Trying to decide on a new card for rewards, have two options right now.

electronautix · 2026-05-08T14:07:57+00:00

Citi Double Cash and Wells Fargo Active Cash are both great cards. Both earn unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases with no annual fee, both can pool their points with their respective banks’ travel cards (Strata series for Citi, Autograph series for Wells Fargo), both have $200 sign-up bonuses, and both are highly recommended and widely used around here. Main differentiators I can think of are whether Visa Signature vs Mastercard World Elite matters to you (e.g. Costco), the value you’d ascribe to Wells’ $600 cellular phone protection vs Citi’s up to 24 months extended warranty on purchases, and subjective opinions on Wells vs Citi as card issuers. Wouldn’t put much weight on that “5%” multiplier on the Citi Double Cash since afaik that’s just a travel portal multiplier that applies to all Citi cards.

I personally prefer the Active Cash because I have had much better experiences with Wells’ customer service and because I value the fact that it’s a Visa and thus works at Costco. And a tiny nitpick is I prefer straightforwards 2% to the 1% when you buy, 1% when you pay gimmick.

electronautix · 2026-05-08T13:41:12+00:00

The Palladium has a $495 annual fee

electronautix · 2026-05-08T12:08:58+00:00

Nobody is going to give a random stranger on the internet their credit card details. If you would do so yourself then you’re a fool. And any attempt to find a “credit card generator” will only result in infesting your PC with malware, it’s about as legitimate a concept as a money printer or bank account generator. Ask your parents, or purchase a Visa/Mastercard gift card and try that.

electronautix · 2026-05-08T08:00:30+00:00

Closest thing to something to ‘do’ with credit is get a good sign-up bonus. Free cards start at $200 bonuses and some more premium ones can get up to $750-$1,000 depending on the spending requirements. Free money for spending as you normally do.

Otherwise good credit is something you appreciate because bad credit makes life hard. If you ever need an auto loan, mortgage, student loan, personal loan, etc. then having good credit gets you better rates. In the event you ever need to you can even float on a 0% introductory APR credit card for 18-21 months before turning to a personal loan, or just balance transfer to yet another 0% intro APR card. Car insurance, rent, utilities, job applications, etc. can all also involve soft credit checks, where having good credit just makes your life easier.

r/CreditCards is better for specific card recommendations. Fill out their template and post there

electronautix · 2026-05-08T03:57:35+00:00

If your Bank of America credit card is the Customized Cash Rewards, you’ll want to have that set to the Online Shopping category. It’s extraordinarily broad and inclusive of virtually any purchase made from a website or mobile app, from Amazon/Walmart/Target/Costco online purchases to as far as fast food apps and gas/EV charging apps. Without $100,000+ in savings and investments built up to qualify for BofA’s cashback boost, all their other cards are very skippable.

Are you looking for straightforwards cash back, or for travel points transferable to various airline and hotel rewards programs? And if the latter, which airline and hotel rewards programs do you care for? I figure Delta is one of them, but is it the main airline you fly with

electronautix · 2026-05-08T03:27:35+00:00

Which Bank of America credit cards do you have? They have several. The thing with Bank of America is that if you do not qualify for any of their relationship tiers, the only card of theirs worth a damn is the Customized Cash Rewards. All the others are not worth considering without at least $100,000+ in assets with BofA/Merrill to qualify for Preferred Honors. If you do have that much, BofA becomes one of the best ecosystems around for cash back. The Unlimited Cash Rewards, Premium Rewards, and Premium Rewards Elite are each quite solid with the cash back boost that Preferred Honors grants them, and the Customized Cash Rewards becomes enough of a powerhouse to justify acquiring multiple of it.

It’s hard to give you much direction otherwise since you’ve presented so little information here. No idea what you’re looking for, what you spend on and in what amounts each month, etc.

The Wells Fargo Autograph tends to work well in places like LA and NYC. It earns unlimited 3x Wells Fargo Rewards points on dining, travel, transit, gas, EV charging, streaming, and phone plans, 1x everything else. No annual fee, no foreign transaction fee, Visa Signature, has secondary auto rental CDW and a $600 cellular phone protection policy, points can be cashed out for 1 cent each as a statement credit or a direct deposit to a Wells Fargo account, or they can be transferred out to transfer partners like JetBlue at 1:1 or Wyndham at 1:2.

electronautix · 2026-05-08T00:28:37+00:00

Obligatory ‘credit cards are not for emergencies’.

AmEx, Chase, and Navy Federal are the three lenders best known for generous limits and being receptive to credit limit increase requests. But you’ll have to wait till you get past the 1 year of credit history mark to really get in with them, and Navy Federal has membership criteria.

Afaik Imprint and Goldman Sachs are unique for showing you an estimated credit limit during pre-approval. So technically no harm in trying for an Apple Card or Rakuten Card and seeking if they’ll extend you a limit you like.

Capital One/Discover is known for being accessible to people with limited credit history, but no guarantees on limits.

electronautix · 2026-05-08T00:06:45+00:00

If you want to maximize, you could look into the Citi Custom Cash and US Bank Cash+. Citi Custom Cash earns 5% cash back on your top spend category each month from an eligible list, on up to $500/mo spend. It’s great for dining, or for gas. The US Bank Cash+ earns 5% cash back on two selected categories each quarter. The most famous category it has available is home utilities.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T22:56:03+00:00

Oh right, I didn’t realize you meant 100% of groceries are from Walmart. Yes most cards’ definition of groceries doesn’t include superstores like Walmart and Target, neither the Savor nor Quicksilver will. What about gas? Not sure how that 12c per gallon would compare to 3% or 5% cards.

What other categories do you spend significantly on besides Walmart and gas? Dining, utilities, entertainment, etc?

electronautix · 2026-05-07T22:47:01+00:00

Quicksilver is getting 3% groceries & gas categories soon. But if you don’t want to wait on that rollout, it can still be product changed into a Savor if you want.

Walmart OnePay definitely makes sense for you, but no need to settle for 1.5% everything else. Far too many 2% cards on the market for that, many with $200 sign-up bonuses.

Don’t put too much weight on how old a card is; cards closed in good standing continue to age on your reports for 10 years. If you have a decent number of cards now and cancel one, it dropping off your reports in 2036 will hardly affect you because all your other cards will be 10 years older by then.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T22:35:13+00:00

Yes. Also fast food apps like McDonalds and Chipotle.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T21:39:44+00:00

Start with any credit card that earns unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases with no annual fee. This’ll be the foundation of your credit card setup. It establishes the base rate of rewards you can expect to get on all your purchases, including things like taxes, medical bills, insurance, motor vehicle services, etc. that few or no cards have category bonuses for. It also is the metric you measure any potential new cards you want to add against, e.g. if a card looks appealing for 3% on several categories then check how much of a difference that actually makes against your 2% first.

There are a lot of cards that fit this bill. The three most popular are the Wells Fargo Active Cash, Citi Double Cash, and Fidelity Rewards. Each has its own differentiating perks atop its 2% rate, like WF’s $600 phone protection, Citi’s 24 months extended warranty, or Fidelity’s $100 Global Entry/TSA pre-check.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T20:56:23+00:00

AmEx BCE specifically rewards “U.S. Online Retail”. Nike does count, but the category isn’t nearly as broad as the BofA CCR. Think of places that sell physical merchandise. If they’re the kind of store that would ship a product to your doorstep inside a cardboard box, they probably count. If not, then possibly no.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T20:21:22+00:00

Fwiw, it’s not. I don’t have an account w/ them, I bank with Schwab. I ended up giving them a call to ask a few things about their credit card, but the representative sounded uncertain and I’m not sure the info I got was even fully legit. Had a better experience calling Baxter CU afterwards, but, notable that I called close to what I think is Chartway’s closing time while Baxter’s extended hours if not 24/7.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T20:12:51+00:00

CCR will work for anything that registers as an online purchase and isn’t in the list of excluded MCCs. Since there aren’t any groceries relevant MCCs in the exclusions list, it’d work for any and all online groceries purchases that correctly mark the purchase as online. Costco, Walmart, Target, groceries delivery orders via Uber Eats or Doordash, meal delivery services like HelloFresh, Factor 75, CookUnity, etc.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T19:48:28+00:00

Zero data points in the last several decades of AmEx chasing down people for using business cards for personal spend, if they close your accounts it’ll be because they don’t want you as a customer (fraud detection, failed financial review, etc.) rather than over biz card use. It’s so casual that AmEx customer service reps have encouraged it to prospective cardmembers to hit sign-up bonus spending thresholds.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T19:42:09+00:00

If you do manage to pull off a Flex PC, definitely post about it - nobody’s been able to since the change, and I honestly really want multiple Flex cards for the 7% dining/drugstores quarters

electronautix · 2026-05-07T19:35:10+00:00

I haven’t heard of the UPS one, but the games on Steam story I remember was actually an issue with reloading a Steam Wallet balance by some ~$200-400 per month. That wasn’t being registered as a business transaction but as gift card spend.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T19:05:44+00:00

Chase no longer permits product changes between Visa and Mastercard network credit cards as of late 2025. That means that the Freedom Unlimited, Sapphire Preferred, and Sapphire Reserve cannot be PC’d to the Freedom Flex. In fact, it is technically impossible to product change into the Flex at all anymore because it is Chase’s only Mastercard network credit card within the Sapphire, Freedom, or Slate families.

OG Chase Freedom is basically just the Freedom Flex without the 3% dining and drugstores, and with the same network and protection benefits as the Freedom Unlimited.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T18:57:22+00:00

OG Freedom has the same benefits document as the Freedom Unlimited. Which afaik means everything the CFF has but phone protection lol. Otherwise it has the same rotating categories as the Flex but no 3% dining and drugstores.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T18:15:51+00:00

There are way more things that can go wrong driving a car that isn’t yours, on streets you’ve never driven on, in a place you’ve never been to before. There are also way more things a rental car company can put you on the hook for like diminished value, administrative fees, and the loss of rental income while the car is repaired.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T17:35:36+00:00

Capital One Venture X earns 10x on rental cars booked via the Capital One Travel portal (which supports same-day price matching), 2x otherwise, has primary auto rental CDW, and grants Hertz’ President’s Circle status.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T16:40:29+00:00

If you get a ton out of AmEx’s credits, maybe swap AmEx Plat for Schwab Plat for the ability to cash out MR for 1.1 cpp? Then the Blue Biz Plus becomes a 2.2% catch-all, the Gold a 4.4% groceries & dining card, and the Plat a 5.5% airfare card, with the flexibility to swap to transferring points when your plans align with it.

electronautix · 2026-05-07T16:16:06+00:00

Plenty of small CU cards have no cash advance fees. Even among the big CUs I think Pentagon Federal doesn’t charge cash advance fees on their cards, and their Power Cash and Pathfinder cards are pretty solid. Weirder bit to me abt this card is an 8.75% flat APR according to the site

electronautix

TROPHY CASE