Frequent Miler on the Air - Best card for groceries & dining (commenters strike back) | Coffee Break Ep21 | 8-6-24

Starting point is 00:00:00 Here we go. This is not your typical Frequent Miler on the Air episode. This is a standalone segment we're calling Coffee Break. Each Coffee Break segment will cover a single topic related to miles and points. And each Coffee Break is limited to 20 minutes or your money back. Enjoy. Today's coffee break. Best card for groceries and dining. Commenters strike back. On a previous podcast, we discussed the most rewarding card for groceries and dining. And in that show, we had picked out four cards that we thought were pretty good

Starting point is 00:00:46 options for, that were pretty good rewarding options for both of those categories, for both groceries and dining. We covered in that show, the Amex Gold card, the City Strata Premier card, the Capital One Saver One card, and the U.S US Bank Altitude Reserve card. If you want to listen to that show, that was Coffee Break episode 20. But we got lots of feedback from that show. A lot of people saying, hey, you forgot this card, you forgot that card. So what we're going to do today is I'm going to read the feedback that we got from our listeners. And Nick is going to say why we left out the card purposely, or yeah, we should have included it.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Our bad. All right. Ready to go next? I, you know, I, I hope so. I will say that I am a little hopped up on Dramamine today because I boarded a cruise ship. And before that I had a couple of water taxis in Venice. So, so I, I, I up on Dramamine today because I boarded a cruise ship. And before that, I had a couple of water taxis in Venice. So I had the Dramamine this morning, so I'm a little slower

Starting point is 00:01:50 than usual. So I'm going to preemptively warn that maybe my answers will need to be filled out by Greg, but we'll see. Let's do it. And of course, don't forget that you should subscribe at frequentmiler.com slash subscribe and wherever you're watching or listening to this, don't forget to check the show notes if you need the time stamps because you want to go back and review why we didn't talk about one of these or why we think we should have all right greg what's up first all right sluggish neck uh first up is yuri g 25 30 who says you forgot city custom cash did we forget it greg or did we intentionally leave that out i'd say we intentionally left that out but why why did we why did we leave that out? I'd say we intentionally left that out. But why? Why did $500 spend each month. It's only in the category you spend the most. So you can't spend, you can't have just one card and spend on both grocery and dining and

Starting point is 00:02:48 hope to get 5X. So you have to get multiple city custom caches. So, you know, the premise of the show was what one card is good for grocery and dining. City custom cache, you need at least two of that card to make it good for grocery and dining. Okay. Next up, YuriG2530, once again, you forgot Amex Everyday Preferred. Well, okay. So forget isn't the right term here, but a couple of reasons why we left that one out. First of all, there's no dining bonus.

Starting point is 00:03:18 So it's not a one card solution for grocery and dining. And second, the grocery bonus bumps it up by 50% if you make 30 transactions a month from 3X to 4.5X, but only on up to $6,000 spend per year. So you're talking about $500 a month. Most people probably spend more than that on groceries, I'm thinking. And so not only is that not probably gonna cover

Starting point is 00:03:39 all of your grocery needs, you get nothing special for dining and you have to use the card 30 times a month in order to get that bonus. That's just not to me a practical card for most people for grocery spend bonus. Totally agree. transfer partners to LifeMiles, Hyatt, Alaska, United, Turkish, and Air Canada. There's no annual fee. I don't get how built isn't mentioned. Plus, the promo is a 100% transfer bonus on rent day sometimes. Why didn't we include that?

Starting point is 00:04:14 We've talked about that card enough in the situations where it makes sense. It was also in the crazy thing, I think, a segment of our last week's Frequent Miler on the Air, for the record. But anyway, because there's no dining bonus, or rather no grocery bonus on that card. So that could be a good card for dining potentially, but not for grocery. Yep, it's that simple. All right, then RSW said, the Amex Hilton Surpass is effectively about 7% up to the $15,000 free night certificate threshold. All right, now I have to explain that. So the Hilton Surpass card does earn a bonus for both grocery and

Starting point is 00:04:54 dining. So instead of its standard three points per dollar, it earns six points per dollar. So since we value Hyatt points at around half a cent each, that's like getting 3% back for grocery and dining. But what, what RSW is pointing out is that if you spend exactly $15,000 on the card and spend it in these categories, you get, you also get a free night certificate. And I think if you do the math, assuming that you're going to use the free night certificate for a stay that would have been 120,000 points, basically the value of that certificate plus the points earned from the spend adds up to 7% return on that $15,000 spend. Yeah. I mean, okay. If you're going to spend exactly $15,000, then yeah, that's a good card to do it on potentially, you know, good enough anyway to use for grocery and dining.

Starting point is 00:05:56 So yeah, maybe we should have mentioned that. I think that that's one that probably belonged in there. But keep in mind that that math does revolve around spending exactly $15,000 and only in those two categories. So if you're going to spend on the card in any other categories, then it might not be the best. So that's true about a number of the cards that we talked about anyway. And if you're going to spend far more than $15,000 or any less than $15,000, then the value is going to drop depending on which direction you're going in. Any less than $15,000 and it's going to drop depending on which direction you're going in any less than 15. And it's going to drop pretty significantly any more than 15. And it slowly starts to decrease in value over the amount that you spend over that from

Starting point is 00:06:33 7% to less than 7%. But at the same time, like I said, I think that's a reasonable one that we could have included. Agreed. Okay. Next up, Captain Greg, who says, I think the Wyndham earner plus card should be included in these discussions. I know it's not transferable points, but 4X in both categories with an annual fee that's offset by points makes it a pretty awesome card. It's the default grocery

Starting point is 00:07:00 and dining card in our household. That's interesting. You know, I don't ever think of that card, but I think that's an interesting one. What do you think, Craig? Yeah, so we talk a lot about the earner business card because that one gives you diamond status and it gives you a lot more points annually and it gives you 8X at gas stations. So we talk a lot about that card we don't talk a lot

Starting point is 00:07:26 about the plus card which is the personal card that it only costs 75 bucks a year and it gives you uh 7,500 points each year automatically upon renewal so that offsets the annual fee and yet earns 4x in both categories we value Wyndham points at a little tiny bit over one cent each. So it's like getting 4% towards Wyndham stays and Vacasa vacation rentals. It's good. I mean, we were trying to do the show based on cards that we'd recommend to sort of like the most people. And Wyndham points are pretty darn specific.

Starting point is 00:08:04 You know, Hilton, I could say, yeah, a lot of people would want to stay at Hilton. I'm not sure Wyndham is sort of a broad enough chain to say this is like a broadly recommended card. Yeah, I agree. And I let you take that one entirely because there's an announcement going on in my cabin. I did mention that I'm on a cruise. And so doing one of my free MSC cruises from Casino Status Matching. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can Google frequent miler, how to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches. And so there is an announcement going in about six different languages right now.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Yeah. And that's ironic happening when I just mentioned the Wyndham earner business card, which gives you diamond status, and then you can match to a casino diamond status and get free cruises that way. So, um, there's just a little coincidence there. All right. Moving on. You can. Yeah. Nick's muted his announcement while I while I read this one. Eric says, I'm always a little surprised the Sapphire Preferred doesn't come up in these discussions. Online grocery isn't every grocery store, of course, but I've been able to get 3.1x pretty easily on my grocery spend and 3.1x on dining too. Now, this definitely requires some explanation. First of all, the Sapphire Preferred earns three points per dollar

Starting point is 00:09:25 for dining. That's fine. And it also earns it for online grocery. Now, what is that? What is online grocery? What is online grocery? I mean, I think it's things like Instacart and maybe things like DoorDash groceries, but that I think would fit under dining probably. Anyway, but what a number of people who have written in have told us is that they get the 3X when using a grocery store app, like in-store to pay for their groceries. So they could go into like a Kroger, for example, and pay through the Kroger app for their groceries and still get the 3X. So I'm pretty sure we've heard that about Kroger and I think Publix, which is a popular store in the Southeast. So that explains the 3X for both of those categories. What about that extra

Starting point is 00:10:20 0.1? Well, the Sapphire Preferred has this thing where after each year upon your anniversary, they give you an extra 0.1 points for all your spend. So let's say you've spent $100 and you get one point. If you spent $100,000, you get a thousand points as like an anniversary bonus. So that's so piddly that I don't really think about it much. And normally when talking about Sapphire Preferred, I don't talk about that bonus, but that's where that 3.1 comes from. Yeah. This is one that just today it dawned on me might be an interesting one for me to experiment with. We don't have a Sapphire Preferred in my household right now, but I'm curious because we do end up doing a lot of grocery shopping at Walmart and our local

Starting point is 00:11:15 Walmart codes as grocery whenever Chase runs a grocery promotion, like every now and then they'll run a grocery promotion where you can get extra points per dollar on various cards at grocery stores. And my local Walmart, and this is not true of most, but it's true of I think some Walmarts because it probably can't just be mine, happens to code it as grocery for Chase for some reason. Not as grocery for Amex, but it does for Chase. So it makes me wonder if I used Walmart Pay in that store, if it would earn 3x on the Sapphire Preferred. I don't know. I'm split as to whether I would think Walmart Pay will code the same all over the place, and it probably doesn't. But now I want to try.

Starting point is 00:11:54 Yeah, yeah. That'd be really interesting. Looking forward to hearing the results of that. So what do you think, though? Should we have included this? I hesitate because if not for that, there'd be no grocery store where I'd be able to use this. But Kroger and Publix are pretty widely available out there. A lot of people probably have a Kroger or Publix or some sort of related Kroger brand nearby.

Starting point is 00:12:18 So maybe we should have. But I had completely forgotten if I had heard that it works with the grocery app. So, I mean, I guess it's worth including, but I wouldn't probably recommend it to somebody because I wouldn't know for sure whether or not they're going to be able to get that part of it. Right, right. It's also like it requires so much explanation. It's tough. But at the same time, Sapphire Preferred is such a popular card. So many people have it that it's good to talk about this feature because I bet you that most Sapphire Preferred cardholders don't think about online grocery and would have never thought about buying their groceries through the store app in order to.

Starting point is 00:12:58 Probably not. And really thinking about it, recommending a grocery and dining card to somebody is kind of the equivalent of recommending like a single card solution, right? Because those are the categories most people spend most money on. So and that's a good card to have for, you know, you've got some travel protections on there. You've got, you know, a couple of ancillary benefits and whatnot. So that might be one to consider in the future if we find that that's more widely available, so to speak,

Starting point is 00:13:25 if there are more ways to get that 3x online grocery. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last one. Badugu? I'm not sure how to say that. Wrote, surprised that Aeroplan card was not discussed, considering for the grocery as it is uncapped. So just a little background, the Chase Aeroplan card is a $95 annual fee card and it earns three points per dollar for grocery stores and dining. And it also has other bonuses. Like you get 500 bonus points

Starting point is 00:13:59 with $2,000 of calendar month spend up to a total of $6,000 per month spent. So if I did my math right and you spend exactly up to a $2,000 threshold, I think you can earn up to 3.25 points per dollar at groceries and dining. What do you think, Nick? Okay. I like aeroplane points, but I'd much rather have transferable points. With so many ways to earn good return using cards that aren't transferable points for dining and grocery. I think I'd be pretty hesitant to earn a single airline currency for my entire dining and grocery spend. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I agree with that overall, but I will admit like when coming up with the show this one didn't occur

Starting point is 00:14:47 sort of like that windham card it just didn't occur to me that that the both of those cards earn multiples for both grocery and dining so i didn't even consider them when outlining that show um i still think we got the sort of main ones that would appeal to the widest range of people on our show. But I think they're definitely worth considering. So the Wyndham one for Wyndham fans and the Aeroplan one for those who like to earn Aeroplan points and like to spend on the Aeroplan card because you can do things like bump up your status level with enough spend on that card. So there's some other reasons you might want to do that there. Aeroplane card, maybe. If you like Aeroplane a lot and you are going to spend towards keeping your elite status or getting the elite status boost, then yeah, it might work out for

Starting point is 00:15:36 some folks. Like I said, I think I'd be kind of hesitant, but I do like Air Canada Aeroplane a lot. I use their miles often enough that I could see where that might be appealing. All right. Actually, one other reason it might have brought appeal is you don't actually have to travel. You don't have to use your Aeroplane points for rewards in order to get 1.25 cents per point value because you could use your card to pay for travel and then redeem the points against that travel and get 1.25 cents per point value from your points. At least this thing stand now. Chase is known to change up the value of those pay yourself back features. But as we're recording this, that's the value of it. So that's pretty good. I mean, that gives you that would give you

Starting point is 00:16:19 what 3.75, not counting those 500 bonus point increments. Yeah, but keep in mind that usually I think that benefit is capped at redeeming for up to $600 in travel per year. I think this year maybe it's still unlimited, but yeah, that's long term. There is a cap on how much you can pay yourself back for in terms of travel. So there you have it. All right. All right. That brings us to the end of this week's coffee break, right?

Starting point is 00:16:48 So what do you think? Would any of these like surpass, quote unquote, surpass the recommendations we gave last week? I still think we hit the best ones, but I think that we got some great suggestions in here and it led to some really good things to think about. And I'd say that maybe the closest one that should have been in there that Hilton surpassed maybe, but again, it's limited to Hilton fans and it's best maxed out with exactly $15,000 spend. And that's not what most people are going to be like trying to do with their grocery and dining spend as in general is my guess.

Starting point is 00:17:33 Yeah. I mean, it may be an amount that you can spend or you might spend, but having to focus on it is a bit of a challenge. Now, we're not saying it's not a challenge worth taking on if you are into the game and you're focused and you know what you're doing. But, you know, for somebody who's new, it's not probably a card that would come to mind as saying, oh, yeah, this is your one card solution. I think that's what we're saying there. But, yeah, I think lots of great suggestions. And like Greg said, I didn't even remotely consider the consumer Wyndham card or the Aeroplan card. So the suggestions were great. And the good shout out here for the comments.

Starting point is 00:18:08 It's always worth reading the comments, both on regular posts and also on these podcast posts, because sometimes people do chime in with some really good additions. So I learn things from reading the comments all the time. Same here. All right. Very good. Well, that brings us to the end. If you enjoyed this coffee break, don't forget to subscribe at frequentmiler.com slash subscribe.

Starting point is 00:18:26 Check out our card talk episodes and our full length frequent miler on the air episodes, all dropping on our podcast channel and all your favorite podcast platforms. Thank you. And we'll see you next time. Bye everybody.

Frequent Miler on the Air - Best card for groceries & dining (commenters strike back) | Coffee Break Ep21 | 8-6-24

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