Two years ago, I shared with everyone one of many many hobbies: the credit card game. Since then, I have kept up with updates, but 2025 is bringing about such sweeping changes I need to not just update past posts, but completely rewrite them.
In case you missed it, the TL;DR is that the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) annual fee is hiking from $550 to $795 (a 45% increase) and the Sapphire point redemption bonuses in the Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) portal is being replaced by “Points Boost.”
Are the cards still worth it? Read the details to find out!
As a follow-up to my post about the Chase ecosystem, I wanted to follow-up about the AmEx ecosystem. While it is more work to redeem points for high value, AmEx offers simplicity over Chase in other ways.
And if you travel internationally a lot, AmEx points – called Membership Rewards (MRs) – transfer directly to airline partners that make for some incredible deals.
Read more to find out how to add these cards to your quiver!
Now that I have introduced the credit card game – and all of the necessary precautions about it – it’s time to dig in and start teaching how to play it. Whenever folk engage me wanting to get started, they typically ask the same first question: “if you could have one card, what would it be?”
And to that I have a consistent reply: “It’s not a single card, but a single account: Chase. Then, two Chase cards, where only one needs to be in your wallet at a time: the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Freedom Unlimited.”
“You cheated, but fine. Why both?”
Read the post to find out!
Here is a post explaining how to get out of credit card debt if you have any. To reiterate what I said in my last post: “The first rule of the credit card game is that if you ever carry a balance, no matter how small, for a single month – stop. Take all of the cards out of your wallet, put them in a drawer, and do not continue playing until you are not paying a penny in monthly interest payments.”
I say this as credit card interest rates are insanely high, and thus paying them off is incredibly challenging. So, this guide is a hack to help those that need it, and it’s required before I can get into explaining all the parts of the game. So, if you’re not ready to start playing, or if something happens mid-game and you need help with credit card debt: this post is for you!
I am starting a new series around different credit card systems here on my blog. Yes, this is still a blog about the software industry primarily. No, do not expect me to only write about one topic in any particular order; I do this in my spare time and write about what I am inspired to write about in the moment. While this post is more of an “intro post” to this new series, I need to kick off with some finance 101 before I start diving into the credit card game itself.
It was October, 2019 when I realized that I was going to change jobs (from Facebook to Zillow). I was excited, but it was bittersweet; I was working with a lot of great people, and it was going to be hard to say goodbye. On top of that, I was in the middle of a project, and I am not one to leave without having a strong transition plan. So, I pushed my start date to January 2020 so that I could have the time needed to wrap things up and leave my current teammates in a good spot. While I don’t regret this decision, it had unintended consequences that I only just learned about this week, more than two years later in February, 2022.
