Chase vs Amex Trifecta Explained (Why I Use BOTH)

so I have both the chase Trifecta and the AmEx Trifecta and I pay combined Annual fees of one thousand forty dollars every single year to have these two credit card setups however the chase Trifecta only accounts for 95 of those annual fees whereas the AmEx Trifecta accounts for the remaining 945 dollars in fees and usually when you pay that much money for something you expect to get a ton of value back in return however despite the big differences in the big gaps between those two Annual fees of the two trifectas what I've got to say

is that over the past few years of using these two setups the value that they've been both able to give me personally has been pretty close to equal so in this video what I want to do is just talk to you guys in a very honest and conversational way so I've got absolutely nothing scripted here nothing planned but I really just want to talk about what's on the top of my mind about these two credit card setups and why I love them both pretty equally and I've used them both so much over the past few

years I like a lot of things about the chase Trifecta and the AmEx Trifecta they both got their own own advantages and disadvantages and another thing is that those disadvantages kind of disappear and get offset a little bit as you combine these credit cards together these six credit cards together so they kind of amplify all the good things about a credit card setup when you use them together they kind of fill in the gaps that the others missing so I also supplement that a little bit with a few other credit cards and I'm just going

to cover all that here in this video so comment down below if you'd like to see videos like this where I just kind of talk off the top of my head and have no script or anything prepared because I want to put out more content and I love to make videos like this in the future so let me know down below so the chase Trifecta consists of three personal Chase credit cards which are going to be the no annual fee Freedom Flex the no annual fee Freedom unlimited and then the 95 per year Chase Sapphire

preferred which is the card that I use in my own Chase Trifecta setup although some people do throw in the 550 per year Chase Sapphire Reserve instead for me I just like the cheaper preferred because it does have a lot of similar features a lot of similar travel insurances and benefits but most importantly it's got the same game one-to-one travel Transfer Partners as the sapphire Reserve so I'd much rather pay 95 as opposed to 550 to have access to the same one-to-one Transfer Partners now I also use the sapphire preferred to get 3x points per

dollar on streaming but other than that I'm not putting that much spending on the card I do use it for parking every now and then if I buy a parking spot at the airport I get 2x points per dollar on travel but other than that it's not a high spend card for me so it's mainly about its benefits I do take advantage of the primary auto rental coverage on the sapphire preferred so anytime I rent a car I'll use my CSP and then just get the primary auto rental coverage and decline whatever insurance is the

credit card or the car rental company is trying to offer me saves me maybe 20 bucks a day when I'm renting a car which adds up over time and uh I know some people like that feature on the sapphire preferred I also was able to get a 60 000 Point sign up bonus when I got the card almost four years ago but every now and then Chase does offer limited time elevated bonuses of up to 80 000 or even a hundred thousand points that we saw a couple of years ago but 80 000 points tends

to be the limited time elevated bonus we see on the sapphire preferred so if you're ever thinking about getting that card at some point I'd highly recommend you just wait for a higher bonus to pop up whether that's online or in Branch sometimes the in-branch offers if you go to a physical Chase branch location can be a little bit better so just look up data points online watch YouTube videos when there are these higher increased offers going on there was just one a few months ago but that has expired now so we're back down to

60 000 points as I'm filming this but overall Savvy preferred great card really about those Transfer Partners and some of the insurances and the primary auto rental coverage at least for me and my setup then for the freedom Flex that card was a very good card for me because I got an awesome signup bonus of 20 000 Chase Ur Points Plus 5x points per dollar on groceries for the first year that I had this card so I used this a ton for groceries to get 5x back on groceries but it also gives 5x points per

dollar in rotating quarterly categories that changes up every three months so you got categories like gas stations Amazon PayPal grocery stores even and restaurants and a few other things Target was a category this year earlier this year so great card overall for those High spend categories that you use every day in your life Freedom Flex very versatile card you do have to activate those 5x categories when Chase sends you an email every three months so make sure you never forget to do that after you do that it's pretty easy to take advantage of it because

next month it's going to be for gas stations so I'll have it on my Apple pay on my iPhone I'll probably carry the card with me too in case certain gas station that I'm going to doesn't accept Apple pay and then I'll be able to get 5x points per dollar on gas and then for the freedom unlimited card this is also a 20 000 Point sign up bonus that I was able to get when I got the card maybe three or four years ago but mainly I'm using this card as my catch-all card so it

earns 1.5 chase points per dollar on everything I really like that and I find that valuable I know there's some other cards out there that earn two percent two points per dollar or two percent cash back but the 1.5 points per dollar on the freedom unlimited really is valuable to me because again I'm taking those chase points that I'm earning from this card from the freedom flex and any other Chase in card I transfer them over to my Sapphire Preferred Card which has those one-to-one Transfer Partners and with those Partners I like to transfer out

to Hyatt a lot where I can very easily get two to three cents per point or even higher obviously sometimes I'm redeeming for flights as well but the hotels with Hyatt I find that the main way that I'm using my Chase cards so 1.5 points per dollar on the freedom unlimited really becomes more like three percent back or four point five percent back when I take those points and transfer them to Hyatt I find that very very valuable as a catch-all cards so catch all card Freedom unlimited rotating categories Freedom flex and then I use

the sapphire preferred for streaming some miscellaneous travel and really for those Transfer Partners now some other advantages the chase Trifecta has includes things like limited time partner benefits so right now I believe that is lift doordash and instacart those are some nice limited time benefits that chase partners with where you get I think like 5x back on Lyft a few other limited time trials and things like that and other benefits with those Brands Chase is always changing them up every few years Chase also has some offers where you can find within your Chase account where

you just just go ahead and add those offers to your individual Chase cards and those could be things like getting extra cash back or statement credits at the grocery store or specific Brands where you're shopping online maybe get five percent back here or ten percent back there so those are always very easy to add to your Chase Card manually or you can add them automatically whenever you log into your Chase account by downloading the card pointers extension which is an extension that I highly recommend I've talked about in other videos so that'll automatically add your

Chase offers to your cards give you some extra value some extra cash back and those are really a lot of the advantages I see with the chase Trifecta and how I use it in my daily spending now for some of the disadvantages the big thing that comes to mind for me and for a lot of other people is the categories and the multipliers like I said some of those 5x categories that rotate on the freedom Flex are valuable but I would rather see a consistent grocery category or a consistent gas category or ideally both across

the chase Trifecta so you get 3x back on online groceries with the sapphire preferred but it's not all groceries so I don't really use online grocery freeze I don't spend money on that I go to the grocery store I've got food allergies so I like to read the ingredient labels so weird as that sounds but Freedom Flex like I said before has this rotating 5x categories which occasionally is going to be gas stations and occasionally is going to be grocery stores but that's only for one out of the four quarters per year for each of

those things so I would rather have a consistent steady category of groceries or of gas stations in the chase Trifecta and that's how I would improve it but that's where the AmEx Trifecta comes into play for me so the big card over there is the AmEx Gold Card which gets 4X points per dollar at grocery stores also 4X points per dollar on dining at restaurants and other places like that so it's a very good food credit card for me so it's getting four Amex points per dollar which can be very very valuable Amex membership rewards

points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points are kind of competitors you could transfer those same Amex points to a lot of similar partners that chase has as well it does not have Hyatt so that's why I said I like to use my chase points for Hyatt whereas Amex it has a lot more Transfer Partners with a lot more flights Airlines things like that so I use my AmEx points for more of international business class flights things like that long distance long-haul flights that's where you can find maybe like four five six plus cents per point in

value which is way higher than the the one cent per point value that you typically can find inside the AmEx travel portal when booking flights but anyway for the AmEx Gold Card you're also getting 3x points per dollar when booking flights with the airline or through Amex travel so those are kind of the major spending categories there 3x on flights and then 4X on groceries and dining plus you have a 250 annual fee which you can offset with 240 worth of annual credits for Uber and select dining Partners the Uber credit for me is much

easier to use because you could use it for Uber rides or ubereats whereas the dining credit is only available with select dining Partners like GrubHub Shake Shack and a few others I use that every now and then I don't use it as much as I should sometimes sometimes I do forget about the Uber credit I'm always traveling and I'm always riding in Ubers and lifts just comparing prices there so the Uber credit's very easy to use the dining credit maybe not so much I do think that if you're living in a city and you're getting

food delivery with GrubHub or you're going to shake shack a lot or something those are very easy ways to use those credits on the AmEx gold card so for City people I think the AmEx gold is a no-brainer especially and with the higher grocery prices you're paying in the cities you might as well be getting max value from those those 4X points per dollar it's kind of hard to beat that so Amex gold great card for food that's how I use it in the setup I use those credits to offset the annual fee and I'm

good to go I also got a 60 000 Point sign up bonus on the AmEx gold but we've been seeing it as high as 75 000 or even up to 90 000 membership rewards points for the AmEx gold card so that's very very good then moving on to the AmEx Platinum Card this is a very controversial card because it does have a 695 annual fee by far the highest out of any card in the setup or really any other credit card on the market for that part and you do get 5x points per dollar are

on flights ebook through Airlines or through Amex travel plus 5x points per dollar on prepaid hotels only booked through Amex travel so not as good there I really don't book hotels using the platinum card but I do book flights with it because I'd rather book through the airlines to be honest I also got a hundred thousand Point sign up bonus when I got the AmEx platinum card but we've also been seeing offers for as high as 125 000 points lately or even up to 150 000 points for select targeted offers not sure if that's available

right now but I have seen that over the past few months this year so the AmEx platinum card very high signup bonus definitely good to take advantage of there but again very high annual fee so you got to be careful what you really want to look at with this card is the credits all the credits and benefits that it offers so there's 240 digital Entertainment Credit 200 Uber credit two hundred dollar Airline incidental fee credit all these other things that you could take a look at and other videos that I've talked about that I'll link

to down below but you want to make sure those credits give you as much value as possible to offset that 695 dollar fee and as much as you can now you do get a lot of other really good travel insurance protections so if anything ever does go wrong with your travel any delays baggage delays trip delays whatever the AmEx platinum card is a great card for that kind of stuff plus you get access to lounges so you have priority pass Amex lounges all these things you can search through the AmEx Global Lounge collection on American

Express's website and what I find is that I do go to these lounges a lot and I do go to the lounge in Philadelphia as much as I can it's my home City there's not Amex lounges everywhere so I know there's no Amex Lounge in Chicago that's a major city so if you're living there maybe not as much value for this card but in most other major cities New York La San Francisco a lot of other places there's Amex lounges so just search that Global Lounge collection because it's nice to go there and and spend

a little bit of time before your flight they are very nice just take all the things into consideration you really have to do your research and and crunch the numbers for the AmEx platinum card because you don't want to be paying 700 per year for somebody that's just not going to travel or somebody that it's not using those credits but if you're someone that really optimizes your wallet set up you know you're going to use those credits you already spend money on the credits uh on the services those credits cover the AmEx cards can provide

you a lot of value and they do make that 945 combined annual fee worth it again only if you're using those credits because the sign up bonuses can only go so far the point multipliers can only go so far because it takes a lot of spending per year just to make up for those Annual fees so you really want to make sure the credits are what's offsetting those Annual fees not just your spending not just the welcome bonuses make sure you're getting steady consistent value but then to finish off the AmEx Trifecta the third card

in the setup is the AmEx blue business plus which is a business credit card with no annual fee it earns a flat 2x points per dollar on everything it got me 15 000 Amex points as a sign up bonus when I got this card a couple of years ago and if I had to say one card that you could leave out of the setup you probably don't need if you have the Chase and Amex Trifecta together it would be the blue business plus just because this is a business credit card hard and most people can

qualify for business cards if they have some sort of a side hustle or some sort of an income generating activity they do in their spare time but not everybody is going to want a business credit card so you can forget about it if you really don't want it I kind of use it every now and then for this YouTube and social media business but it really doesn't earn me that many points so it's mostly the AmEx gold card and the AmEx platinum card that I'm using the most on travel for the AmEx platinum and on

groceries and dining out at restaurants for the AmEx gold card now a couple of other advantages of the AmEx Trifecta are going to be Amex offers which are very similar to chase offers we talked about before you just log into your American Express account you can add all these really good offers to save money or get statement credits earn bonus Amex points and all that kind of stuff and you can also use card pointers to add your Amex offers automatically as well so again highly recommend card pointers Gonna Leave a link for that down below

if you want to check that out but outside of getting some extra value from those Amex offers you can also link your American Express membership rewards account with a site called racket 10 which is basically just an extra cashback portal I use it all the time you can get really really great bonus cashback on that website from a lot of popular brands and websites all you got to do is go to racketon First click through their links it's going to bring you to whatever website you're going to shop from already it's going to track your

spending and whether you buy something and then give you bonus cash back based on that purchase and when you link your Amex account and your American Express membership rewards account you're going to actually earn Amex points instead of cash back which is way more valuable when you take those points and transfer them out for travel redemptions like hotels and flights later on now some disadvantages of the AmEx Trifecta are going to be first of all the very high Annual fees it's going to keep a lot of people away from the platinum card and the gold

card specifically and American Express does give you of course a lot of those credits that we've talked about already in this video to help bring down the effective annual fee but still in my opinion even if you are getting good value from those credits for a lot of people mostly beginners the chase Trifecta is going to just look a lot more appealing with the 95 five dollar annual fee compared to 945 dollars on the AmEx Trifecta that's just the way it is but I do encourage you to take a deeper look at those Annual fees

and those credits because sometimes it does make sense to pay for those annual fees and credit cards it just really depends on your situation so again crunch the numbers look at those credits and compare the value and the benefits and determine if the cost is worth it to you but that's what I did and I decided that both these trifectas are worth it for me now even though the AmEx Trifecta does cover the grocery category very well by getting 4X points per dollar at grocery stores on the gold card it still is also lacking a

gas category which was also lacking on the chase Trifecta so what I've done is I've just added in a bonus credit card to complement these two credit card setups so that is the city custom cash which I'm sure many of you are very familiar with it is one of the best no annual fee credit cards on the market it gets five percent back in your highest spend category every single billing cycle and if you just use it specifically for gas and nothing else you're gonna lock in getting five percent back on your gas station purchases

every single month so that's a very good card to complement these two Chase and Amex Trifecta setups with and then along with the city custom cache another supplemental card that we like to throw into the mix here with the AmEx Trifecta and the chase Trifecta is going to be the built MasterCard just because my fiance Jackie and I we still pay rent so we pay around 22 to 2 300 every month for a rent expense and we can throw that on our built MasterCard and pay no extra processing fees that most other credit cards charge

so it's able to earn us one point per dollar on rent or 2200 at 2300 points per month on a rent expense and built has a ton of great Transfer Partners with Hyatt actually being one of those so the way we kind of look at it is it's almost another Chase credit card that is a part of the chase Trifecta even though it's the fourth credit card in that Trifecta so kind of like a quad Factor but I throw the built MasterCard in there transfer my chasing my build points over to Hyatt and again like

I said before we're transferring our American Express membership rewards points for the most part with long distance and international flights in business at first class so it's very valuable with those points over there now all the information in this video about how I personally am optimizing my own wallet setup with the chase Trifecta and the AmEx Trifecta and a few other credit cards that is all talking about information about the earning side of things in the credit card game so after we've optimized our wallet setups to earn the most points then it's time to redeem

them for the most value that's the other half of the whole equation and this is by far where it gets very very complicated and I could talk about the stuff for hours with dozens and dozens of examples so if you actually want to learn more about the stuff I've got free videos and free guides that I'm going to link to down below and I've also got videos that I'm going to link to on the screen right now that show examples of how to redeem your Chase and Amex points like a pro so definitely if you

want to see some examples and walkthroughs in detail of how to do that and go check out either one of these videos on the screen next