What’s in My Wallet For Q3 2024

With summer travel coming up and having finally decided to buy furnitures for my new apartment, I expected higher than average spend at the end of Q2, as well as spilling over the first few weeks of Q3.

Because of that, it was the perfect time to sign up for some new travel credit cards and meet their spending requirements for huge rewards.

I was also lucky that two of the best travel cards were running promotional offers for their highest ever sign-up-bonuses.

Let’s start there.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

To capture some of the summer travel spend, Chase was offering 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points for $4,000 spend in 3 months.

Redeemed as cashback, that’s $750.

Redeemed through Chase’s travel partners, that’s close to $1,500.

I typically use Chase points for Hyatt hotel stays or Qatar business class upgrades, both of which can get me the quoted $1,500 in value.

If I got lazy and only used the points for domestic economy Delta flights through Virgin Atlantic or Flying Blue, I can still get around $1,000 in value.

So, that’s the first card in my wallet setup for this quarter.

The strategy is to put all my everyday expenses on this card, until I hit the minimum spending requirement to get the 75K Ultimate Rewards points bonus.

You will notice that I haven’t talked aout the card’s multipliers so far. That’s because I don’t care about the multipliers.

When hitting sign-up-bonuses, my goal is to put 100% of my expenses on that card, instead of maximizing multipliers.

Usually, I have a low spend lifestyle. So, if I were to put only my non-category spending on my sign-up-bonus card, odds are I won’t meet the minimum spend requirement on time.

Also, getting $1,500 in value from $4,000 in spend gets me a staggering 38% return on spend. That obliterates any 3% of 4% earnings I would get my maximizing category multipliers.

Citi Strata Premier

Citi recently rebranded their Citi Premier card to Citi Strata Premier.

It’s the same card with outstanding multipliers (3X Grocery, Restaurants, Gas, Hotel, Airlines), but now it also has solid travel protections which was missing from the original Premier card.

To make things even better, like most banks, Citi ran a higher sign-up-bonus offer to promote their newly launched travel credit card.

What was the sign-up-offer?

75,000 Citi Thank You points for $4,000 spend in 3 months.

Redeemed as cashback, that’s $750.

Redeemed through Citi’s travel partners, that’s close to $1,500.

Yes, the value is identical to Chase’s offer above.

I typically use Citi Thank You points to book Turkish Airlines business class, United Airlines business class or Qatar Airways business upgrades.

In all cases, I will easily get $1,500 in value, if not more.

The strategy is to shift all my spending from Chase Sapphire Preferred to Citi Strata Premier, once I hit the mimimum spending requirement of the former.

In the long run, I plan on keeping this card because of it’s outstanding multipliers (3X Grocery, Restaurants, Gas, Hotel, Airlines).

Bilt Mastercard

Taking a break from sign up bonuses, the next card has one purpose only — pay my monthly rent to earn points.

Until I got this card in early 2024, there was no way for me to earn rewards on my largest monthly and yearly expense of the year.

Now it’s possible.

With my rent around $1,700 that’s almost 20,000 travel points that I wouldn’t get with any other card.

What does 20,000 Bilt points get me? Around $400 in travel value.

There’s a big overlap between Bilt’s transfer partners and that of both Chase and Citi. That lets me pool all my points together based on my travel plans.

One example — If I have a Qatar Airways flight coming up, and I want to upgrade my economy ticket to business, I can transfer points from Chase, Citi, and Bilt, to Qatar Avios, and upgrade to business for free.

Wells Fargo Attune Elite Mastercard

Okay, if you have stuck around until now, you are in for a surprise.

A couple of months ago, Wells Fargo surprised everyone by launching the Attune card. It has some very unique 4% back categories.

Digging into the category multipliers, I found some genius ways to get 4% back in categories where I typically get less than 2%. I will list out a few of them below.

4% on gym membership

4% on pilates and boxing lessons

4% on Top Golf activities

4% on haircuts, spas and nail salons

4% on Disney tickets

4% on Uber/Lyft rides

4% on Amusement Parks, Aquariums, Bowling, Zoos, and other tourist attractions

4% on sports venues and concert tickets

4% on subscriptions and streaming services

These are categories I genuinly spend on, and in most cases I put them on a 2% card. However, now I can put them on my Attune card.

To make things even better, the cashback earned can be converted to Rewards Points, and transferred to partner, such as, Qatar Airways or Flying Blue.

When I redeem these points for >2CPP, the 4% back essentially becomes 8% back on all the above spend.

Closing Thoughts

Okay folks, so that’s my credit card setup for Q3 2024.

Chase Sapphire Preferred — get sign up bonus

Citi Strata Premier — get sign up bonus

Bilt Mastercard — use for rent only

Wells Fargo Attune — 4% back on high spend specialty categories moving forward

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