Best Credit Cards: 6 Cards I Actually Spend On Right Now

Thats a lot of spending!

Now what’s Ford’s strategy and how well does he stick to it? 🙂

Luxury Card Gold for personal spending
Amex Plum Card for business spending
Founders Card for benefits.

You're spending so much on annual fees!

$650+$99+$595+$99+$495+$395+$325+$795+$895+$95=$4443

I keep it much simpler:
Amex Hilton Aspire $550 (net zero after the Hilton free night, resort credit, and airfare credit)
Capital One Venture X $395 (2x daily earn and net zero after $300 travel credit + annual 10k points)
Chase Sapphire Reserve $795 (4x air/hotel, 3x restaurant). AC MLL and Priority Pass guest

I'm curious, who do you bank with?! Checking, savings, investments, etc.,

Why is your monthly spend on average?

Thanks for the post! Would love to see another update on all the cards in your wallet (think the last was from 2024).

Also, assume you didn’t get rid of the Citi Prestige, but is there a reason that’s no longer your go-to for dining? (Maybe because you’d transfer those points to AA and you’re already earning enough on the AAdvantage biz card.)

I’d also be interested in a separate post on how you and Ford coordinate on which cards you hold and spend on, especially since you both work in the travel space.

I see what you're doing here.

Trying to sneak in ads for the almost useless founders cards.

Citi Prestige for dining and airfare
Amex Gold for groceries
Chase Ink Plus for office supply stores to buy Visa GC’s for spend at Costco and non-bonused spend
BILT Palladium for non-bonused spend if I can’t use VGC’s
Us Bank Smartly for 4% cash back

Why not?

No AA Executive card for AA purchases?

Curious on the Atmos spend for international travel. What does usually go on there if hotels, dining expenses go on the other cards you mentioned that get you better returns in those specific categories?

BofA for everyday spending (3% cash back; simple). AmEx P and CSR for travel, lounge access. United Club for United, will probably drop or downgrade this year.

To a bear of very little brain …. the rational behind this obsession is unfathomable, sorry Ben, I just don’t get it. Is the hassle really worth the time you must spend on financial administration?

CSP for hotel and restaurants
Amex Blue Cash Preferred for groceries and streaming
Amex Plat for airfare, lounge
Costco for gas
BofA for online shopping (3% cashback)
CFU for everyday spend
Comenity for sales tax free electronics and photography equipment
Delta Amex Platinum for companion certificate
Hyatt, Marriott for free night certificate

US Bank Altitude Reserve for 3x mobile pay
Hyatt for 4x Hyatt spend
Alaska Atmos Summit for 3x foreign spend and Alaska Air tickets
Chase unlimited for 1.5x everything else

Plus any new card minimum spending requirement. I mostly fly Alaska (except for international award tickets) and stay at Hyatt.

Surprised you spend $15k on the Hyatt card to get a category 4 free night and don’t spend $15k on the Hilton surpass card for a free night at any Hilton/waldorf/slh etc. The latter is worth several times more than Hyatt cat 4 free night

I also am curious if Lucky kept his prestige. Each year I keep debating if it’s worth keeping, 5x dining and $250 easy travel credit make me renew though.

can you share how can one get 3% everyday spending? the current Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors (or Diamond) would get 2.625%, which is about to get nerfed in May 2026 to 2.25%…

Really? You spend $4100 on annual fees that every year on cards that have overlapping benefits and Bilt is your “everyday” card!?!? Feels more like this is Just an add for all the cards.

But Amex is not paying him as much to pump the Hilton card as Chase is to pump the Hyatt card

Prestige is my "go to" on airfare and dining at 5X on both. Once it goes away, I will shift to airfare to my AMEX Platinum, but, for me, Citi TY are more valuable than AMEX MR. I should add that it's NOT because of AA transfers; it's for EVA. I travel primarily to Asia, and have found AA miles fairly useless the past year or so. EVA has great availability for its own program members, so that's where I earmark most of my Citi TY to go (and my Cap One, although the .75:1 transfer ratio is much worse).
110% with him on the $15k Hyatt spend, but I also shoot for $15k on my Hilton Surpass to add another uncapped FNC there.

Benefits exceed annual fees, it's really very simple.

@ Eric -- I know the amount spent in annual fees is high, but the cards largely offer perks that more than offset that. For example, with the Amex Platinum, I do get value from the $600 in hotel credits, $200 in airline fee credits, $200 in Uber credits, etc.

So yeah, while it can be a bit annoying to keep track of the perks, I don't keep a card if I'm not getting more value for it than I'm paying. In a way, card annual fees are almost like pre-paying for certain perks.

@ Nick -- I agree that spending $15K on the Hilton Surpass would be more worthwhile. The reason I don't do that is because I'm maxed out on Amex cards, as you can only have five credit cards from the issuer. So I'd need to cancel another card in order to be able to have that, and I do get good value from the Hilton Aspire Card.

@ bo -- For what it's worth, that's just factually not correct. But sorry if that gets in the way of your narrative.

@ AeroB13a -- Perhaps not in terms of the time invested, but it is also a hobby!

@ Kbulo -- It's an excellent question, because you're right, dining and hotels covers many expenses abroad. The short answer is that I also put some dining and hotel expenses on the card, to the extent that it allows me to reach the spending threshold to earn the 100,000-point Global Companion Award.

Also, for what it's worth, I have a friend who is an authorized user on my card (long story) who spends most of his time abroad. Previously I had him as an authorized user on my Venture X, and now I have him as an authorized user on my Atmos Summit.

@ Christian -- Nope, I still use the Amex Platinum Card for American flight purchases.

@ Mike O. -- I primarily use Chase, but also have a Citi account. For example, I have my IRA with Citi, so that I earn Citigold, which gets some extra perks (even if the interface and service aren't always that great).

@ Alec -- Hah, Ford's strategy is that he closely follows my instructions on which cards to use. Because he knows that what irritates me more than most things is when the right card isn't used!

@ Edward -- I agree it's a lot in annual fees, but I do make the math work, or else I don't hold onto the cards. Yes, it can take a bit of work to use all the perks, but in the end I get outsized value.

@ Aaron -- Thanks! Will work on an updated post on the cards in my wallet. To be honest, I'm transitioning away from the Citi Prestige to the Amex Gold. It has served me well, but I think it's of limited value to me at this point:
-- I also have the Citi Strata Elite, which offers 6x points on dining on Citi Nights, and frankly Fridays and Saturdays is when we dine out the most anyway
-- Previously I didn't have a great card for groceries, so I find that the Amex Gold combination of 4x points on dining and groceries would net me more in the end than just 5x points on dining
-- The Citi Prestige Card isn't that costly to hold onto, but I still struggle to justify it when dining is the only category in which I'm spending on the card

I use MSR card #1, and sometimes MSR card #2.

Found the retard

What about a BofA account for the extra 10% on your Atmos Summit? I opened a savings account with them just for that 10% bump.

One accepts that we all have different priorities and preferences, however, does your methodology not restrict your choices? One must feel compelled to make various choices simply to capitalise on your “Perks” …. Yes?

Great, I have Chase too! Do you Sapphire Checking, Private Client, or just the lowest tier which is Total Checking?

Thank you for your response Ben. Your hobby (money matters) is a subject which never interested me at your age. Even now as I could never spend what I have, therefore, I allow the subject to pass me by with little thought. I did try to become informed by reading your cards and points articles, but failed miserably to gain your enthusiasm for the subject.

Anyway, thanks again for indulging me …. 🙂

According to some sources, a typical U.S. consumer carries about $6,500 – $6,600 in outstanding credit card balances.
The average household balance is between $9,000 – $11,000.
For comparison the average. UK adult owes roughly £1,327 – £1,350, while the household debt is about £2,495 – £2,612.
I am amazed by these comparable figures.

…. 🙂

The nagging wife syndrome ….
Sorry Ben, your comment did make me laugh.

Just look at everything Yanks spend their money on. Cars, luxury goods, luxury holidays, etc. They love everything super-posh. And post it on social media. Is there really a need to have a BMW, Mercedes, Prada, or Louis Vuitton when you are making minimum wage?!

Thank you for sharing. You mentioned Comenity for sales tax free electronics and photo. Can you provide more detail about this card? Where is this card issued, card costs, some more redemption details, etc. Thank you so much

It is basically store card - B&H Photo Video. It is internationally acclaimed (mainly photography) retail store (in NYC) with equally great website for online shopping. They introduced Payboo credit card once states started charging sales tax for online shopping. During checkout, if you elect to pay using this card, you are offered 2 options:
1. Instant sales tax refund (paying $0 sales tax on your order; no rebate coupons, gift cards etc BS)
2. Between 6 to 12 month interest free payment plan. But you pay sales tax on this option

The card does not have any fees. For me this card saves me 6% on every transaction. I mainly use it for photography equipment. For more details: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards

Yeah, some of us get paid well 🙂

Diamond Honours + slight roundup.

🙂

Yep - saved me a few kilobucks last year..

I think that this list mostly is paid because there are many credit cards with a good return that are not listed and are hardly ever listed on this website. Furthermore there are several cards which have high annual fees and it is becoming increasingly harder to justify vs downgrade (Reserve v Sapphire for example) and there are surprisingly several cards which are airline or hotel focused and unless you’re charging their brand the points are not transferable. Many of the perks do overlap as others commented and some have a preference - priority pass Chase v Amex for example…..ultimately people need to figure out what works for them based on their lifestyle and habits and the amount of time they want to put into this ..,

Ben:
1. Your are CitiGold and grandfathered to a discounted annual fee. So I can see it not costing that much to hold on to.
2. 4th night free still has some value if you can use it
3. 5x points on online travel agencies can come in handy. A lot of sites code as OTA’s like booking.com, Expedia.com etc. This is a pretty nice category bonus.

Ben, to what programs have you transferred your Amex points?

@ Tom -- My two most common programs are Air Canada Aeroplan and Air France-KLM Flying Blue, which covers many of my long haul redemptions.

Whoa. Rico flexed USBAR on us. Do you think eventually and suddenly one day, in not so distant future, USB will announce transfer partners? At least the basic 5?

How much is that in annual credit card fees? $5,000

What card do the taxes go on?

Ben - How are you using your Bilt cash (and how do you plan to)? Sounds like you're just using it for rewards on your mortgage and points accelerators? Thanks!

I agree with Ben. Playing the "credit card "game" represents a hobby or an indulgence. The amount of savings/perks is barely a rounding error of our net worth. Ultimately, the joy that comes from "free" stuff is, even at my age, rather satisfying.

For real. A glut of Bilt Cash, and they still haven’t made high-value redemptions like Blacklane or Blade live yet… feels scammy.

Good. No excise taxes for foreign carriers. Sucks to ever need to transfer to Delta or jetBlue then get hit with a fee by Amex, unlike Chase, Citi, etc. who do not do that.

Since you’re based in Asia, Alaska Summit 3x on all foreign transactions might be useful for you, if you’d be able to even use those miles.

Annual fee question...this is just out of curiosity and by no means intent on throwing shade at anyone. Can travel bloggers write off the annual fees on their taxes? If so, that's great for them, just asking as so many people gripe about the annual fees bloggers spend. Thanks in advance.

I'm also running into the same problem, in that I'm earning more BC than I'm spending. Outside of points accelerators (which I've already exhausted) and mortgage payment bonuses, I've been trying to burn the $10 Lyft (I pretty much will always take at least 1 ride a month) and $10 Grubhub (which I can combine with the AMEX Gold dining credit) credit each month. Also starting to do the Walgreens credit.

I may start burning more $100 hotel credits (I've booked one w/ the $200 semi-annual, and one more so far on its own), and then maybe use the Blacklane credit when it becomes available. I wouldn't mind using the Blade credit (I'll be in NYC in September), but I will have a checked bag and I can't figure out if it's worth it to do luggage storage at JFK to make use.

Yes. And just using the two defined spend categories (60,000 and 15,000) per year plus food expenses plus air travel expenses that are not specified, it is easy to be nosy and glean that Ben must be generating minimum over 100k per year. Everyone should be so Lucky as to be able to turn a hobby/passion into this much cash.

BMW = Basic Marin Wheels.

The Capital One Venture X card that he failed to mention?

Not sure I get the rationale of spending on the Hyatt card… If you put that $15k on Bilt instead, you effectively get incremental 15k Hyatt points - much more flexible than an FNA that has an expiration date, can’t be topped up… and most Cat 4 properties are 12-18k anyway… yeah you get extra 6 elite nights but you’re already a Lifetime Globalist …

Agree, my thoughts as well. If I spend $15K on my Hyatt card, it's 15,000 WOH points plus a certificate worth 15,000 points, so 30,000 points in total. If I put the same spend $15K spend on my Palladium (and yes, I've already used up my 5 points accelerators), I get 30,000 Bilt points that don't expire in 12 months and can that are transferrable not only to Hyatt, but other partners. Also, isn't the free night award now less valuable following Hyatt's devaluation?

@ Voian -- I hear you, and it's the elite nights that are the tiebreaker for me. I am indeed lifetime Globalist, but by also qualifying for Globalist on annual basis, I get double the Milestone Rewards perks.

Let me put it this way. Let's say I would otherwise spend 40 nights per year at Hyatts. So let's say I spend $50,000 per year on the card to earn 20 more elite nights.

For that, I'd earn 50K Hyatt points, a Category 1-7 free night award, four Suite Upgrade Awards, two Guest of Honor awards (which, at a minimum, earn me two elite nights when I gift them), etc. To me, that's incrementally worth it. But I understand everyone's math is different.

@ LP -- Great question. Yeah, I've been using it for housing payments and spending accelerators, but beyond that, I'm struggling a bit. My balance keeps getting bigger, and it'll expire at the end of the year. It's easy to redeem small amounts, like for Lyft credits, but I really need to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of it.

@ Ben - Thanks! I'd love to see a post (or two!) as we get closer to the end of the year about your plans.

I ask because I've had a different strategy each of the last three years. Three years ago I knocked out a free night with the Hilton surpass (or maybe Aspire while it was offered), once a welcome offer on an Amex business platinum, and this year most of the way to the Atmos Summit 100k cert (net of what I expected to spend on the card internationally at 3x).

@ Alec -- Hah, Ford's strategy is that he closely follows my instructions on which cards to use. Because he knows that what irritates me more than most things is when the right card isn't used!

I see what you're doing here.

Trying to sneak in ads for the almost useless founders cards.

Found the retard

Benefits exceed annual fees, it's really very simple.

@ Edward -- I agree it's a lot in annual fees, but I do make the math work, or else I don't hold onto the cards. Yes, it can take a bit of work to use all the perks, but in the end I get outsized value.

@ Mike O. -- I primarily use Chase, but also have a Citi account. For example, I have my IRA with Citi, so that I earn Citigold, which gets some extra perks (even if the interface and service aren't always that great).

Why not?

I also am curious if Lucky kept his prestige. Each year I keep debating if it’s worth keeping, 5x dining and $250 easy travel credit make me renew though.

Prestige is my "go to" on airfare and dining at 5X on both. Once it goes away, I will shift to airfare to my AMEX Platinum, but, for me, Citi TY are more valuable than AMEX MR. I should add that it's NOT because of AA transfers; it's for EVA. I travel primarily to Asia, and have found AA miles fairly useless the past year or so. EVA has great availability for its own program members, so that's where I earmark most of my Citi TY to go (and my Cap One, although the .75:1 transfer ratio is much worse).
110% with him on the $15k Hyatt spend, but I also shoot for $15k on my Hilton Surpass to add another uncapped FNC there.

@ Aaron -- Thanks! Will work on an updated post on the cards in my wallet. To be honest, I'm transitioning away from the Citi Prestige to the Amex Gold. It has served me well, but I think it's of limited value to me at this point:
-- I also have the Citi Strata Elite, which offers 6x points on dining on Citi Nights, and frankly Fridays and Saturdays is when we dine out the most anyway
-- Previously I didn't have a great card for groceries, so I find that the Amex Gold combination of 4x points on dining and groceries would net me more in the end than just 5x points on dining
-- The Citi Prestige Card isn't that costly to hold onto, but I still struggle to justify it when dining is the only category in which I'm spending on the card

@ Christian -- Nope, I still use the Amex Platinum Card for American flight purchases.

@ Kbulo -- It's an excellent question, because you're right, dining and hotels covers many expenses abroad. The short answer is that I also put some dining and hotel expenses on the card, to the extent that it allows me to reach the spending threshold to earn the 100,000-point Global Companion Award.

Also, for what it's worth, I have a friend who is an authorized user on my card (long story) who spends most of his time abroad. Previously I had him as an authorized user on my Venture X, and now I have him as an authorized user on my Atmos Summit.

can you share how can one get 3% everyday spending? the current Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors (or Diamond) would get 2.625%, which is about to get nerfed in May 2026 to 2.25%…

@ AeroB13a -- Perhaps not in terms of the time invested, but it is also a hobby!

Thank you for sharing. You mentioned Comenity for sales tax free electronics and photo. Can you provide more detail about this card? Where is this card issued, card costs, some more redemption details, etc. Thank you so much

Whoa. Rico flexed USBAR on us. Do you think eventually and suddenly one day, in not so distant future, USB will announce transfer partners? At least the basic 5?

But Amex is not paying him as much to pump the Hilton card as Chase is to pump the Hyatt card

@ Nick -- I agree that spending $15K on the Hilton Surpass would be more worthwhile. The reason I don't do that is because I'm maxed out on Amex cards, as you can only have five credit cards from the issuer. So I'd need to cancel another card in order to be able to have that, and I do get good value from the Hilton Aspire Card.

@ bo -- For what it's worth, that's just factually not correct. But sorry if that gets in the way of your narrative.

@ Eric -- I know the amount spent in annual fees is high, but the cards largely offer perks that more than offset that. For example, with the Amex Platinum, I do get value from the $600 in hotel credits, $200 in airline fee credits, $200 in Uber credits, etc.

So yeah, while it can be a bit annoying to keep track of the perks, I don't keep a card if I'm not getting more value for it than I'm paying. In a way, card annual fees are almost like pre-paying for certain perks.

Since you’re based in Asia, Alaska Summit 3x on all foreign transactions might be useful for you, if you’d be able to even use those miles.

Just look at everything Yanks spend their money on. Cars, luxury goods, luxury holidays, etc. They love everything super-posh. And post it on social media. Is there really a need to have a BMW, Mercedes, Prada, or Louis Vuitton when you are making minimum wage?!

Yeah, some of us get paid well 🙂