Between my wife and I, we have (approximately) 20 credit cards. I got into the credit card game over the past several years. My wife isn’t into credit cards but she lets me sign her up for cards. In 2017, I started tracking how much value I got from my credit cards, and since then I’ve saved about $9,000 in travel and cash back.

If managed correctly, credit cards can provide a lot of free value both in cash back and in travel. The most important point is to pay off the entire balance each month. I set all my cards to auto-pay to make sure they are paid off.

Although I’ve gotten a lot of value from these cards, I’m far from a credit card expert. The most savvy travel hackers have a travel goal in mind and get the exact cards that will help them reach their goal. As for me, I tend to sign up for cards that have good promotions and then figure out what I can do with my points. I want to be better about setting travel goals, but I still have a significant stash of points that I’m not sure how I’ll use.

I’ll run through my current credit card holdings here. Please note that each card has more benefits that I’m going to describe. I’ll only describe the benefits that I take advantage of. I divide my credit cards into: cash back cards, general travel cards, and hotel cards. I don’t have airline credit cards (yet). I don’t fly that frequently (about 1-2 times a year) and I’m airline agnostic.

Cash back cards

Discover

For the longest time throughout my 20’s, this was the card I used the most. It was simple, got 1% on every purchase and had no annual fee. Discover was one of the first cards to give cash back to customers. For most of my life, I only had two credit cards. Discover is still a solid card because of the rotating 5% cash back categories each quarter. I usually use my Discover cash back to redeem for gift certificates at a discount. I can get a $100 Old Navy gift card for $80 of Discover cash. So instead of getting 1% (0r 5%) back on purchases, this becomes 1.25% (or 6.25%) back when I redeem for these gift cards. Most of my family’s clothing purchases come via Old Navy gift certificates.

Chase Freedom

I got this card in college over 20 years ago. It was called something else back then and I’m not even sure why I signed up for it. This also has rotating 5% cash back categories that change each quarter. Even better, the categories don’t overlap with Discover’s 5% categories. So for 2019, Chase had 5% return on gas in Quarter 1 and now Discover has 5% return on gas for Quarter 2. This gives me half a year where I get 5% return on gas. I transfer all these points to my Chase Reserve making my return on gas at least 7.5% back.

Fidelity Rewards Visa Card

I got this card about 6 years ago. I have a Fidelity account and since the card has no annual fee, it was really a no brainer to pick up this 2% cash back card. At the time, it essentially replaced my Discover card as my everyday use card. Each month, it automatically deposits the cash back into my taxable account at Fidelity. Another nice perk about this card is that Fidelity puts on free movie previews for card holders. I was able to take my kids for free showings of Lego Ninjago, Smallfoot, and How to Train Your Dragon 3 the night before they were released to the public. It looks like these offers are targeted so I’m not sure if there are other free events that are offered.

Chase Freedom Unlimited

This is a straightforward 1.5% cash back card from Chase, which actually gives 1.5 Chase points per dollar. When paired with Chase Reserve, I can get 2.25% back on everything. I put most of my non-bonus category spend on this card.

Bank of America Cash Rewards

When I had my Bank of America bank account, I used to use this card more regularly. At that time, it returned 3% for gas and 1% for everything else. If you deposited cash back into your BoA account, they would give an additional 10% bonus. I stopped using the card when I closed my Bank of America account. Since then, this card has changed so that each month you choose 1 of 8 categories for which you can get 3% cash back. I have it set to online purchases which includes Amazon, so now this is my Amazon card when I don’t have gift cards or when Chase Freedom does not have Amazon as its 5% cash back category.

TD Visa Cash Card

I signed up for two of these cards, one for myself and one for my wife. I got $300 cash back signing bonus for these cards. This was before I knew the value of 5/24 from Chase. I regret using up a 5/24 slot for these cards, because most credit card signup bonuses can get significantly more than $300. On the bright side, it does have 3x points on dining and has no foreign transaction fee and no annual fee. My wife uses this card for dining when she’s traveling abroad for work.

Amex Blue Cash Everyday

I just downgraded this card from the Amex Blue Cash Preferred. The Blue Cash Everyday has no annual fee but has less benefits. The Blue Cash Preferred card was my first credit card that had an annual fee. Like most people, I used to think that any card with an annual fee was for suckers. But this card’s fee was, at the time, $75 per year and returns 6% cash back for groceries, for a maximum of $6000 spent on groceries per year. If I maxed out the $6000 on groceries, I would get $360 back per year. With our 3 kids, hitting $6000 in groceries is easy. Also, I could buy gift certificates to Home Depot and Amazon at the grocery store, so I could get 6% off from non-grocery stores. The annual fee has since increased to $95 per year. If you take the annual fee into account, the cash back return rate comes down to 4.4%. I downgraded the card, because there are better options. Namely, there is always a quarter where Chase Freedom and Discover have 5% cash back for grocery stores. Those are the times to load up on grocery gift certificates. There is also the Amex Gold which I have as well.