Organizing CC rewards: Anyone got something interesting?

[Syonyk]

I'm not talking about the spending side - I'm talking about the "Well, this card is 3% on gas, but this card is 5% on gas these few months, and then 5% on Target/Amazon..." side of things.

It's a minor thing, but there's no point in using a 3% card when a 5% card will work for the same purchase.

Does anyone have any neat little way of organizing this?  It's mostly for me, but my wife is on all the cards as well, so I'd like to have it something visible on the fridge, if it's not too ugly.

[secondcor521]

I don't personally do that optimization, but what I understand from those that do is the easiest way to do this is to put a small sticky on each card with the categories that it should be used for.  So card A has "groceries, eating out, cell phones" written on it, card B has "home improvement, movies, gas", etc.  Both spouses carry all active cards at all times and commit to looking at the stickies and using the correct card for each category.  One spouse usually takes on the effort of figuring out the card+category combinations.

Some cards, of course, have more complicated cash back schemes (rotating categories, cashback only up to a certain amount) and those take more effort to manage.  I'm not sure how people do that exactly except maybe the one person who figures out the combinations also tracks the rotations and spending caps and updates the stickies more frequently.

I understand the motivation and the optimization, but the cost/benefit ratio isn't there for me personally, so I don't have a better answer for you than that.

Good luck!

[seattlecyclone]

Every quarter I get two old business cards out of my desk and on the back I write which credit cards should be used where to maximize rewards. I put one in my wallet and give the other to my wife.

[soccerluvof4]

Every quarter I get two old business cards out of my desk and on the back I write which credit cards should be used where to maximize rewards. I put one in my wallet and give the other to my wife.

So if your like me and have as much stuff as possible on auto-pay do you change those or just leave those on one card?

[kpd905]

90% of the time I am just going for a new sign up bonus, so that gives 15-20% back or more, so I guess do that if you want the biggest % back.  I usually forget the Freedom and Discover It categories, so I just default to putting anything else on my Double Cash card.

[Catbert]

I keep not more than 3 cards in my wallet.  I put a stickie on the back of each showing there cataories and points.  Then I highlight the catagory indicating which card I should use for each.  By that I mean if one card gives me 3% back on gas it would be highlighted the 3 quarters out of year that's the best %.  But when the Freedom is offering 5%, that's the one highlighted.  But I would still show that xxx card offers 3% for gas.

[seattlecyclone]

Every quarter I get two old business cards out of my desk and on the back I write which credit cards should be used where to maximize rewards. I put one in my wallet and give the other to my wife.

So if your like me and have as much stuff as possible on auto-pay do you change those or just leave those on one card?

The rotating categories rarely affect things like utilities that can be auto-paid. Next quarter is an exception, with Chase Freedom offering 5% back on phone and internet service. I'll make that switch for three months.

[exige]

we dont have that many categories that we spend on and do most of it on a few cards..

CSR - Travel / eating out
Costco - Gas
CIP - phone and internet
Amazon 5% - Amazon
Citi 2% all other things that dont land in a category

These sometimes change when hitting minimum spend etc since we do probably 70% organic. However I usually MS the full 1500$ of the 5% freedom each Quarter

[tinylittlemonkey]

I have a Miles card... I use it to buy everything from groceries to gas and pay it every payday. I accrue miles and that pays for my travel (which I love but isn't something I can put a lot of money towards). 

[soccerluvof4]

Every quarter I get two old business cards out of my desk and on the back I write which credit cards should be used where to maximize rewards. I put one in my wallet and give the other to my wife.

So if your like me and have as much stuff as possible on auto-pay do you change those or just leave those on one card?

The rotating categories rarely affect things like utilities that can be auto-paid. Next quarter is an exception, with Chase Freedom offering 5% back on phone and internet service. I'll make that switch for three months.

makes sense and kinda what I thought.
Thanks!

[tralfamadorian]

I do the tiny post-it method. 2% double cash back. 5% chase freedom rotating categories. 5% discover it rotating categories.  Whatever sign-up bonus card is on the docket. 

[HipGnosis]

I use a Brother P-touch label maker (I'd like a USB one, but can't justify the cost) and put what to buy on the cards (based on what gets the most rewards where); gas, groc, dept.(store), hardware, rest.(aurants)...
Some cards have two things on the label.
This started when I got the Discover card with the quarterly 'bonus' reward categories.

I also have a note in my smartphone (currently using OmniNote) for an alphabetical list of which card to use for infrequent things like renting a car (the card that includes the insuarance), memberships (cards I don't use otherwise but this keeps the accounts active).