What's in MY WALLET？HUGE Rewards (Summer 2026)

In this video, I want to talk about what credit cards are in my wallet for quarter three of 2026. In other words, July to September, or basically the summer. All these cards are in there for a reason. Take advantage of points earning categories or promotions that are going on this quarter. For example, I'm able to get $150 worth of restaurant credits, hundreds in hotel credits, and I have one five points per dollar category that I'm really taking advantage of this quarter. And in this video, I'm gonna take you through all of it. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, AKA The Credit Shifu, and on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe, but let's get into it. Oh, and this video is brought to you by Max Rewards, but more on that later. So the first card that I want to talk about that I'm keeping in my wallet this quarter is the Chase Freedom times two. So I have one Freedom and one Freedom Flex in my wallet. And if you don't know, the Freedom is the old version that basically just has the five points per dollar categories and then one point per dollar and everything else. And then the Flex has the five X categories and a few other categories like three X on dining and three X on drugstores, et cetera. The big reason I'm carrying both of these cards with me right now is because of the five points per dollar categories for quarter three, which include gas. You can see here on this transaction at Sam's Club Gas, I got 435 points for spending $87 on gas, and that's great since Sam's Club is a better price than normal anyway, and it's the same price cash or card. I spend about $300 a month on actual gas, but I also buy other things from gas stations like milk and ice cream from Stewart's Shops. If you don't know what that is, it's a Hudson Valley, New York thing, okay? If you live just north of New York City in the Hudson Valley, they are everywhere. They have the best milk and their own brand of ice cream. So I'm aiming to max out the two freedom cards with gas station spend. My wife also has an authorized user card on the Freedom Flex account, so some of her spend should help me out too. And to max them out, I have to spend $1,500 on each card, and then it would go down to one point per dollar on gas after that. All right, let's move on to the next card, and that would be the Amex Platinum. So this is a card that people have for the benefits. The only reason really to keep it in your wallet is if you're gonna be traveling and you want to use the card to get into the Centurion Lounge. Now, I will not be traveling anywhere by air this summer, but there are other reasons to keep it on me. Since it is the beginning of the quarter, the quarterly Resi credit has just reset. So actually on Saturday night, I went out to a Resi restaurant and I spent $118 on a meal for me and my family paying with this card. I really tried to get it as close to $100 as possible, but with the tip, it ended up at 118, but that's still really good. A meal for four people for $18 since I'm being refunded $100 from the Resi credit. I did actually have the Amex Gold with me as well, and if the meal was more like $150, I was gonna ask them to put $100 on the Platinum and the rest on the Gold since the Gold also has a $50 Resi credit that resets every six months, and it's just reset because we're in the second half of the year now, but it was so close to $100 that I decided to save the Gold to use another time. Now, in addition to using the Platinum for the Resi credit, I've actually booked a trip to Washington DC later this month using the Amex Platinum's $600 fine hotels and resorts collection. Even though it's split into $300 every six months, through my signature strategy, I was actually able to use the full $600 on one trip. I'll probably make a video explaining how I do that and all the value I got from the other benefits you get through FHR after the trip. So expect that video coming out around the end of the month. But yeah, that's another reason to keep the card in my wallet, just in case they need to see it when I stay at the hotel. And in case you're wondering, the hotel I will be staying at is the Conrad DC. I've stayed there before. It's great value for a five-star hotel in DC at only about $500 per night. And you can see here on my account, I have been refunded $300 twice for the two nights that I'm staying there. Now, I probably don't need to have the platinum card with me since I've already paid, and that's what gets me the FHR credit, okay? It has to be prepaid hotels and then all the extra benefits as well that you get on top of that. But I will bring it with me just in case they wanna swipe the card that I actually booked with. I don't think they will, but just in case. But since Conrad is a Hilton brand, I will earn more points if I use this next card for incidental charges. But first, if you want to pool data from all your credit cards in one place for very easy credit card management and have all your Amex and other bank offers automatically activated for you, you have to check out Max Rewards. It's the ultimate credit card management app where you can see all your transactions, your balances, your points and rewards balances in one place, even if your cards come from multiple different banks. In addition, they've just revamped the offers tab. So not only does the premium version, Max Rewards Gold, activate all your Amex offers, Chase offers, Citi offers and Capital Ones for you automatically, but you can also search offers across Amex, Chase and other issuers to find the best deals. Within the offers tab, there are now new features like the For You tab, where you can go in and look at offers Max Rewards thinks you would be into. And within that, my favorite feature is the Shopped Before filter, where you can see offers that are available at stores that you have shopped at before. Max Rewards knows where you've shopped since it's able to pull transaction data from all your cards. Like check this one out. It knows that I often get gas at Sunoco and there is currently a 2% cash back offer on the Chase Freedom, which this month, like we've already seen, is getting 5% on gas anyway. So that's gonna be 7% or 7X chase points per dollar. So if you are interested, get a free trial and then a three month discount if you continue after the trial ends with my link down below. If you download it directly from the app store, or use code BEN for the same deal. All right, so next credit card in my wallet is the Hilton Surpass Amex. Now, the reason this card is in my wallet now is that it earns 12 points per dollar on spend directly with Hilton. Here's the small print regarding that. You will receive nine additional Hilton Honors bonus points for a total of 12 for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with a property within the Hilton portfolio, including bookings and incidental charges. So it is for both bookings and incidental charges. So when I go to the Conrad DC later this month, I will use this card for all my incidental charges like parking, breakfast, which will probably be a little more than the free breakfast credit they give you since I have four people, not two, and whatever else I end up paying for. Other than that, it's a pretty cool card that gives you six Hilton points per dollar on dining and grocery and four points per dollar on US online retail. Sounds a lot, but remember Hilton points are only worth like half a cent each. But anyway, you can build up a large stash of Hilton points quite quickly with this card. I currently have 56,000 Hilton points, so I would like to build that up some more. I like to always be sitting on at least 100,000 Hilton points since that gets me one night at a really nice hotel or two more nights at something more standard. And if I have a Hilton free night in my account as well, which I normally do, because I normally spend enough on this card to get the free night, then I can combine that with the 100,000 points to get two nights at a really nice hotel. If you've been thinking of getting this card, it gives you free Hilton gold status. And there is also currently a limited time welcome bonus of 130,000 points for spending $3,000 in your first six months. And that bonus runs until July 29th. All right, let's look at the next card that I have in my wallet. The Amex Gold. Well, this one guys is one that you all know I really swear by and I always keep it in my wallet for the excellent four points per dollar back on dining and groceries. In addition, I still have $50 of the Resi credit to spend. So I will probably use that when I'm on my trip to DC and hopefully get around a half price meal for me and my family. And there's loads of Resi restaurants in DC to choose from. No matter what, I always find myself using this card. It is my workhorse card since grocery and dining are two of my biggest spending categories. In addition to the gold, I carry two more credit cards around with me right now. The Inc Unlimited. This is my workhorse card for my business. I love keeping it simple with just 1.5 points per dollar on everything. Most of my business spend is in weird categories that cards don't often have bonuses in. For example, swimming pool supply stores and utilities are probably my two biggest categories. So this card is perfect for day-to-day business spending. And I just don't worry about bonus categories. It's just non-category, 1.5% on everything. The Amex Green. This Amex Green card is an authorized user card on my wife's account. And the point of keeping this with me is just to get three points per dollar on transit, things like subways, taxis, et cetera. Now I wanna share with you cards that have left my wallet this quarter. And that would be the Gemini credit card, which I still love by the way. And if you wanna check it out for yourself, I'll put a link to it down below. But the reason I'm not using it is because I primarily used it for gas at 4% back in Bitcoin. Since I'm using the Chase Freedom cards this quarter for 5% back, I don't intend to use the Gemini card for the whole quarter. And the same goes for the Wyndham business earner card. It earns eight Wyndham points back per dollar on gas. And yes, they did lower that in an update, but it seems I'm grandfathered in at least for now. But the same story with that one. I will be taking it out of my wallet for the quarter and focusing all gas and gas station spend on the two Chase Freedom cards. Chase points are also way more useful than Wyndham points. All right, guys. Lastly, I wanna give you just a recap, a little rundown of all the points earning rates on each of the major categories that I will get with this setup. So here are the points rates in the categories that I will be using this quarter. So for gas, we have five chase points per dollar and up to $3,000 in spend since we have two Chase Freedom cards. For dining, we're at four Amex points per dollar with the Amex gold, and we still have a $50 Resi credit to use on the gold. For grocery, we are at four Amex points per dollar also with the Amex gold. Then for drug stores, we are at 3X with the Chase Freedom Flex. The Hilton spending, which I will be doing next week in DC, we are at 12 Hilton points per dollar. And then for transit, we are at three Amex points per dollar with the Amex green. And that covers all my major categories for in-person spending. Obviously, there are a few more, and I do also have some other cards that have just entered into certain websites as payment methods. For example, the Amazon Prime Visa signature card which earns 5% back at Amazon. I have a few others too, but you get the idea. All right, guys, that is the video for today. What do you think of this setup? Leave your comments down below. Also, let me know if there's anything I've missed. And if you want a free trial of Max Rewards gold and then a 25% discount after the trial ends, do click my link below. I thoroughly recommend it. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.