Between my Amex Blue Cash Preferred ($95) and Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95), that's $190/year in annual fees. I also have a Citi Costco Anywhere Visa and Capital One Quicksilver, both no annual fee.
I always assumed the annual fee cards were earning me enough to justify the cost, but I never actually checked. So I went through every transaction across all 4 cards for the past 3 months and scored each one: did I use the best card in my wallet for that specific merchant?
Across all 4 cards, I'm only using the right card about 67% of the time. The gap between what I actually earned and what I could have earned with the optimal card at every purchase was about $71 in 3 months. That's roughly $280/year I'm just losing to laziness. The Amex BCP is crushing it on groceries at 6% and streaming at 6%. That card pays for itself easily. The CSP is harder to justify since I don't travel a ton, so the 3x dining is doing most of the work there. The biggest problem is my Quicksilver becoming a lazy default. Any time I don't think about it, I tap the Quicksilver and earn 1.5% when I could be earning 3-6% on a different card. It's supposed to be my "everything else" card but it's creeping into categories where I have better options. Same thing with gas. I kept using my Quicksilver at gas stations out of habit when my Citi Costco gets 4% at all gas stations, not just Costco pumps. Didn't even realize that until I actually looked at it.
The wild part was seeing the exact dollar amount I missed on each individual transaction. A $140 grocery run on my Quicksilver instead of my Amex BCP? That's $6.30 gone on one trip. Those add up fast when you're not paying attention.
Has anyone else done this exercise? I'm debating whether to drop the CSP or just get more disciplined about which card I pull out.
I'm paying almost $200/year in annual fees. I finally sat down to figure out if I'm actually getting my money's worth.
byu/Jazzlike_Soft_8887 inCreditCards
Posted by Jazzlike_Soft_8887
4 Comments
It’s a good idea to do this exercise every year for annual fee cards once the fee comes around.
In your case, downgrading to a Freedom Unlimited from the CSP would allow you to keep the 3x on dining, and also give you a 1.5% base earn, rather than 1x on the CSP. Costco VISA also gives 3x on dining, but your rewards would be tied up for a year.
> I always assumed the annual fee cards were earning me enough to justify the cost, but I never actually checked
This is exactly what banks are hoping for.
> The Amex BCP is crushing it on groceries at 6% and streaming at 6%
In your current wallet, this may be true. But do note that the Amex BCP only really comes out ahead if you do the upgrade/downgrade tactic or if you use the Disney credit. Otherwise a no AF 5% card is simpler and superior value.
> Has anyone else done this exercise?
On this sub? Way more than just your exercise. A lot of us here know exactly what’s in our wallet, what’s optimal, and make way more detailed calculations. Gen pop? I doubt they have even done the exercise you just did.
> I’m debating whether to drop the CSP or just get more disciplined about which card I pull out.
The biggest reason to justify CSP is access to Chase’s transfer partners. If you don’t travel and don’t transfer to partners, there is little to no reason to keep it in my opinion. There are much better cards for what it does, and you can still earn similar rewards on the no AF Chase cards. Product change it to the no AF Freedom Unlimited (to keep 3% dining) or Freedom card (the Visa with 5% rotating categories, not available for new applications, product change only).
The CSP comes with a monthly $10 DoorDash credit for “grocery” orders. If you were use that once a month to pickup a couple of drinks and snacks at a 711, you would walk away up roughly $20 on the annual fee.
Another tip is if you add your CSP to the app for your grocery store (for me, I use Kroger) and pay that way, it will trigger 3x for online grocery orders.
Thats it?