My 2025 Credit Card Strategy: Maximize Points, Airline Status, Free Night Certificates

Today we're going to look at my credit card game plan for 2025. We'll look at cards I'm excited for, general strategy, and also how I'm navigating the endgame. Big favourite before we dive in is to give this a thumbs up to help with the algorithm. If you're new and you want to maximize your credit card points, then consider subscribing. As a background, I'm actually a credit card person. I don't just talk about cards, I have a ton, and I use the perks. My strategy is centred around getting outsized value, so for example, I'm happy to spend money on annual fees if the rewards and perks are substantial. I'm not against team cash back, if anything, most of my family is on team cash back. I guess a good question for yourself is if you were to spend $15,000, would you rather get 2% back, so 300 in cash back, or put it on something like an Amex Hilton Aspire, get a 15k free night reward, and use that at a Conrad or World of Vastoria? For me, I'd pick the latter because I wouldn't be able to get those nights for only 300, I can't just go there with the cash, I'd probably have to pay 5 or 10 times as much. For some people, it's going to be a no though because they don't care about those destinations, or they just don't want to travel that far. Or even if they like skiing and go to Park City, maybe they prefer Airbnbs, or prefer getting a ski truck and staying in that. So with that said, for my circumstances, I'm pretty much looking for three things. Number one is going to be opportunities to pay X to get X plus Y value. For example, pay a get a category 1 and 4 certificate, where I get more than that in value. With that, we do aggressively stack Hotel Keeper cards, the ones that come with free nights, and also some airline cards that have credits, and also other rewards. One funny example is that I know a lot of people hate the changes that happen to the Delta cards, but for us, it actually made a ton of sense because it made those cards more viable and more justifiable to keep long term. I have both the Delta Reserve and Delta Reserve Business, and I was probably going to cancel one or both of them until those changes. For the Hotel Keeper cards, if you travel a few times a year, there's going to be occasions where you can use them and get value. Some might not be as exciting, maybe only saving $50 or $100 per that $100 annual fee, but it's still something, it's two times above that fee. Okay, focus number two is category spend. For bigger categories that we spend a lot on that have good cards, get relevant cards. So for example, dining and groceries are pretty straightforward, and if you are a business owner and you do a lot of ad spend, then getting relevant cards over there. On the other hand, for things like streaming, we don't really optimize it because even though we pay for some services, it's not enough for us to care. The two that don't have credits are going to be Netflix and YouTube Premium. For hotel cards, we have all the ones for the major hotel chains, and when we are spending at that hotel, we'll use the relevant card. For flights and general travel, we have a lot of options, and yeah, it just depends on if it's specific to an airline, or if it's general. The third key is spend-based incentives. Opportunities to spend X where you get a reward. This might be for elite status, or additional free nights. This is definitely way easier for businesses or people that are dropshipping, or doing things on the side where you have to spend money to make money. But still also worth considering if you rent or you have to do estimated tax payments. For the latter two, you can oftentimes use your credit cards if you pay a fee. For example, if you have investment income, dividend income, or you do contract work on the side, then you probably need to make estimated tax payments. You can use your credit card to make those payments and earn points of rewards, or cash back, for that 1.82% fee, or maybe a bit higher. Even if you're on team cash back, it can work, but might not move the needle as much. Another way to think of it is would you pay 1.82% to get 2%. It's pretty much an arbitrage and easy value. At the same time, it might be immaterial. For example, when in numbers for that 15k tax payment, you're only netting but it's not that big of a deal. On the other hand, going back to the American Express Hilton Surpass, you could put that same 15k spent in order to generate that night. So would you pay $2.73 for that Hilton free night reward? Some people would, and others wouldn't. For us, and for a lot of you guys who I've ran into on trips, I think you would. For example, based off a Japan trip in August where we stayed at Roku LXR, and the one we're doing next year in February, to Niseko again. The alternative is paying three times as much out-of-pocket or staying in substantially worse hotels. To be fair though, we might also be an edge case because we are trying to do a bunch of travel. Part of that is for content for the Manu Roams and Sebby Fung channel, and to scale up that travel side. The other thing too is that we are trying to get travel out of the system and then maybe take a break for a year or two. But yeah, right now there's still a ton we want to see and do. Also, we did travel a ton in the past, but we didn't really want to share it as close to the travel date as we do nowadays. One big reason is that we feel a lot safer now. That brings us to the sponsor of today's video, Delete.me. The holidays aren't just a wonderful time for you, it's also a wonderful time for burglars and criminals. So there's two parts to this. 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Okay, so everything we covered is more my broad strategy. Let's get a bit into specifics. Dining groceries and category ones, I feel like I don't need to talk about here because we talk about that pretty much all the time. Keeper ones are more interesting because they're not all made equal. For example, there are some low or no spend ones where the focus is free nights and to use any credits, if any. This would include the Chase IHG Premier, Chase Ritz-Carlton, Chase Bonvoy Business, and Amex Bonvoy Brilliant. In our case, the perks there outweigh the annual fees and they're there for the perks and that's pretty much it. Again, paying X to get X plus Y value, paying maybe 500 to get 1000 in value, or $95 to get 200 or 300 in value. If I'm staying in an IHG property, let's say the region Taipei, then I'll obviously use the IHG card, but that's pretty much it. I'm not really using the IHG card for everyday purchases and otherwise carrying it around. The next level's moderate spend where the focus is free nights and maybe basic status. Here for us, we have the Chase United Quest, American Express Hilton Surpass, and American Express Hilton Aspire. Work spend, business spend, and kind of the other stuff is probably why we're so aggressive, otherwise I don't think we would be. The United Quest is basically the farm United Silver status. Same day changes and Economy plus Seeding is nice. I generally prefer Delta but sometimes I do have to fly United given that we are in SFO and they own 50% of the market share. For high spend stuff, it's mostly around chasing elite status. Here we have the Chase World of Hyatt, Amex Delta Reserve, and Citi American Airlines Platinum card. In addition to all of this, we are actively still chasing intro bonuses. Main ones being Chase Inc. Cash, Inc. Unlimited, and Inc. Preferred. So while a lot of other cards and chase cards like the Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve operate off 24 or 48 month clocks, Inc. cards don't have this language. Given this, you can have multiple Inc. cards and even multiple of the same type. And I know that might sound weird, but there are a lot of legitimate reasons why you might want to have multiple Inc. Preferreds or Inc. Unlimiteds if you are trying to separate out expenses. For example, if you're spending a few thousand or hundreds of thousands in Meta or Google ads every month, then you'd want multiple cards. Also, since we have separate entities for different things, we apply using different EINs as well. Again, they are different companies and have different purposes. But yeah, there are people that have multiple Inc. cards with the same social, as sole props, and that's been fine. Your mileage may vary, but there are probably a million reasons why you might want to stay under 524 for these Inc. cards. With that said though, I probably will be adding some non-chase cards as well this year. So I'm pretty much out of Amex, I'm keeping through cards obviously, but there's nothing else I can really add to get additional bonuses. I pretty much worked my way through all their cards. My clock for the Alaska and Alaska Business card is up though, so that's in play. Same thing for Citi, American Airlines, and American Airlines Business, that should also be fine. Wyndham and Wyndham Business I couldn't get approved for, but given the current changes, I don't think I'm missing much. I am also debating some airline cards that are probably going to be testers, such as Qatar. Those make sense for year one, especially given the intro bonus, but end up being a lot more questionable for year two. But yeah, the end game is definitely an interesting spot. There's a ton of people that don't like that idea of 524, and think that it shouldn't matter. I think that's true if you're only looking for 5 cards, or maybe 10 cards. If you're aiming for 10, 20, or 30, or more, then it does matter a lot. But not really if you're looking for 10, or 20, or more, especially if you are stacking those hotelkeeper cards. There's pretty much only three big programs that have good intro bonuses, with a lot of cards that operate off clocks. So Chase, Citi, and Bank of America. As much as I love American Express cards, and I have a ton of them, there's no point rushing to them. If your goal is to maximize value, which oftentimes means maximizing trips, then you'd want to prioritize the right cards at the right time. So the beginning, get anything to get on the board, that's fine, that's pretty much building your credit. But otherwise, start with Chase, then probably move to Capital One and US Bank, which are a bit tougher, and then issuers like Barclays and Citi. And then finally, American Express. After you finish off Amex, you're probably going to be right in time to circle back to Chase. In terms of the 2025 plan, for myself, one big focus is obviously to travel more, but also to help you guys travel more as well. So again, sharing those trip reports over on the travel channels, that'd be fun in many realms, and how to use points there. But also probably trying to do some redemption guides as well, so walking through how to actually do the booking. And we do have a few of those edited, but it does feel a lot slower and a bit more boring, so I've held off. But yeah, maybe it's fine that there's no jump cuts and ton of b-roll and stuff for tutorials, and it is a bit slower, but let me know. Also not really a points or miles redemption, but we really want to do Antarctica, and we're hoping to make it work in 2025. It's been on the bucket list, but I can't wait to see some pudgy and cute penguins. On that note, if you are someone that wants to learn about cards, and you want to support the channel, we do have links on the website, asksebi.com, and also down below in the description box. Also in case you're curious, we have an advertiser disclosure down in the description box as well. Make sure the links are competitive, that they work for you and your circumstances, but otherwise it is a huge way to support the channel, so thank you in advance. If you made it to this point, leave a penguin emoji in the comments down below, and I'll try to heart it and also respond. Three questions. Number one, what's your credit card game plan for 2025? Number two, any travel redemption, either plans or goals? Number three, any personal growth plans? Maybe a bit personal and people don't care, but Mandy and I have been pretty good about working out when we're at home, but when we travel, it's been tough. Consistency is tough, and I feel like we just don't push ourselves as hard compared to at Berries. Also, food is really tough. So first off, it tastes delicious, and second off, you're in those places, you arguably should be enjoying those foods. But yeah, we'd love some tips. Big favor, thumbs up, share this, but otherwise hope you liked it. See you next time.