As discussed in my previous post, maximizing credit card rewards is a hobby of mine. To see how well I'm doing, and to try and improve my strategy, I plan to do regular 'autopsies' of the rewards I've accrued vs how much I've spent. This is said autopsy for June.
There exists a myriad of branded credit cards; most of which give 5% cash back on all purchases made with their associated brand (e.g., The Target RedCard and the Amazon Prime Rewards card. There's a theoretical person out there (who knows, they may even be real) who has all of these cards, and thus gets 5% back on almost all of those purchases. Beating this theoretical person is my (perhaps just a bit ambitious) goal. So my moonshot is a total of 5+% back overall.
Spoiler alert: My June strategy included cards that earn American Express Membership Rewards points and Hilton Honors points. I'm going to conservatively value these points at 1.1 cents per point for Membership Rewards points and 0.5 cents per point for Hilton points. Obviously is I valued at 2 cents per points and 0.6 cents per point as The Points Guy does my overall percentages would be boosted dramatically, however as mentioned in my previous post I think it's important to consider the worst realistic case scenario.
I didn't meet any sign-up bonuses this month (again, spoiler alert!), When applicable in the future, I'll include an overall calculation value that includes the value of any met sign-up bonuses, and one that doesn't.
I recently upgraded my old American Express Gold card into the Platinum, and part of the welcome offer for doing so was that the new Platinum card would be earning 5 points per dollar on Restaurants, gas, and supermarkets. As such, this Platinum card has been an absolute mainstay in my wallet, and likely will remain so until the offer expires in October.
I was also able to take advantage of the Discover IT card's 5% back at Target for the second quarter of 2022. Target is a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine and my Significant Others'.
I was originally using the Hilton Honors Surpass card as my 'catch-all'. 3 Hilton points per dollar is a fairly weak rewards rate, but I was aiming to hit $15,000 in spend before the end of the year to earn the free night certificate. I did decide to apply for the regular Hilton Honors card to get 100,000 Hilton points before a trip my Significant Other and I have planned for October, and this card remains my catch-all card until I hit that welcome bonus.
There are a couple miscellaneous cards I used as well, the aforementioned Amazon card for my 5% back on my few Amazon purchases last month, the US Bank Cash+ card let's you choose two categories to earn 5% back in, I selected movie theaters as one of mine and used it a couple times for that purpose. Finally I used the Costco Anwhere card to earn 4% back on Costco gas (since they don't accept American Express), and it looks like I had my Citi Double Cash set as the auto-payment option for some of my utilities.
So my June strategy can be broken down as follows:
Spend on Miscellaneous cards (Discover, Doublecash, Costco, Amazon, and US Bank): $1,064.53 Cash back: $44.79; Percent back: 4.21%
Spend on American Express Platinum (Gas, Groceries, Restaurants): $1916.27 Points earned: 10,024; Value at 1.1 cents per point: $110.26; Percent back: 5.75%
Spend on Hilton Honors cards: $923.97 Points earned: 1194; Value of 0.5 cents per point: $5.97; Percent back: 0.65%
Total Spend: $3904.77
Cash Value back: $161.02; Percent back: 4.12%
My June strategy netted me 4.12% back, so I fell a little short of my 5% goal. One issue that immediately jumped out to me was the lack of Hilton points. I was supposed to get 3 points per dollar for spend on those cards and yet it appears I got closed to 1 point per dollar. I imagine there must be a long delay between transactions being made and the Hilton points being deposited into my account that caused some points to not show up until July. However even if all those points were accounted for my overall return would only be 4.33%, still short of my goal. That being said, I'm very confident the numbers for July will look VERY good, since I'm sure to hit the 100,000 point welcome bonus for my new Hilton Honors card.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with this result, we'll see if I can do even better next month!
None of the links in this post are affiliate links, I have nothing to gain or lose by you clicking on these links and getting these cards. Nothing you read on aeryck.com should be construed as financial advice; you are responsible for doing your own research before making any financial decisions. This post is nothing more than one guy on the Internet's personal experiences.
Posted: 2022-07-12
