AvalancheCard

I've been doing surveys and polls for the past few weeks and am curious what people will say on this platform. Do you prefer cash back or points (and why)?

I've found so far that about 70% of individuals don't know which of their credit cards to use to get the most cash back on gas.

Just using your feedback for my app development, thanks!

notquiteaff

Miles and points. Why? Because I earn more return that way.

AvalancheCard

Are you able to keep track of what card gets a better return on rewards? If so how do you do it?

notquiteaff

See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35709253-post2.html

I am doing it in my head (and Google Sheets for spend promos and some bonus offers).

SpaethCo

Not sure this is going to be helpful, but for me it's both.

I want to take advantage of discounts afforded by loyalty programs, but I can purchase points in most of the airline and hotel programs I am interested in using. It's still useful to earn transferrable currencies because there are annual purchase limits, but it's hard to ignore sweet spots in cash back.

As a quick example, let's say I can buy points for 1.5 cents each. At a store like Costco the best I can do is 2x with a Capital One card if I want transferrable points. If I instead use the US Bank Altitude Reserve I can earn 4.5% cash back which will effectively allow me to buy 3 points for every dollar of spend.

AvalancheCard

Do you always choose whichever card gives you the most back whether it be travel or cash?

Barciur

Personally, I am not super into the game of churning or massively invested in the best point redemption possible, but I have a number of credit cards and lately I have been focusing on travel rather than cashback. I have both, and I usually use the card that gives the best absolute return (regardless of the perceived value). So, for example, I always (while having the card, which may not be forever) put dining and grocery shopping on Amex Gold, because it gives me 4x back. This quarter, I put everything from PayPal on CHase Freedom to earn 5x, and I put everything from Amazon and Target on Discover for 5% cashback.

While in general, I can get more value from MR points than straight up cashback, I value the diversity as well. I will use the 5% discount on Discover cashback to buy gift cards to airbnb for example to fund trips that way. But I fly back to my home country every year and lately I have been able to get an economy flight for 35k points round trip + $200 in the summer, which would normally cost $1000. So, I am basically spending 550$ if you go by the cashback metric, which would be 1 point = 1 cent in the CB world. Obviously, my return is much higher. But that is not always what works best for people, and I struggle to find good economy rewards domestically for what I need, when I need it, and so having the CB option as straight cash back is helpful also.

I guess it just really really depends on what you need and want, that's all. For some people, what I do is crazy with the amount of cards to juggle, but for some, this is a small amount of cards, and for others what I do is suboptimal because they can get much better value on other things. It's very personal and there are many tiers to what you can and want to do.

AvalancheCard

Appreciate then feedback! I'll definitely keep this in mind for the app!

notquiteaff

I don�t know if you asked SpaethCo specifically, but a couple of comments:

- sometimes accepting a lesser value can be desirable if it gets me over a particular threshold for an award I am planning to book.

- the standard earnings rate of a card as advertised by the issuer is often just part of the earnings. E.g., it might be desirable to accept 2X Hyatt (vs 3X UR from my CSR) if that spend gets me over or near the $15k spend threshold for a free night or earns me another 2 TQN that I want for status. Or there might be a targeted spend promo (examples)

korea71

If possible, I try to do both as long as I stay within the T&C. For example, Amex gives me $15 a month as a benefit. Capital One gives me 10% of on certain rides and Uber Eats. C1 also pas for my UBER ONE monthly subscription costs as well. Each UBER EATS purchase and certain rides also gives me Marriott points as well. I love to find these synergies to maximize savings and points/ miles earnings. May take a little effort to setup but it runs pretty smooth afterwards. One more example: I use UPSIDE for cash back on gas and food and also earn points using my choice of credit cads to pay for the gas and food.

happychic

I usually go by whichever gives me more value. Eg I consider 50k Amex MR points to be more valuable than $500 because of how I value MR.

Sometimes, when I have a specific redemption in mind, I will take that into account too. Eg instead of going for 100k MR I may instead go for 60k Chase UR.

I do keep track of how much value a card gives me and takes that into consideration when I sign up or decide to hold on to a card. Frequent Miler has an excellent spreadsheet that I use. (The recent updates from Aspire updates are not there yet). Spreadsheet linked from post: https://frequentmiler.com/which-prem...s-are-keepers/

SpaethCo

I agree with notquiteaff that sometimes card features, what you're trying to accomplish, and (maybe most important) simplicity matter more than pure mathematical return.

One piece of feedback I'd offer in trying to solve the "what card do I use to pay here?" problem is that you need to be really mindful that you're not adding to the decision fatigue problem. The gripe I've had with any similar app (ie, CardPointers, MaxRewards) is that they simply add more friction on top of the checkout process. The "What card do I use?" problem turns into needing to find the app on your phone, launch it, hope it recognizes where you are, and then hope you remembered to bring the card that it recommends you use. All of that is just added stress to the shopping experience.

I think there would be a lot of utility in an app that would analyze the spending patterns of folks and just recommend them a card strategy that balances returns and complexity based on their spending patterns. Not so much an app you'd launch to see what card to use, but more something that would sort through spending patterns to give feedback like "I see you use your cards a lot at x, y, and z. If you just carried Card A and Card B you could get more return."

I'll use my setup as an example, but there are probably better ways to approach this for the masses. I break my card selection down into "set it up once" and "daily driver" cards. Mrs. SpaethCo has been very forthcoming with feedback that she doesn't want to deal with a lot of complexity on the daily driver side. She just wants to be able to pay and leave and not think too much about it.

Set it up once cards:
Amazon Prime VISA for 5%, stored payment method on the account
Target Debit Card for 5% stored in Target Wallet (single bar code for promos and payment at checkout)
Chase Ink Cash for 5x on Internet/Phone/Streaming (autopay for Internet, streaming that qualifies)
US Bank Cash+ for 5% on Utilities/Streaming (autopay for utilities, streaming that doesn't code for 5x on the Ink card like Youtube Premium and Apple App store purchases)
Amex Blue Business Plus for 2x on standard bills (insurance autopay, etc)
Amex Platinum card for 5x on airfare added to Delta wallet
Chase Sapphire Reserve for 3x on travel, added to hotel and rental car profiles

Daily driver is a simple 3 card (1 virtual + 2 physical) setup that is used in ranked order
1. Altitude Reserve for 4.5% everywhere that accepts Apple Pay in person or online
2. Chase Freedom Unlimited if a physical card is required or you have to fill in the card info on a website
3. Costco VISA for 4% on gas (or backup card if CFU is declined for any reason)

Why Costco VISA for gas instead of a 5% card like the Citi Custom Cash? Through a Premier product change we actually hold Custom Cash cards so in theory it would be easy to get 5x on gas, but the Costco card doubles as a membership card we want to carry anyway, it allows us to single tap to pay at the Costco gas pump instead of doing membership card + payment as 2 separate scans/swipes, and even if we were to max out $500/mo exactly on gas for the entire year we're only forfeiting a maximum of $60 of benefit.

Why the Freedom Unlimited instead of the Blue Business Plus? There has been a strong correlation between the places we can't pay with Apple Pay and the places we can't pay with Amex, so it makes more sense for us that our default physical card should not be an Amex. Restaurants are one of the biggest physical card places, and this card bonuses restaurants at 3x automatically. If it doesn't code correctly, you still get the standard 1.5x.

Mrs. SpaethCo has been much happier since we simplified things down to Apple Pay + primary card + backup card. For her it's either tap with her phone or pay with the Chase card, with the only exception of having to use the Costco card at the Costco gas pumps which has just made it easy to build the routine that the Costco card is the gas card.

AvalancheCard

I completely agree with having the capability to analyze which cards would be most beneficial based on spending patterns. That is something we've talked about incorporating into the app further down the line as it'll be a bigger project. We're going simple but effective first and then we will be adding features as long as we get users who will actually use the product. Appreciate the feedback and hope to see you on Avalanche!

notquiteaff

Mrs. notquiteaff has made it very clear that she doesn’t want to think about which card to use when she is out and about. Checking an app each time would be a non-starter. So I just make sure she has a reasonable primary card and a reasonable backup card and call it a day. And when we are out and about, I pay for most expense and optimize however I think is best. And I pay our large online expenses (insurance, taxes) and do most of our grocery shopping. That’s optimal enough for our needs. Our bigger problem is on the redemption side (actually using all the miles/points we earn).

AvalancheCard

What if instead of opening the app you got a text notification? Something like, "I see you've been at Home Depot for a few minutes, make sure you use your *whatever card* to get the most cash back". Would that be more appealing?