Winning with Credit Card Points and Miles (A Road Warrior Perspective). 2024 Edition

This is not a typical blog I would write on this forum. Depending on the reception of this, there could potentially be more to come going forward. One of the biggest things of being a road warrior over the last four years is brought me is insight. It is not insight into the job, it is insight into how deep the rabbit hole can go in the realm of credit card points and miles. At my previous job as a traveling Consulting Architect, I did travel some, but I never spent too much time looking into how I maximize what I get back from all of that spend. To be fair, for my first year at this current job; I did not do too much of that as I put everything on one card and did not apply for an get new cards at the velocity as I do today. For my job, I am a staff Sr. Solutions Architect that travels for onsite customer visits/events and community events/trade shows. On a normal year I can travel fifteen/twenty five times. When I travel for work, all expenses are charged to my cards and I get things submitted for reimbursement.

 

I wanted to share some of the insight of what I have found, debunk a lot of the bad information and notions that folks have in the credit card space. 

• The most common thing that folks ask when I tell them I get five-eight new cards a year and I cancel/downgrade cards that no longer work for me that carry an annual fee is that “does that not hurt your credit score?”. Not much. As of this writing my score across all three credit bureaus is ~800. Most lenders consider anything over 720 as very good/exceptional. There are folks out there that preach how people should have a perfect 850 credit score. I have yet to ever be denied a new loan or for a refinance of a loan for as long as I have done this with cards. Since I am already an American Express customer, all new cards are soft credit inquiries after the hard credit inquiry for my first card. Yes, applying for and getting five-eight cards a year elsewhere dings my credit score five/ten points at a time, but the score generally recover in a short period of time. If we examine the breakdown from the three credit bureaus, new credit/inquiries only count for 10% of your credit score. 
• The second most common thing asked is "how do you get business cards and use them for personal spending?" For issuers, the term business can be used very loosely. If folks periodically sell things on eBay, it can count as a business. There is no formal need to establish things such as LLCs, articles of incorporation, etc... When applying for business credit cards, simply apply as a sole proprietorship and use an SSN/EIN for the tax IDs. "Did you just not say that there is no need to establish business documents? Why would I get an EIN?" An EIN can be obtained from the IRS for the sole proprietorship for free and the process is a few minutes on the IRS website. This can be potentially useful in certain circumstances as some banks want this as opposed to just using an SSN. Be aware that some banks may require establishing a banking relationshitp in order to get business cards (typically easily enough to open a checking account, putting in funds and then apploying for the card).

 

The big question here is why do I get five-eight cards a year? In my world, getting new card and collecting the signup bonus is the quickest way to ingest large sums of points. An example calculation of this is if we were to take a card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, the signup bonus that typically is always there is 60,000 points for $4,000 in spend in three months. One of the big multipliers on that card is 3x multiplier on dining. To organically earn 60,000 points with the 3x multiplier on dining, one would need to spend $20,000 in dining. Now we see that there can be a significant shortcut to get to points. As that $4,000 in spend can be whatever (aka flights, hotels, dining, gift cards, etc..).

What is my card formula? Some folks cannot stomach the high annual fees on cards but living in the credit card space means we must be comfortable playing the game of arbitrage.

As shown in the picture above. I am more then happy to pay X if it means I can get back X + Y in value. In the example it would be something like the Chase World of Hyatt card. It is a $95 annual fee but in return it is a category one-four free night certificate. Also with a card such as the American Express Hilton Aspire; I pay a $550 annual fee and as long as I can get a free night certificate that is over $550, it is considered a win. This also does not include the other perks such as the resort credit, the airline incidental credit, Clear credit etc... Once I found this formula, it became a no brainer for me and my pursuit of points and miles. 

Here are some general rules/guidlines I use for aquiring credit cards:

• Do not get credit cards without defining the goal outcome from getting credit cards. 
• Only get credit cards where the signup bonus fits your spending pattern (aka do not get cards and spend like wild and then not have the means to pay them off).
• Do not get cards with annual fees unless you can stomach paying the annual fee. Typically annual fees post for new cards a month after opening and then post again every twelve months when a new statement for that month posts.
• I do not recomended to get cards unless you can pay the statement balance in full each month (similar to the above rule).
  

In my setup I always have new cards rolling in, but I also have a core setup that provides me the various statuses that I use when I am traveling for both personal and business. 

I have even taken cards far enough to go to a credit card meetup that was organized by a few credit card content creators on YouTube, This meetup was held in the French Quarter in New Orleans back in September.

Here is my core setup or what folks potentially call a “What’s in My Wallet” at this time review.

1. American Express Personal Platinum Card
2. American Express Hilton Aspire Card x3 (three cards)
3. American Express Personal Gold Card
4. American Express Business Gold Card
5. American Express Business Platinum Card
6. Wells Fargo Business Signify Card
7. Chase Sapphire Preferred
8. Chase Freedom Unlimited Card 

Folks in the know, will tell me that is a lot of money that I am paying in annual fees. They would be correct as that is $3,835.00 in annual fees to be exact.

Here is the annual fee breakdown:

1. American Express Personal Platinum Card - $695 annual fee
2. American Express Hilton Aspire Card x3 - $550 annual fee (per card)
3. American Express Personal Gold Card - $325 annual fee
4. American Express Business Gold Card - $375 annual fee
5. American Express Business Platinum Card - $695 annual fee
6. Wells Fargo Business Signify Card - $0 annual fee
7. Chase Sapphire Preferred - $95 annual fee
8. Chase Freedom Unlimited Card - $0 annual fee
9. 
   

Lets breakdown why the cards are in my wallet. 

• The American Express Personal Platinum card is in my wallet for lounge access. My home airport is in Denver, so I go to the Centurion lounge on a frequent basis. I carry the card in case for whatever reason it needs to be shown at the lounge. 
• The American Express Hilton Aspire card is in my wallet for the Hilton Diamond status and in a pinch can be used as a catch all as it offer 3x multiplier per dollar in the form of Hilton Honors points. I have three of these as I collect the three annual free night certificates each year and I have used no lifetime language links (American Express signup bonuses are once in a lifetime) to get the second and third cards.
• The American Express Personal Gold card is in my wallet for the 4x multiplier on dining and grocery store purchases. This is considered by Amex enthusiasts as the workhorse card of Amex and is used to earn the majority of their membership rewards points.
• The American Express Business Gold card is in my wallet as I originally got the card to pay taxes (there potentailly will be another blog on using credit cards to pay taxes) to collect the bonus but since then have been using it monthly at office supply stores for the $20 credit back to offset the annual fee. This card will be cancelled after twelve months/one year mark as it does not align with the long-term goal. In all liklihood, by the time it comes to tax time in 2025, there will be a different no lifetime language link that I will use to get the card again to pay taxes and once again collect another signup bonus.
• The American Express Business Platinum card is in my wallet for a lot of the same benefits of the Personal Platinum card. It does offer the same lounge access, and I originally got the card to pay taxes. This card will be cancelled after twelve months/one year mark as it does not align with the long-term goal. In all liklihood, by the time it comes to tax time in 2025, there will be a different no lifetime language link that I will use to get the card again to pay taxes and once again collect another signup bonus.
• The Wells Fargo Business Signify card is in my wallet as I just recently hit the threshold for the minimum spend and until the actual signup bonus hits my card it will stay there in case a return or credit happens pushing me below the threshold. This card will go into my folio wallet long term and once a year I will buy a $5.00 amazon giftcard on it to keep the credit alive.
• The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is in my wallet if an establishment does not take American Express. It does have some perks such as 3x multiplier on dining, 3x multiplier on online grocery stores. On an annual basis, I will book a hotel through Chase Travel annually to use the $50 credit making the effective annual fee $45. It also offers Primary Collision Damage Waiver coverage on rental cars book throuhg traditional rental car companies such as Hertz, National, etc... and not something like Turo as it is considered peer to peer car rentals. The plan for this is to hold the card for two more years, downgrade the card to something no annual fee and then reapply for the card again or apply for the Sapphire Reserve card to collect a new signup bonus as bonuses for Sapphire cards are available once every four years. By the time that comes, I will be evaluating the usefulness of the Sapphire Reserve as one of the cards I will be looking to have by then is the Ritz Carlton card and the Ritz Carlton card will give me access to the Chase Sapphire airport lounges.
• The Chase Freedom Unlimited card is in my wallet as it serves as a second form of ID as that is one of the very few cards, I have signed the signature line on the back. One habit I also have along with credit card points and miles is I collect bank account bonuses as well and some banks require a second form of ID and this card works for that purpose (potentially another blog on bank account bonuses as well).

With these current cards and continuing to apply for new cards to collecting the signup bonuses. Over the course of this year, I have accumulated 425,000 American Express Membership rewards points, 350,000 Hilton Honors points and $1,800.00 in cash back from signup bonuses this year. I not only have spent through the one of my Hilton Aspire cards, Wells Fargo Business Signify card, but prior to that it was the Huntington Business Voice card and U.S. Bank Triple Cash card. If we take the typical valuation of the American Express Membership Reward points at its lowest value of $1.0 cent per point, converting points to dollars they are valued at $4,750. With the valuation of Hilton Honors points at $0.6 cents per point it is worth $2,100.00. This covers the annual fees and some for the cards acquired this year as $6,850.00 is more then the the $3,835.00 that is paid in annual fees. This does not account for the points earned on the spend and things such as free food and beverage credits at Hilton properties, Hilton resort credits, annual airline incidental credits, American Express annual Fine Hotel and Resorts credit, annual Clear Plus membership, free night reward certificates, Amex cash back on offers from various merchants, etc… that come with the cards.

Overall, for me credit cards are easily a big win in 2024. I highly recomend everyone look at their setup and see what can potentially make sense of them, even if they do not travel a substantial amount there is potential justification for some of these cards. The setup does not need to be as extensive as mine. Onwards and upwards in 2025. Let me know thoughts in the comments below and more importantly how are you making credit cards work for you. I do offer credit card road mapping as a service and am more then happy to map out what make sense for you as well. If interested let me know in the comments.

Johnny @mrjohnnyma