Hello all, looking to see if there are any obvious suggestions for me.
My wife likes how we use Chase for credit cards and checking accounts because everything is right there – direct deposit, credit card, automatic payments, easy transfers, etc. And personally I don't have the mental bandwidth to really churn credit cards, just thought our Chase Freedom & Preferred cards were "good enough".
However I'm now wondering if other cards would be better for our current usage. Somewhat relatedly, I've been keeping our liquid/usable cash in a Chase checking account but will be switching to Fidelity since the money will actually gain some interest there. So there is less incentive to stay in the Chase ecosystem.
Last year (2025) we had a combined credit card spend of ~90k. The bulk was in food (dining out 30k, groceries 25k). I don't anticipate this changing much, so it seems to me that a card with good food rewards/points would be most beneficial. We also plan to start traveling in upcoming years (have not done much before, now want to start building experiences with 3 young children), anticipating about 15-20k a year in travel expenses.
As I mentioned earlier, I'd like to keep things as simple as possible, ie one card for me and one for my wife, maybe a secondary card if there are substantial added benefits.
Appreciate any input/advice!
new credit card recommendation for someone who's just stuck with Chase for the last 15 years
byu/hcmp519 inCreditCards
Posted by hcmp519
3 Comments
Are you guys still feeding your ancestors?
I thought my ~6k was too much in groceries.
Anyways, AMEX Gold Card is your next card
Amex gold is best for grocery and dining. However I do find MR hard to use. If you can pair with Schwab Amex platinum it will turn MR into cash card and adding travel lounge benefits .
Depends on what you’re looking for. Do you like Chase’s transfer partners? For some, being able to transfer points out to Hyatt is enough to make up for the pain of a 3x “online groceries” category and a 1.5x catch-all. There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with running the Chase trifecta in your scenario
If you’re looking to expand out to other ecosystems though, I would say the AmEx Gold is definitely a standout pick for high groceries and dining spend. 4x MR on both categories, and it offers some annual dining credits that can help compensate for the high annual fee.
The Citi Strata Premier and Capital One Savor are also quite solid. All three of these options have complementary 2x cards to grab too: AmEx Blue Business Plus, Citi Double Cash, and Capital One Venture X. Would start by looking into their rewards programs and determining which has the best value proposition for the kind of travel you intend to do