1. Bank
2. Issuer
3. Limit
4. Advantages
5. Disadvantages
6. What would be a great add-on
7. Time you have had the card

So, first to answer lol

I've got several account in France and Belgium, so I'm not gonna tell all, but the mains is Societe Generale In France and Fintro in Belgium.
And one with Amex IDC Centurion

They issued me in Belgium a Gold Visa and in France I've got Visa Infinite and Visa Premier.
Their limits are 25K€/months for my Infinite and 8k€/months for the Premier Card.

There is a lot of advantages for the Infinite card, like the Hostel programs and car rentals programs and also a COncierge service like Centurion but the concierge in Visa Infinite is not as powerfull as Centurion.

For exemple When I was only a Visa Infinite card holder and not a centurion member, I went on hollidays in the south of France in Rennes Le Chateau where I wanted to visit the entires villa Bethania, I called them and they never managed to get me in...

Two years laters I went to Rennes Le Chateau one more time, I was Centurion card Holder, I called up the concierge within the next Hours, they succeed to get me in....

So disadvantages are the bad concierge power

It would be great to add the possibility to get rewarded on what we want
I mean, What would be the main advantages will be to get on elites status on what WE USED, not the same for all,
FOr example as Centurion now we get Hilton Honors Diamond, Ok that goods, but they have people who never goes to Hilton and will never do it, so this program is not interesting for them,
Credit card issuers like AMex Platinum/centurion and VIsa Infinite, should be MORE closed to their customers, they have to be present where the customers are !

The perfect things will be for example to have 4 hostels programs to choose from our own not getting the ones that the issuers negotiates in advance...

final point, I'm Centurion Card holder since 2007 and Visa Infinite since 2005

I am focused on a specific award because we have homes in Miami and London. We like to fly MIA-LHR-MIA nonstop with a flat bed. Three airlines serve this route:

• AA - Flat beds in first, angled flat in business which are OK westbound.
• BA - Flat beds in first and business.
• VS - Flat beds in business. Premium Economy conventional seats OK westbound.

All three carriers offer one-way awards for half the cost of round-trip. This means we can mix carriers to build a trip. All three offer features that the others do not. AA will "hold" award reservations for up to a week, and is good for stopovers in (for example) New York. BA is good for stopovers in London to visit other places in Europe without redeeming extra miles, and offers the only afternoon flight to Miami. Virgin has splendid security arrangements and lounge at Heathrow.

Virtually all of our cards are selected to earn miles in these three programs. Each Autumn I evaluate the portfolio, cancel some and apply for others. Typically I do not apply for new cards other times of the year, unless there is an extraordinary offer.

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express is our baseline card. SPG transfers to all three programs $20,000 : 25,000. A card must beat that to be considered. I know it's been a good year if we have not used the SPG card much because it means we earned more miles on everything.

Some cards are used for general spending, some only in specific categories, some primarily for benefits with little spending. Cards listed in red are not currently available to new applicants.

BUSINESS
General spendingCategory spendingBenefitsPERSONAL
General SpendingCategory SpendingBenefitsListing ten cards gives the impression of complexity, but most days I carry three cards:

• Diners Club Mastercard for business
• Chase Freedom Plus VISA for personal everyday spending
• Virgin Atlantic -or- British Airways for general spending

On weekends the Chairman card replaces Diners Club because that's when we buy gasoline. When we travel we carry more cards, but typically we do not both carry the same card, and some are treated as if they were membership cards and stored with airline, hotel and car rental status cards.

That is one great post, mia.

It shows how much thinking and planning need to go into this process in order to personalize all the great offerings out there to best fit one's individual needs.

SPG Amex is my everyday card. I'm still looking for a good (non-amex) backup. I'm not interested in any card that only offers multiple points for specific category purchases like groceries or gas.

Mia, loved your post. One has to think outside the box to play this game well.

.....

Nice that some one starts such a thread once in a while!
While i was able to get some where close to 2c for my delta/united points the pain i had to go through to use them moved me back to cash back cards especially due to the downturn and since i spend some where between 20K-25K (& want to keep it that way )


I have three cards ... basically carry only 1 in my wallet

Schwab 2% visa signature - main card use it for almost all my spending. No forex fee. 2% cash back. Helped me pay for the HP desktop repair extended warranty (300+$)

Ameriprise WEMC - 1.5% cash back ... 150$ fee but priority pass x2, makes up for it. Few other benefits that i have never used
Also 4.5% APR. That is THE LOWEST that you ever see!


Fidelity Amex 2% -- never used it have it for some "back up reason" ... only 1% forex fee

With help from FF, I am a CC junkie chasing points/miles in two hotels & airlines. Current cards are: Citi AA mastercards (actually have two, getting sign-up miles)
Citi Priority Pass
Chase BA card (100K offer + used for Citi USA accounts)
AMEX SPG card (old faithful - my oldest card)
AMEX HH plain card (got Surpass but changed back to no-fee card after becoming diamond. At 6 points for several categories, plain card seems better value for the next year or so)

Mine's pretty simple, if Chase or Discover have a quarterly bonus category, I use those cards, if not, see below:

1.) Chase Freedom Exclusives Visa
- 1.1%, 10 bonus points each transaction.
I use this card for everything under $10 (at least 2%, alot of dining)

2.) Chase Amazon Visa
- This was my first real credit card, when I opened a chase bank account, they opened the card above and I didn't use this as much - I still use it for the 3% on amazon purchases but it will be a long time before I have enough points to cash out another gift card

3.) Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum Rewards Visa
- 5% gas, 2% groceries - automatic statement credit. They also gave me a credit limit way higher than anybody else. I think about using this instead of the fidelity for bigger purchases because the cashback is immediate and I don't have to wait for $2500 of charges to get 50 bucks from Fidelity.

4.) Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express
- 2% cash back, I use this for all non-gas, non-grocery, non-Amazon purchases that are greater than $10. I also can use BillPayChoice to pay off utility bills, as well as other credit cards, which gives no rewarsd points, but does allow me to earn some interest for an extra month...

5.) Discover More
- I unknowingly signed up for this card in college (to get a free pizza or something) , it was still active so I had them send me the card earlier this year. It has a rather small credit limit, and the basic cashback rate isn't very good, so I will only use it for bonus categories.


I am considering CITI FORWARD as the bulk of my spending would probably be going out to eat and it's a better return than anything I have, but their points are so devalued (and could be again) I don't know if its worth the hassle of figuring out what to redeem TYP for.

1. Amex SPG = main card, hard to beat spg points this day
2. Schwab visa = for everything else when amex is not acceptable.

1. Schwab Visa for everything else. 2% cash back.
2. Citi PPE for gas/groceries/travel purchases on Expedia. If TYP are redeemed for Expedia packages, it's pretty close to 4% returns.

1--the Travelocity World MC--effectively 4% back on all purchases, 8% back on Travelocity purchases, all points only usable on Travelocity, of course. They are converting this to an AmEx card at the end of August, so I need to find a backup MC/Visa now....

2--SPG card, which may become moot with the switchover mentioned above.

1. HSBC Mexico
2. HSBC Visa Delta Skymiles
3. More less $10,000 USD, but in MXP (Mexican Peso)
4. 1 mile for every $1 USD spent everywhere. NO ANNUAL FEE never ever...
5. Only came with 5,000 miles when you apply for it and 5,000 miles if you spend more than $10,000 USD in a calendar year, although I do not care, as it will never have an annual fee and gives miles on a 1:1 ratio.
6. Miles towar elite status (5,000 at least every year).
7. Member since 2004

the topic sounds like "what's in your backpack?" - from Up in the Air movie.