Sometimes I play the credit cards game, to get a little bit of bonuses without paying money. I’m a pretty-inactive member of reddit.com/r/churning. Many friends have asked me “if I don’t want to think about it and just get a decent bit of credit card rewards what should I get?” Basically, what’s the 80/20?

I tried to check /r/churning, but it’s an insane mess, I think mostly because this question is complicated, because obviously that’s the CC companies' game. Nobody will just make a card that is Strictly The Best, because they’re all grabbing the tiny percent of edge from people who aren’t quite using their cards to the max potential. So, everyone in /r/churning is trying to figure out how they particularly can get a tiny percent of edge because they always fly Delta or buy a lot of groceries or something. And it’s the kind of nerds who love to get a tiny bit of edge.

So for me, there are a lot of answers, and I feel like I should have a good canned one. It depends on a lot. Let me tell you a few of your options, depending on how much you want to spend:
- Level 0: 40/1/$0. 40% of the benefits for 1% of the work and 0 dollars.
- Level 1: 60/1/$100. 60% of the benefits for 1% of the work and $100/year ish.
- Level 2: 80/20/$100. 80% of the benefits for 20% of the work and $100/year ish.
- Level 3 and beyond: beats me. I think I’m at about level 2.

Level 0:

At this level, you basically never want to think about which credit card you have. I think that for you the Chase Freedom Unlimited is the way to go. Click a link here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/5ta38h/official_chase_freedom_unlimited_referral_thread/ (or if it’s later than about July 2017, search for the new Freedom Unlimited Referral Thread)
Simple 1.5% cash back on everything, and $150 signup bonus. And Chase’s web site is not as terrible as some others.
(I think this because I feel like I’ve heard about it on forums sometimes. so, confidence about 70%. also, I gave you the /r/churning link, b/c if you click someone’s link there, they get $100 referral bonus, which doesn’t hurt. I would give you my own referral link but I don’t have a Freedom Unlimited so I can’t, unfortunately.)

Level 1:

Here, you basically never want to think about which credit card you have but you are willing to spend about $100/year on it. Two options, and they both give you Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which you can redeem for a bunch of different mileage programs, or Amazon or whatever. They are pretty good points. Plus, on either of these, you’ll get 50k bonus points after you spend $4k within the first 3 months - so get the card then use it as much as possible within that time frame.

Chase Sapphire Reserved

$450/year, but $300 of travel expenses (planes, hotels, airbnbs, etc) gets automatically refunded. So if you’re using it, and you travel, it’s effectively $150/year. Gives you a bunch of points and some other travelly benefits (some lounge access, reimbursement for TSA Global Entry).
(More info on this card, and the difference between it and Preferred.) No referral link for this one, but you can get there on that “more info” link.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

$95/year after the first year, gives you almost as many points. Good in-between if you don’t want to spend quite $150, or if you don’t think you’ll spend $300 on travel in a year. Apply here (my personal referral link).

Just get one of these cards and then use it for everything. Then one day you will have a ton of points and you can book a flight or something.
(boy, this sounds like I’m paid by Chase, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m not. They just do tend to have the best points for most people. Note that if you have an airline you fly a lot, especially Southwest, you might want to get the card for that airline instead, as long as it has a 30k or more point signup bonus.)

Level 2

I’m gonna leave this part of the guide for another day.