
Category Archives: Credit Cards


Keep, Cancel or Convert? Laura’s American Express Gold Card ($325 Annual Fee)
Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. A few days ago, I was reviewing our recent credit card statements and saw that the $325 annual fee posted to Laura’s American Express Gold Card. We discussed the card benefits and decided it wasn’t worth prepaying $325 in order to jump through all of these hoops to earn back the $325 annual fee. As a reminder, here are the coupons statement credits on this card:
- $10 Uber / Uber Eats credit each month ($120 total)
- $10 Grubhub credit each month ($120 total)
- $7 Dunkin credit each month ($84 total)
- $50 Resy credit every 6 months (launched in July 2024, so only $50 total in 2024)
Even though we did receive all of these credits in 2024, I would not value them close to $374. In order to receive all of those credits, we had to jump through 37 hoops throughout the year. We are still sitting on $28 of Dunkin credit (the nearest Dunkin in about 40 miles away) and we have a $50 restaurant gift card for a nearby Resy restaurant that we bought at the end of December.
Also, we were not using the card for 4x at restaurants and 4x on groceries. I have plenty of AMEX MR Points, so we were using 2 Citi Custom Cash Credit Cards for 5x at restaurants and 5x on groceries. Then in 2025, we switched to using the Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card for 5x on groceries ($1,500 quarterly max) and the Discover It Credit Card for 5x at restaurants ($1,500 quarterly max).
In addition, we decided to transfer all 150,000 of Laura’s AMEX MR Points to her Hawaiian Airlines account, then she transferred them to my Hawaiian Airlines account and then I moved them to my Alaska Airlines account (read more about that process here). The next step was to contact AMEX via Online Chat to close the card…

The 7 Miles & Points Tools / Services that I Pay For
Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday! I love free stuff as much as the next person, but there are a few miles and points tools and services that are so incredibly useful, they’re definitely worth paying for. Keep in mind, this isn’t a complete list, so there may be other fantastic tools out there that I haven’t discovered or used yet.
AwardWallet Plus – $49.99 / year
I can’t imagine a world without AwardWallet. They track all my credit card programs, airline programs, hotel programs, shopping portal balances, dining rewards, and much more. I love that they constantly check my accounts, display the current balances, and display expiration dates for all my rewards. The flight schedule change notifications (which sometimes come days / weeks / months before official airline notifications) and upcoming expiration alerts are well worth the cost to me. If you are interested in trying it out, here is my AwardWallet referral link.
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New American Express App Feature: Get Your AMEX Pass to Access 25 Venues + 10% Cash Back on Qualifying Concessions
Good afternoon everyone. I was clicking around the American Express app and stumbled on some new features that are being rolled out. If you sign into the app and click the Account tab in the bottom right corner, then click Try New Features, you will see 3 new features: New Wallets & Merchants, Amex Inspire, and Amex Pass. This post is dedicated to the AMEX Pass feature, but I cover the other 2 features at the bottom of the post. The AMEX Pass creates a special QR code that you can use to access select AMEX venues (25 as of 1/8/25) and you can earn 10% cash back on qualifying concessions by using your enrolled card. Here is the process to set up your AMEX Pass.

3 Upcoming American Express Endings: Redeeming Membership Rewards Points at Newegg & Staples, ShopRunner Benefit & AMEX Auto Purchasing Program
Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. Yesterday, I was reviewing my recent American Express statements and saw a few upcoming changes that I wanted you to be aware of. Thankfully, none of these changes are huge. Without further ado, here are the 3 changes.
Bye bye AMEX MR Redemptions at Newegg.com and Staples.com
Effective March 31, 2025, Card Members will no longer be able to redeem Membership Rewards points on www.newegg.com and www.staples.com.
I have made several purchases at Newegg.com and Staples.com over the years, but have never used my AMEX MR Points to pay for my orders since I assumed it was a bad deal. My assumption was correct! On both websites, you can redeem 14,286 AMEX MR Points to offset $100, which is a terrible redemption at 0.7 CPP. Good riddance to this redemption option!
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Upcoming Changes to Charitable Matches, Gift Card Redemptions, and Rewards Expirations for US Bank Altitude Go, Altitude Connect, Cash+ & Shopper Cash Credit Cards (Effective April 14)
Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday! I was reviewing my US Bank credit cards and noticed a few upcoming changes to these 4 cards: Altitude Go, Altitude Connect, Cash+, and Shopper Cash. All of these changes go into effect on April 14, 2025.
US Bank Altitude Go Credit Card
Here are the major changes, but click here to see the full details:
- Discount on purchased gift cards: Coming in early 2025! Receive discounts of up to 5% on dozens of name brand gift cards.
- Updated rewards earning: 4X points on dining, takeout and restaurant delivery on your first $2,000 each quarter (then 1X point). You will continue to earn 2X points at grocery stores, at gas stations/EV charging stations and on streaming services and 1X point on all other eligible purchases. Plus, $15 credit for annual streaming service purchases. Excludes discount stores/supercenters and wholesale clubs.
- Reward redemption and expiration changes: Points will not expire as long as you keep your account active. To keep your account active, simply make a purchase, maintain a balance or redeem rewards. Points will expire if there is no activity for 12 consecutive billing cycles. You’ll get the most value when you redeem points as a deposit to an eligible U.S. Bank account, at $0.01 per point—where 10,000 points are equal to $100. And, you can redeem points for a monetary charity contribution to a variety of nonprofits, and U.S. Bank will match your contribution at 100%. When redeeming points for a statement credit, travel, gift cards, merchandise, Real-Time Rewards and U.S. Bank Rewards Card, the point values and redemption minimums may vary over time, and will be disclosed upon redemption.
5% discounts on gift cards is not very exciting. The $2,000 quarterly cap on the 4x categories is new, since there is currently no cap on those categories. US Bank might change the redemption minimums for Real-Time Rewards.