. Or if I transfer them out to airlines, it could be worth even more. Chase has a load of good transfer partners like British Airways. We just went to the UK for Christmas in their club suite business class. It costs about 50000 British Airways miles each way. I have a video on that if you want to check it out. It looks like this and I'll put it on the end card of this video. All right. Let's now talk about the dining category. And this is another really big spending category for me. We eat out probably at least once a week. So it's going to be several hundred, maybe occasionally even up to a thousand dollars a month. I try to limit it to under 500. And for this category, unless there's any other like rotating quarterly category with dining on any other card I have, I'm normally always going to use the Amex Gold. OK, in this case, this is the new white gold. I don't know if you like the look of that, but whatever. It's kind of cool. But yeah, it's 4x on dining at restaurants worldwide. OK, so not just in the US. And it's also four points per dollar at supermarkets in the US. I normally use this card for that, too. But since we have the category on the Chase Freedom cards, I'm going to use those instead because those are five points per dollar, whereas the Amex Gold is just four. But if a restaurant doesn't accept Amex, my backup would be one of these two freedom cards that I just showed you because they actually offer three points per dollar on dining. And that's all the time. OK, in addition to the five points per dollar rotating quarterly categories. And if a restaurant is overseas, since these have overseas foreign transaction fees, I have another card that I would use if the restaurant is overseas and doesn't take Amex. I'll talk about that a little bit later in the video. But going back to the Amex Gold and restaurants, there's also a 50 dollar Rezzy credit every six months. Now, Rezzy is a website that Amex bought. That's basically a booking system for really nice restaurants. OK, it's curated. There's only really good restaurants on there. And that just reset since we're at the beginning of the year. OK, it's fifty dollars per half year. So January to June, end of June and then July until the end of the year. I actually used it last night at Dinosaur Barbecue in Troy, New York, on the way back from a ski trip in Vermont. The check was one hundred dollars or so. And with the credit, I got a half price. Obviously, I'm kind of paying for it in the end of the card. But you know what I mean? Just make sure that the restaurant you are going to is in the Rezzy program, which Dinosaur Barbecue is. Otherwise, you won't get the credit. The reservation, though, doesn't have to be made through Rezzy. I actually booked the table by calling the restaurant directly. But when I gave them my cell phone number, they put that into their system. And I guess they're using the Rezzy system now for their reservations. I suddenly got an email from Rezzy confirming my booking. So I've used my Rezzy credit now for the first six months of the year. And we'll talk more about other credits on this and other cards later in the video. But now what about gas, which is another big expense? But first, I run a small business and a service that I really find useful is Melio. It is a business to business payment platform offering multiple ways to pay vendors and get paid, such as same day ACH and the ability to pay international vendors in U.S. dollars or foreign currencies. One thing I really like is Melio provides the ability to use a credit card to pay vendors that wouldn't normally accept cards for a small 2.9 percent fee. Why is this useful? Well, let's say I was trying to get the 75,000 points welcome bonus on the British Airways Visa card to get a free business class flight. Well, that requires five thousand dollars in spend. Maybe I don't have that much. So I pay a vendor who doesn't normally accept cards through Melio and they either send a check or make a bank transfer on my behalf. Then I get 75,000 British Airways miles, which can also be used on American Airlines too. That's at least one thousand five hundred dollars in value for those points for a 2.9 percent which comes out at one hundred and forty five dollars on that five thousand dollar purchase. Another useful feature is dealing with cash flow issues. If I owe money to a vendor who doesn't accept cards but I haven't been paid yet, I can first pay with a credit card through Melio and then I have potentially up to 45 days or so, depending on where I am with my billing cycle, to pay off my card with no interest. You can also get paid faster through Melio by sending customizable payment links with flexible payment options and your vendors don't have to sign up to Melio to pay you or be paid. Melio is easy to set up, has both desktop and mobile app versions and is designed with a high level of security. Start using Melio's powerful tools to boost efficiency, gain more financial control and peace of mind when it comes to your finances. Go to gomelio.com slash ben 2025 or click the link below. Okay, so guess I will be using the Wyndham Rewards earner business card from Barclays or at least trying to use it because I've recently discovered that trying to use it through the Walmart Plus app, and I like to use that because I get 10 cents off per gallon at mobile, but it doesn't work with that card for some reason. Okay, I don't know why I'm going to have to call them and figure it out. So this is the card I use at gas stations where I physically pay at the pump with the card. Okay, so not mobile or Exxon, places I can't use the Walmart Plus app. And at mobile, I'll be using whatever card I have in my Walmart Plus app. I don't think I have any other cards that give a bonus on gas. That Wyndham one, by the way, it's eight points per dollar, a gas station. So that's why I really try to use it any chance I get. All right. Now, I also have a card for foreign transactions. And that is this British Airways visa signature card from Chase. Now, this may not be the best card to choose due to the way it earns points. Okay, there's no bonus on anything that's really useful. It's a bonus on British Airways, I think three points per dollar, and then two points per dollar on hotels, one point per dollar and everything else. But I realized when I went to the UK for Christmas, that a lot of places in Europe don't take American Express. And in order to avoid awkwardness, if I see the visa and MasterCard logo, but no Amex logo at a store, I can just kind of take it that they don't take Amex. Okay, they pretty much 99% sure they don't take it. So I won't even ask, I'll just whip out this personal visa card. And the reason I do that is because this is actually the only personal visa card that I have right now that doesn't have foreign transaction fees. Okay, all my other ones do. Alright, so the visa and MasterCard Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Flex, they have foreign transaction fees. I have some other business cards that don't have them, but those are business cards. Okay, and then all my other personal cards are Amex. So it's hard to find that this is actually the only one I have that is a visa and doesn't have foreign transaction fees and is a personal card. But since this year, I might be going overseas a little bit more, I'm going to be keeping this card in my wallet. Alright, now let's give a few quickfire ones. And then we'll get into talking about the credits that I'm using for various things. So I have the Amex Platinum Charles Schwab version. This one is for flights booked directly with airlines. It's five points per dollar back on flights. And actually, I did that at Christmas, my booking cost $9,000 for business class for the night flight on the way out and economy on the way back for four people. Okay, that's actually pretty decent value. I wasn't able to use points this time because I booked to last minute, okay, there was no award availability. And actually, my points balances were kind of depleted anyway. But I did earn 45,000 Amex points on that booking, which when cashed out at 1.1 cents per point through the Charles Schwab Amex Platinum, that's $495, almost $500. And that I use to pay off the card and thus get $500 off my airfare. You might think that that is bad value compared to using them as points and booking business class directly with airlines. But you know, I have a lot of points coming in from other sources. For example, I have 300,000 Amex points in my Rakuten account right now, those pending points should be confirmed by February when I get the next payout. So it's more useful for me to just get a discount on that flight right now and wait for other points to come in in the future. Also, if you haven't heard of Rakuten, it's an online shopping portal, where they market some of your favorite stores to you. And just by clicking through from their site first, then you do online shopping through those major retailers, you can earn extra cashback or Amex points on top of what you would earn on your credit card that you make payments with. So like at Walmart, it's an extra 4% right now, Saks is an extra 2%, Booking.com is an extra 8%. Right now, if you sign up with my link for Rakuten, you can get an extra $30 cashback in your account after you make your first purchase. And the cool thing is all of the cashback that you earn can be redeemed as Amex points at one cent in cashback equals one Amex point. So that can give you even more value. And I'll put a link to that below. Moving back to the quickfire round of credit cards and okay, that Amex Platinum wasn't quickfire at all. But the next one will be I promise you we have the Amex Green, which I'm actually an authorized user on this. This is a card from my wife's account. And this is what I use for any transit that I do, which means ground transportation like trains, Ubers, taxis, subways, etc. So if I go down to New York City, for example, and get in a taxi or on the subway, I will be using this particular card. Then I have a few hotel cards. So for Marriott hotels, I'll be using my Marriott card, which is the modern art version of the card looks like this. I don't have it in my wallet at the moment. I'm grandfathered into it. You can't actually get that card anymore. And for Hilton, I will be using the Hilton honors surpass card, which looks like this. And in 2024, I did actually get the Hilton free night on that card. Okay, you have to spend $15,000 to get it. I thought I wasn't quite going to have the spending for it. But at the end of the year, I bought a new boiler, I spent like $2,000 on a new boiler for the heating in the house. So I actually ended up spending that $15,000. I've got the Hilton free night in my account. Now I will be using that in 2025. And maybe using the Hilton honors surpass card to pay taxes to try and get another Hilton free night for later in the year or next year or whatever. Then I do have a couple of other business cards from Chase and Amex that I will be using for business expenses. But this video is not focusing on business. Okay, we're talking about personal cards. So I'm not going to go into super detail about these cards. But if you want to know which ones I have, they are the Chase Inc preferred, which I've already mentioned, and also the Chase Inc unlimited, which is 1.5 points per dollar on everything. Then I also have the Amex blue business cash card, which I just got it actually for the welcome bonus. I don't know if I'll keep it that long. All right, now let's move on to talking about credits. Okay, on different cards, I've already mentioned the resi credit on the Amex gold, which I used last night, then we have a $7 per month dunking credit to use every month. And I've already used just over half of it for January. If you're wondering why the resi credit hasn't showed up yet is because I only used it last night, it takes a week or two to show up as a credit in your account. Then we have the Amex gold dining credit where they just switched out Shake Shack for five guys. So that's kind of a bummer. I do like Shake Shack, but there are five guys near where my office is. So I might be able to do five guys once a month for lunch to use that credit. Grubhub is also usable. The Amex gold then also has a $10 per month Uber credit, which I always use for Uber Eats. Just remember, as of a few months ago, your payment method has to be set as an Amex card for that Uber cash to count towards your bill. So using all those credits, effectively, I should be able to claw back more than the annual fee in value. Then I have two more coupon book style Amex cards with credits, and that would be the platinum, which has so many credits, it's unreal. And actually, in 2024, I missed out on using the airline credit and the fine hotels and resorts credit. That's $400 in value left on the table. So this year, I definitely will be looking at doing maybe a Vegas trip and using the hotel credit. Maybe I'll fly there on Delta and I'll use the airline credit for bag fees or the Delta Sky Club, guest passes or whatever. As for the other credits on the card, I usually use all of those, no problem. Then on my Hilton Honours Surpass card, it's $50 per quarter in Hilton credits, which can be used towards stays at Hilton. In the last quarter of 2024, I actually forgot about this and I let it expire. I was originally going to buy a Hilton gift card and save it for use in 2025, and you can buy them at buyhiltongiftcards.com, which sounds like a scam, but no, that is their actual website, okay? It's like a third party company that does their gift cards. Currently, they are experiencing a shortage of physical gift cards, probably because everyone with the Surpass card bought a gift card at the end of 2024 to use up their credit. But anyway, I'll be looking to use the Hilton Surpass credit every quarter, probably for a ski trip this first quarter. The Killington Mountain Lodge is part of Hilton's tapestry collection, so I might book that and I'm sure I'll do some weekends away in the summer and fall. If not, I'll get a Hilton gift card at buyhiltongiftcards.com once they're up and running again and combine that with cash to book something in the following quarter or sometime in the future. All right, guys, the moral of this story is keep track of your credits. Credits are a great way to offset or earn extra value above your annual fee in the new coupon book style reality that we live in now with Amex cards. I'm really going to push to use all my credits in 2025 and I'll have more videos on how I did that on the channel, so stay tuned for those. And I think that's a great point to end on. Don't forget, guys, to check out Melio and see how they're powerful tools can help your business by going to gomelio.com slash Ben 2025 or click the first link in the description section below. Please subscribe if you're new. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.