Questions and Answers

Hello!

I hope all is well! My name is Albert, and Im reaching out in hopes that you’d take moment out of your day to help me make sense of this whole points craze. I feel that no matter how many online searches I make and blogs I read it all just gets way more complicated to me resulting in my chronic teeth grinding LOL!

Allow me to explain to you my situation:

I am a 20 year old e-commerce entrepreneur that opened too many cards too quickly (in my opinion). I don’t have a debt management issue, but rather a brick sized wallet predicament.

My first card I opened on my 18th birthday was the Chase freedom card (personal)

Shortly after, I opened The Discover It Card (personal)

Then The Amex Blue cash Everyday card (personal)

I then Opened my first business card – The Chase Ink Business cash card, Which I’m not impressed with (Business)

Then The Spark Classic business card which I am equally not impressed with (Business)

Then the Amex Premier rewards gold card which may have been a decision to look cool (personal)

Then the Amazon rewards credit card Which I only use for Amazon purchases which I receive 3% back (personal)

And the last card I opened was The Amex Business platinum card which I opened because of a 250,000 points welcome offer. (Business)

As I am now traveling more frequently on business trips and such, I head your advice to help me reduce the clutter in my wallet as well as maximize my business and personal spending. While I am willing to pay for business class tickets on my trips, I’d love to be able to save some money and travel more efficiently. Would also love to be able to maximize every dollar I use with airline rewards and such.

My initial though was to cancel the cards I really don’t like ( Discover, chase INK, Capital One Spark, and Amex Blue cash ) But am aware that it may have negative impacts on my credit score. My main goal is to have a simple way of spending with a few cards and maximize my spend without having to exert to much mental energy in each purchase. I was also looking into canceling My premier rewards gold, and opening the Amex SPG or chase sapphire as I believe I am wasting money on the annual fee as I already have a Platinum card….

Please help me make sense of this seemingly complicated process

Warm Regards,
Joey

Well for the cards that [I]dont[/I] have an annual fee, keep them but dont use them. It’s fine.

For the Chase INK there are great bonus categories so I’d keep that. Furthermore, those points can be combined with other Chase cards, like the Ink Preferred, Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve. From there you can transfer points to airline partners or use it to book travel via Chase.

I’d recommend that you get personal and business cards where you can accrue into Amex MR points and Chase UR points. I’d also suggest SPG and Citi TY but that might be too over-diversifying for you.