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The Simple Credit Card Strategy
Your baseline wallet
Wuhoo Group
June 12, 2024
When not working on juicy sign-up bonuses from opening new credit cards (like where I’m at now) it’s good to have several cards in hand (or at least one) that will optimize your spending.
There are tons of articles online about the “best credit card for X…” so I won’t go into specific category recommendations. (If you do want my opinion… book a free consult with me to analyze your spending.) Instead, this newsletter will go over the generalities of the “must-haves” in your wallet.
1. The Catch-All
At the very least, you don’t want to be earning 1% on all your purchases when you can easily double that amount using a plethora of other credit cards. Having one credit card is as simple as it gets to not worrying about what credit card to use for what category.
Some suggestions of mine: Citi’s Double Cash, Fidelity’s credit card, Capital One Venture X or Venture (if you like traveling). Let me know if you want referral links, gatekeeping cause I want to ensure its the best choice for you.
2. The Pairing
I believe the average US adult spend most of their money outside of housing on food, whether it be through groceries or dining. There are even more credit cards that help you earn bonuses on those food categories, so pairing your catch-all card with one of them can help boost your earning potential. An alternative is if you’re itching to travel, then getting a premium travel credit card with good travel insurance and lounge perks can go along with your experiences.
Personally, as you have noticed in my wallet, I keep using the American Express Gold card for 4x on my dining and groceries. Again, this may not make sense to you if you can’t utilize the dining credits.
3. The Trifecta
You may have heard about the Chase Trifecta, a combination of the Chase Sapphire Reserve/Preferred, Freedom Flex, and Freedom Unlimited. Having these three cards optimizes your spend for travel, rotating categories, and the catch-all, respectively. However, other banks also have their versions of the Trifecta. Wells Fargo actually just came out with several products, creating their own Trifecta of the Autograph Journey, Attune, and Active Cash with a similar set up. Having a trifecta with one bank allows you to pool points and optimize your spend.
You don’t have to stay in the bank though, some groups of card might come from multiple banks to optimize your spend. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture X, and American Express Gold is a combo I commonly use to earn points while still optimizing my spend and getting travel perks.
United Explorer - Intro | Like its counterparts, the $0 annual fee for the first year helps dip your toe into some of the United perks. Likely not worth keeping though
United Gateway - Keeper | All United cards have this, where cardholders get special access to lower, saver award point redemptions. So even though this card is bare bones, this one feature makes it a keeper.
Disney Premier Visa and Disney Visa - Useless | Not worthwhile to get to save at Disney, when there are better options.
Chase Freedom - Keeper | 5% on rotating categories for a no annual fee Chase card is a no-brainer
Chase Freedom Flex - Keeper | An upgraded version of the original Freedom, so it’s definitely also a keeper.
The current tier list image
Our lineup for this week is below. See our rationale here just for newsletter subscribers like you.
Matthew: World of Hyatt | American Express Gold
Sarah: American Express Gold | Capital One Venture X
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About WuhooPoints
WuhooPoints focuses on the credit card consultation side of Wuhoo Group. Here we help with both the accrual of points and perks and the use of points for free travel.
About Wuhoo Group
Wuhoo Group was founded in 2022 to accent people’s lives with bespoke events and free luxury travel. We are based out of Northern Virginia and are always down to help brainstorm and develop fun ideas into plans.