I currently have 4 cards in my wallet. Over the years, they have shifted and changed but, believe it or not, I can still add more. I’m currently looking for a hotel card.
My very first credit card I got was a Capital One card when I was in college. I didn’t have much and I didn’t have a lot of money coming in, but I needed to start building my credit. Capital One was the only one who would help. Within a year, though I was able to get the American Express Jet Blue card, which is no longer available, and that card is open me up to keeping American Express in my wallet as I liked the quality and the high level of customer service. Eventually I was able to get the “prestigious” Platinum card.
So. What’s in my wallet now?
Currently, I have a Mastercard branded Capital One Venture one card. It’s my oldest line of credit and as such, I intend to keep it open. It’s an on a non-annual fee card. That way I have no reason to close it out, aka I’m not paying annual fee in my credit line stays old. Using this card, I put about $50 a month on Netflix, and other subscriptions. A small caveat, I don’t actually store in my wallet. 😊
For the longest time the main card to use was my Mastercard branded JetBlue card to help earn miles to visit family and enjoy everything that JetBlue has to offer. Now, however I have relegated it to being a backup card to my main everyday spend card. Currently, I have the JetBlue Plus Card, which gets me a free bag when I booked JetBlue’s cheapest flight or Blue Fare, which is really convenient feature to have and I highly recommend it to anybody who flies JetBlue regularly. the fee is $95, but it’s more than pays for itself in a couple flights. The other thing that Jet Blue plus card gets is it gets half off anything bought in flight. So food that normally cost $7 is now $3.50, which is not a bad price. I also get 10% points back spent which is enabled me to travel little bit further, and recoup my costs little bit more.
I currently use my American Express Everyday Preferred card as my everyday spend card. They give me 50% more points if I use 30 transactions per billing period. Which for me is not that hard I normally hit around 60 transactions per billing period. Granted a lot of those may be small but 50% more points gets me more points than a 1% card. It gets me a little bit more in grocery and gas which is where I spend more of my money rather than dining or travel, so for me this card is a great match.
The card I have in my wallet, mainly for prestige, is my premium American Express Platinum card. This card does a nice card to pull out to impress my friends and the sales person. It nets 5 times the points on airfare and hotels booked via AmEx travel, but it is lacking in dining and trip delay protection that other premium cards have. This card has one of the highest annual fees, but I have been offsetting that with the $200 airline credit for incidentals, the $200 Uber credit and access to Delta Lounges, when I fly Delta and American Express Premium Lounges. It is a really nice feature to have and I’ve enjoyed it. This card is a metal card and a lot of people complaining that they don’t like the heft in their wallet, but I really like that part.
In my haste to get a new metal credit card before American Express made theirs metal, I opened up another line with Capital One. At the time they are giving out Capital One Venture cards that were made of metal, but were also Visa branded which helps at Costco. I’m thinking about canceling this card, but at the same time, I like having increased overall credit card limit and I’m only paying a small fee for to every year, which is pretty nice.
Other than these I have my state issued ID, my bank card and my priority pass card, left in my wallet. So as Capital One would say “What’s in your wallet?” Use our calculator to figure out if you are getting the best deal.