Now that 2023 has come to a close, I thought I should do an elite status and wallet plan for 2024. I last wrote a wallet plan quite a while ago, so I’m due for an update. I’ll first talk about the credit cards I plan to use and then the elite statuses I’ll have in 2024.
First up are the elite statuses
British Airways
I will go into 2024 keeping my BA Gold Status, which confers Oneworld Emerald status and lounge access on most flights. Gold Status required me to earn 1 500 tier points and take 4 flights on BA in 2023, and I ended up earning 1 690 tier points and taking 5 flights on BA. I’m not sure what will happen with this one because BA has switched to spend-based Avios earning at a rate that is strictly worse (9x Avios/£) than what I earn with American Airlines now (8x miles/$ ~ 10 miles/£).
American Airlines
I will enter 2024 with AA Platinum Status, which confers Oneworld Sapphire status. Unlike through BA status, I won’t get lounge access, but I will be eligible for complimentary upgrades. I’ll also earn an enhanced 8x miles/$ spent on airfare on both AA and BA. My plan is to use this status when I fly on Alaska or American flights booked into economy that I want to try to get free upgrade on.
Marriott Bonvoy
I successfully kept Titanium Status with Marriott Bonvoy this year. This is now the third year in a row that I’ve had to book a mattress run to maintain status, but I’m lucky that booking a hotel in Richmond, VA on points is a pretty good deal. During 2023, my upgrade rate was just 39%. Outside the US, it was 83% versus 17% in the US…
United Airlines
Thanks to maintaining my Marriott Bonvoy Titanium status, I will keep United Premier Silver status. This status doesn’t confer much, but it does mean I get a free checked bag, priority check-in, and 7x miles/$ spent on airfare. Considering I get it for free, I’m definitely not complaining.
Hilton HHonors
I don’t often stay in Hiltons, but I get Gold Status (mid-tier) through my Amex Platinum, so I’ll be keeping that this year too.
Second, let’s hit the credit cards.
For the purposes of this article, I’m going to peg Marriott Bonvoy points as 1 pt = 0.8 ¢, British Airways Avios at 1 Avios = 1.3 ¢, American Airlines miles at 1 mile = 1.5 ¢. Amex Membership Rewards points as 1 pt = 1.4 ¢, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points as 1 pt = 1.5 ¢. These are the five (non-cashback) rewards currencies I collect off credit cards.
Last time, I had the following credit cards in my arsenal: The American Express Platinum Card, The Amex Blue Cash Everyday, The Marriott Bonvoy Business Card, The Ritz-Carlton Card, The Chase Sapphire Reserve, The Chase Freedom Unlimited. New to the arsenal are: The Chase British Airways Card (which I got in Jan 2023), the The AAdvantage Aviator Red Card (which I got in July 2023), and The Bilt Card (which I just got in Jan 2024).
Is it the simplest setup? Definitely not. Is it overly complicated? No, but it’s getting there honestly…
Airline Co-branded Cards
The AAdvantage Aviator Red Card offers 2x points/$ on American Airlines purchases (3% return) and 1x point/$ on everything else (1.5% return). This card also earns 1 Loyalty Point/$ spent. I picked this one up partially for the welcome bonus (70k AAdvantage miles) but mostly to try it out and see if putting spend on it to get loyalty points on AA would work for me. It hasn’t really though, unfortunately.
The British Airways Card is such a chaotic credit card, which is a bit of an odd thing to say I realize. It’s advertised as earning 3x Avios (BA points) on BA purchases, 2x on hotels, and 1x on everything else. I picked it up in 2023 since BA is my primary airline, and it offers great perks when booking BA award tickets. It also sometimes has strong targeted spending offers (e.g. earn 20,000 bonus Avios after you spend $3000) beyond just the initial welcome offer.
Hotel Co-branded Cards
The Marriott Bonvoy Business Card is my solo business credit card. It offers 6x MP/$ at Marriott hotels (4.8% return), as well as a special rate that gives 7% off the standard rate, so this card gets used for Marriott purchases. It offers 4x MP/$ on restaurants worldwide, US gas stations, wireless telephone services, and on US purchases for shipping. It offers 2x MP/$ (1.6% return) on everything else. This card also offers a 35k point reward certificate each year just for holding onto the card (which can reasonably be expected to save more than $125 on a night at a hotel). This card also gives me 15 elite night credits each year just for holding onto the card, so this card is what lets me be able to bump up from Platinum status to Titanium status every year.
The Ritz-Carlton Card is my favorite credit card. It offers 6x MP/$ at Marriott hotels (4.8% return), so this card gets used for Marriott purchases (sometimes). It offers 3x MP/$ (2.4% return) on dining, car rentals, and airline purchases. I actually used this card recently to rent a car while moving, not so much for the bonus points, but rather for the great protections the card offers. I can do better on dining, and the Amex Platinum is better for airfare. It offers 2x MP/$ (1.6% return) on everything else, which I can do better than as well. This card also offers a 85k point reward certificate each year just for holding onto the card (which I’ve twice used to save >$600/night on a hotel room).
American Express Cards
The Amex Platinum Card offers 5x points/$ on airfare (7% return), so this card gets used for airfare. It offers 1x point/$ (1.4% return) on everything else. I can do better than that, so let’s move to the next card.
The Blue Cash Everyday is my only cashback card. It offers 3% cashback on US groceries, online US retailers, US gas stations. It only offers 1% cashback on everything else. For online retailers and groceries, that’s tough to beat with no annual fee.
Chase Cards
The Sapphire Reserve offers 3x UR points/$ on dining and on all travel (4.5% return), so this card is my go-to for dining purchases and for non-airfare travel expenses (e.g. trains, non-Marriott hotels, and parking). It only offers 1x UR point/$ on everything else (1.5% return).
The Freedom Unlimited is advertised as a cashback card, but it actually earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which can be combined with the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s points earnings. It offers 3x UR points/$ (4.5% return) on dining, which is as good as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, but it doesn’t have the 10% anniversary bonus. The card also offers 3x UR points/$ (4.5% return) at drugstores, but that’s a pretty non-existent category for me. The card offers 1.5x UR points/$ (2.25% return) on everything else, which makes it the best card for me to use for general purchases when I’m not concerned about hitting spend targets elsewhere. This is my go-to card for Costco at this point because Costco only accepts Visa cards in store.
The Bilt Card
The Bilt Card gets its own category because it has a unique feature: it lets you earn 1x point/$ on rent without paying a card processing fee. From the looks of it, about half my monthly expenditure this year will be on rent, so this is a huge game changer. Add in the fact that it earns 2x on travel and 3x on dining, and this card was a no-brainer. This card also has some time-based spend bonuses that can be hard to remember to use correctly, but I just set calendar reminders. Specifically, on the first of the month, travel earns 4x and dining earns 6x, so I try to hold travel/dining expenses to charge on that day for the extra points. The other big draw of this card was that American Airlines is a transfer partner of Bilt, but that goes away in June 2024, so this card may fall out of favor for me when that happens.
Pretty much >95% of everything I buy falls into 5 categories: rent, airfare, Marriott hotels, other travel, and dining.
Obviously, rent goes on the Bilt Card.
There is a winner for airfare most of the month: the Amex Platinum Card, which offers a 7% return (5x MR points/$). There are some caveats to this that I didn’t have before: (1) I learned that the Platinum Card’s travel insurance only works if you pay for the entire flight using it, but the Sapphire Reserve’s works as long as any amount is charged. So, if I’m using a flight certificate that covers most of the cost, I use the Sapphire Reserve sometimes instead for the insurance. (2) The BA Card offers 5x Avios/$ on BA purchases, which is similar in value to 5x MR points (since MR points can transfer to Avios), so if the BA Card has any incentives, I’ll put BA spend there. (3) If I can manage it, I prefer to put airfare on The Bilt Card on the first of the month for 4x points, which are more useful to me than Amex MR points for the most part (at least until the American Airlines transfer ends).
There are clear winners for Marriott hotels: The Bonvoy Business and The Ritz-Carlton Card, which is what should happen, since they are co-branded cards. They offer a 0.3% higher return than the Chase Sapphire Reserve card (6x Marriott points/$ vs 3 UR points/$). But the 7% Bonvoy Business Card discount sets them apart for me.
For virtually all non-airfare travel, the Chase Sapphire Reserve wins. It offers a 4.5% return (3x UR points/$). This card also wins for dining purchases, as detailed above. Except of course for the first of the month, when it goes on the Bilt Card for 6x points/$.
For everything else, it either goes to the Chase Freedom Unlimited for its 1.5x UR points/$ or whatever card I’m working on a spending threshold for. In practice, what this means is that if I’m at a restaurant or traveling, I pull out the Sapphire Reserve.
There are a couple of follow-up questions though that are worth bringing up based on what I’ve just covered because the Amex Platinum and The Ritz-Carlton Card are not cheap credit cards to have.
Is it worth paying $695 for the Amex Platinum, which is only used on airfare? The main goal with the Amex Platinum Card is to earn back the annual fee through the credits the card offers, rather than by earning points to offset its cost. I have a section of a spreadsheet to help me track that I’m actually getting value out of this card. And the answer is “just barely”, which isn’t really what I want in a card. So it’s teetering on the chopping block.
Is it worth paying $450 for a card that’s only used at Marriott hotels? This one, on the other hand, yes it is. The $300 travel credit isn’t completely trivial to use, but I routinely use it before January is over. So the rest of the $150 cost is for an 85k point free night award, which I have multiple times gotten great value out of.
The other card on the chopping block is the Sapphire Reserve. At $550, this card sits between the Platinum and Ritz-Carlton Card. The $300 travel credit this card offers is trivial to use. I don’t even think about it, and just suddenly it’s used. The remaining $250 of annual fee is a bit harder to justify. At the moment, I do get some value out of Lyft Pink and the DoorDash and Instacart credits. The only permanent perk over the Sapphire Preferred is the ability to use Chase points with 50% bonus value, but I don’t use that perk often. When the partner benefits end at the end of 2024 though, this card is on the chopping block.
Let’s see how 2024 goes!
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