The CC game is too fluid to predict a year out, so for my needs through 1Q2012 (in primary order):

CO Presidential Plus
Discover (gas)
Citi Thank You Premier (Airfare)
Fidelity Amex (Utilities)


On the sidelines:
Penfed Visa (Gas)
Chase Freedom
SPG Amex
Marriott Visa
Hilton Amex

I keep my wallet skinny, so only three cards at a time. Always the Costco Amex, the other two rotate according to my need to make spend for a reward.


Costco Amex - Cash back. 3% Gas & Restaurants, 2% Travel. Fee is the Costco membership fee, so a sunk cost. Also, I don't have to carry a separate Costco membership card.

Amex Blue - I got this because of the smart chip. The smart reader never worked right. No fee. No reason to keep, no reason to drop. Never in my wallet.

Citi AT&T Visa- My oldest card. No wallet space. I keep it for the sake of my FICO.

Citi AAdvantage - Having a hard time making the double rewards spend, now that the Mint is gone. Will probably drop when fee comes due.

Chase Sapphire Preferred - What the other guys said. My Card for foreign travel.

Chase Subaru MC - 3% rewards capped at $500 for a $16,666 spend. I get this every year.

Capital One VISA - Cash Back. 1.25% No Forex fee. Was my travel card until Chase Sapphire came along. Now I use it for iffy internet buys.

Discover - I have had this puppy since it was a Sears card. No wallet space except for the quarterly 5% back promos. 2011 the promos were capped at a $200-300 spend so it got no wallet space. Looks like the caps for 2012 will be $1500, so it will go back in the wallet.

In my wallet:
--Citi AA Amex [just about done with the spend, then it's out]
--Chase Sapphire Preferred [I spend a lot on dining so the 2x is nice]
--Amex Platinum [because I would forget to add it to my wallet when I travel if I didn't keep it there all the time]

Somewhere in my bedroom, until my spreadsheet tells me it's time to cancel:

--United Mileage Plus Visa
--Citi AA Visa
--Chase Continental OnePass

For flights and groceries: AMEX PRG
For Everyday spending (till I get the 10k EQM @ $40k): AA CITI Executive
For Restaurants + Amazon: CITI Forward (5% back)

Chase AARP - no need for anything else!

Australia:

Amex Platinum (transfers to SQ, DJ, PC, SPG and others)
NAB Velocity Visa for those who don't take Amex

USA:

Chase Priority Club Visa-$49 fee gets 1 hotel night
Barclays US Mastercard-just got it but will keep for 10k miles annual bonus
Chase CO Mastercard-just got it, will use credit limit to get Preferred Sapphire later

I mostly use Aussie cards since I live here but use US cards for US merchants that don't take non-US cards.

1) Citi Premier
- I see most people here laugh at TY points but I find this to be my most valuable card overall and gets most of my spend
- As a Citigold no annual fees on any of my Citi cards
- Effectively get at least 2.66 TYP per dollar spent (flight points + purchase points + 33% conversion premium when reedemed for airfare). Plus small annual bonus and occasional other bonuses
- I only redeem TYP for airfare. Full flexibility, and you get miles and EQMs for the flights (I would generally not sit on a plane without EQMs), which often offsets a good portion of the TYP used anyhow

** Is my logic above flawed? Why don't more people use Citi Premier? **

2) SPG Amex

Get wife to run business expenses through various cards as necessary, although I have not really taken advantage of sign up bonuses in 2011 (simplicity of the same cards for business vs. always tracking new stuff)

3) Delta Platinum Amex - helps with my DL Diamond status

4) Chase BA Visa

5) Citi AA MC

Not being familiar with TYPs - how many TYP to fly CX F, say SFO-SIN?

-Continental OnePass Plus
-United Mileage Plus Visa (I assume this one gets phased out soon?)
-AMEX Platinum (my account)
-AMEX Platinum (tied to another Family account)
-AMEX Biz Gold (3x points on airfare, hello)
-Chase Sapphire Preferred (2x points on dining, thanks)
-Chase Debit/ATM Card
-BNP Paribas Debit/ATM Card

Always open to suggestions on other cards with good bonus offers to get. I believe I got 40k miles apiece on the CO and UA cards. Got the 100k MR points retroactively applied to my Plat, got 50k MR for the biz gold and have 50k Chase points pending 3k spend in the first 90 days.

There are a few hard core supporters of the Citi Premier, yours truly included. I think most people compare it to what it used to be, rather than against the current crop out there. I personally find the TY program (for flight redemption) hard to beat...but hey, thats just me.

Amex blue cash back - 5% on gas, groceries and drugs (stores I mean)
Amex Corp cash back -2% on everything
Citi elite mc- to top off my next million with AA
Chase freedom - for day to day stuff and the bonus categories
Chase contractor - 2% on building materials
Chase ink - 5% on office and Telecom
Hilton surpass - every other year to keep my diamond
Discover - 5% bonuses every now and then
Saphire - airfare and dining
Amex premier rewards - went for big mr bonus but not seeing value in mr progra, will cancel if they don't goose it


Back benchers to top off acounts as needed include

Various AA cards
Amex Starwood
Amex cash back

Cards I will add

Hyatt visa - as my diamond will eventually end and I need to insure some status during slow years
Hawiian air assorted - we will be heading back there soon and would like to offset the island hoppers
Amex platinum - the credits and all long access make this a better value than Citi elite
Tbd airline - jight hedge my bets on American once I get life plat and exec plat

Having a business makes hitting the spends easy. Trying to get value out of points is a full time job. But beats workig

FYI- Thank you for the informative posts that helped me start grabbing good cc offers in late 2011(Did Amex gold for 100k pts, Citi 50k and Delta Amex 48k). I think I have the hang of this stuff now.

I am sure most of you are familiar with MC paypal card. They are pretty much my default card for gas/restaurants(3x points). Points only convert at about 83 cents on the dollar(so 6000 pts for $50), though. However, they do convert to cash(through credit to paypal account).

Also, they give 2x on any paypal transaction(so roughly, 1.66%). That is my default for online transactions where I am combining with CB sites offers.

TYP can be redeemed for airfare.

100k typ = $1333 airfare

So I would say it's a million billion gazillion TYP for CX F SFO-SIN

But 50k typ for no annual fee the first year and spending $3k is pretty sweet and you get an annual domestic companion ticket for free that's potentially very valuable.

W.E CC/s will be offering 100K bonuses in 2012 will be the ones in my wallet. lol

TYP are not good for international C/F given the fixed points/dollar value. Use your millions of miles accumulated from flying for those awards. What you can use TYP for is cheap fares, especially long-haul - you get miles for flying, EQMs for status, all with $0 out of pocket costs.