Four 2-card Combos That Supercharge Points for Families

Combo 1: Capital One Venture (or Venture X) + Capital One Savor cards

Combo 2: Chase Sapphire Preferred (or Reserve) + Chase Freedom Flex cards

Combo 3: Citi Strata Premier + Citi Double Cash cards

Combo 4: Amex Gold + Amex Blue Cash Preferred cards (our Blue Cash Preferred link is not as high as the regular offer so just google for that one!)

*Thank you for using our referral links so we can earn a few extra points!*

In this episode I discuss:

• Why pairing a points unlock card with a cash or category earner multiplies value
• Capital One Venture or Venture X plus Savor for 3x food and easy mile conversions
• Chase Sapphire Preferred plus Freedom Flex for transfers and rotating 5x
• Citi Strata Premier plus Double Cash for 3x essentials and AA, Choice transfers
• Amex Gold plus Blue Cash Preferred for 6% groceries then 4x dining and markets
• Annual fees, credits, travel protections and how they matter for families
• How to pick a bank based on hubs, partners and category spend
• Simple plan to earn a trip in 12–18 months on normal budgets

We would always appreciate if you would utilize our referral links. That just helps us earn a few extra points and helps support our free content.
Instagram is the best way to find me. So feel free to send me a DM on instagram @travelpartyof5 and I will answer you there.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We all know there are some fantastic travel rewards cards on the market, but some cards get an extra boost when you add another card from that same bank together. And so in today's episode, we're going to talk about a few card combos that are really good for families. So listen in. Hi, I'm Rea.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

And I'm Dwayne.

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And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family, but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So welcome to our podcast where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

Why Card Combos Matter For Families

Capital One Venture Plus Savor Strategy

Making Capital One Miles Work Harder

Chase Sapphire Preferred And Freedom Flex

New Chase Sapphire Rules And Timing

Citi Strata Premier With Double Cash

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hello, friends, and welcome back to Travel Party 5 Podcast. My name is Rea. I am your host. I am solo again today. My goodness, what a busy time it is for us. Um, we got Dwayne for that high-head episode, and then he'll be back next week with our Thailand recap, which is so exciting. Um, I am actually recording this episode before we leave for Thailand so that it can air while we are traveling. And um, hopefully, when you are listening to this or when this airs, we will be living our best lives on a beach, drinking some coconut water and maybe getting a massage and eating some mango sticky rice. Um, I am so excited to be back next week with a the beginnings of our Thailand recap. Um, but until then, today we're gonna talk about a few card combinations that I think are really good for families. And what prompted this episode is someone that I work with actually asked me, hey, if I was gonna get a second card, credit card, you know, what would you recommend? Um, because they know I have like 17 million cards. And I said, well, you know, what would you be using it for? And what's the current card that you have? Because right now they have one card that they kind of put all their spend on, which I think we know if you're not in this hobby, like that's pretty normal. And so the card they currently have is a capital one venture one card. So that is a 2X card that earns Capital One Miles, has no annual fee. The two cards that I was going to recommend before I knew that they already had a venture one was either the venture card or the um Chase Sapphire Preferred. And so I said, Oh, perfect. If you already have the venture, then you should get the Chase Sapphire Preferred. It's a$95 annual fee, so super low, and you'll get, you know, these points and whatever. And then they were like, oh, well, what if I don't want to pay an annual fee? And then we went through that whole thing, you know, like I, you know, like paying an annual fee makes me feel angry, right? Like it's like I shouldn't have to do that. And it's like, well, like I hear you, but you know, I and I get it, right? And annual fees are not for everyone. And, you know, this is not someone who's asking, like, hey, I want to dive into the points in Miles hobby, right? They're just saying, hey, if we're gonna get one other credit card to kind of keep these work expenses separate, what what should I get? And so then I said, you know what? Um, a card that would go really well with the venture card that you already have is the uh Capital One Saver card. And those two things together, you know, could really give you some good points and miles. Um, and then that's what got me thinking about other cards that, you know, potentially work work well together. So the card is good on its own, but when you can combine it with this with this other card, you know, then you know, you've got even even better earning potential. So that is what sparked this episode. And let's just jump right into that first example right now. So the capital one. Um you could either do this with the venture or the venture X. Um, so it doesn't matter. You know, if you already have one, this works either way. Uh and then adding on the saver cash rewards card. So obviously we know the venture X um$395 annual fee, but comes with the$300 annual travel credit. You do need to use that in the Capital One portal. Um, and then when you add the saver card, uh, because you have the Venture X or the Venture, if you have the venture again, that's the the$95 annual fee card. Um, you add the saver card, which earns cash rewards, but because you also have a venture, you can turn those cash rewards into miles. And it has to be the same uh card holder. So, like if you have the venture, you should be the one to get the capital one saver. Um, it doesn't work if like your P2 gets the saver and you have the venture. So you have to have a miles earning card in order to be able to turn the cash back into miles. Um, but the reason the saver is so great is it earns 3x on dining, entertainment, grocery, and streaming. So the dining and the grocery 3x capital 1 is fantastic. I think those are two key spend categories for families, no matter what. And again, you can can then convert because you have the venture or the venture X, you can convert your cash back to venture miles at a one-to-one ratio. So you're essentially earning 3x capital one miles on your dining spend, your grocery spend, whatever. I think another theme you're gonna notice throughout this episode is that a lot of these cards have pretty low annual fees, right? Obviously, the venture X is$395. That is not a low annual fee. When you think about it being offset by the travel credit, then fine, we're down to$95. But again, I repeat, you can do this with the regular venture card and it will work just the same. And so I think that for families that either don't have a ton of spend or don't want a ton of cards, and maybe you just want to earn a trip a year or you know, a few nights here or there. Um, I think these combos can go a long way to getting you there without you needing to open 15 credit cards. The way that I see this combo working the best too is you're predominantly gonna use the saver for most of your spend, right? Grocery dining, whatever, all of that's gonna earn 3x, whereas the the venture adventure X only earns 2x. So the saver is gonna do the heavy lifting on your everyday spending. And then the venture X is just like the vehicle that turns that from cash back into miles. And you know what? If you want cash back instead, I guess that's your prerogative. But I for me, I want the miles. Capital One also has really valuable transfer partners, um, Air Canada, Turkish, Flying Blue, Japan Airlines, although caveat that that's not a one-to-one transfer. So not as deep as Amex or Chase, but they do have a few transfer partners that the other banks don't have. And so I think super valuable. I I do have a renewed focus this year on earning Capital One Miles, and so um I would love to get a saver if I could. The only tricky part is it's a personal card, and so all the cards we're gonna talk about today are personal cards. So you do just want to keep in mind your 524 status if that is a concern for you. Okay, let's dive into my next combo. Speaking of 524, my next combo is the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Freedom Flex card. So the Chase Sapphire Preferred is what's gonna unlock your transfer partners uh from Chase. Um, and it's gonna convert your Chase Freedom Flex cash back into Chase Ultimate Rewards points, and it's gonna allow you to transfer those out to different transfer partners, right? So if you only have the freedom card, and that goes for any freedom, freedom unlimited, freedom flex, whatever, you are not going to be able to transfer them out. So the Chase Sapphire Preferred is again the vehicle that gets you the transfer partners, only has a$95 annual fee, um, which again, I think is really reasonable for a travel card, especially one that comes with primary rental car insurance, um, trip cancellation, interruption coverage, baggage delay insurance, which I think all those things are critical for a family because when something goes wrong on a trip, it goes wrong times five for us, right? Like if our trip is delayed, there's five of us delayed. If our bags are lost, there's five bags lost. So the cost just increases for every person that you add onto the itinerary. Um, the Chase Sapphire Preferred also comes with a dash pass benefit. So you get like, I think a$10 monthly promo. Um, and obviously we talked about the transfer partners already. Um this is the starter pack that I always recommend to everyone. Um and I think this is the case for most points and miles people. So this probably is not news. Um, however, a couple of updates regarding these cards. So, first of all, this part is not an update, but the Chase Freedom Flex card has the rotating quarterly bonus categories where you earn 5x on certain categories of spend, and those categories change every quarter, so January through March, April through June, et cetera, et cetera. And it's capped at$1,500 in spend, which brings you to roughly 7,500 chase points per quarter. Um, but if you're able to max out every single uh uh if you're able if you're able to max out uh that spend every quarter, then that will earn you another 30,000 chase points uh for the year, which is nothing to sneeze at. And again, when you have the Chase Sapphire preferred along with it, you can then transfer. Sorry about that, guess I need to mute my phone. Um, you can then transfer those points to transfer partners like Hyatt. Also, uh a brief caveat that this combo would work with both the Freedom Flex or the Freedom Unlimited. Um, but the difference is the Freedom Flex has the 5% rotating categories every quarter and the Freedom Unlimited does not. Um, but the Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5x on all purchases and the flex is 1%. So I guess if you have one and not the other, then I I probably wouldn't um I wouldn't get another one. But if you wanted a product change from the unlimited to the freedom flex, I think I that's what I would do. We have the freedom flex and we max out the categories every single quarter. Now, here is the new piece that I wanted to share that Chase recently announced. So if you have never held a Chase Sapphire Preferred or a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, Chase has now announced that you can now hold both cards at the same time and earn the sign-up bonus for both cards. So for us, for example, currently we both have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The Sapphire Reserve would also work for this combo for you know the Chase Sapphire Reserve plus the Freedom Flex. That would also work. It just is a significantly higher annual fee. And my goal here was to, you know, lower annual fees. But if you've never had the Chase Sapphire Reserve and you've only had the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you can now also get the reserve if you if you want to, and you can earn the sign-up bonus on the card. And in the reverse, if you've only had the reserve, you can also now get the preferred. So here is our situation. Um, we both currently hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Previously, Dwayne also held the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. We product changed that preferred card last year to a Chase Freedom Flex card for the quarterly bonus categories. Um, and then he applied later in the year, last year, for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I have only ever held the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I have never had the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. So I do have it on my radar at some point this year to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The only thing that's holding me back is again, that is a personal card. And I am currently 424. I am not sure how much Chase is sticking to their 524 rule. I've I keep seeing more and more reports of people getting approved when they're like over 524 or 624. Uh, so I don't know, but I'm I'm not willing to risk it at this point because I am not done getting Chase cards. And Dwayne is already over 524 anyway. So I do have a plan later this year to apply and get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Um, I just haven't done it yet. And and can't for a while because I won't be under 424 until I think October or November. So um, however, if you have never had that card, what either one, you can get them now and earn the sub on them. And so I will put in the link, uh, I will put in the show notes a link to our referral links if you do plan to apply and you don't already have like another player that has the card that can refer you. We would obviously so appreciate if you would use our referral links. Um, we would just earn a few extra points for you doing that. And that would be very, very welcome. Um, okay, so so far we've talked about the Capital One Venture or Venture X plus the Saver card, and we've talked about the Chase Sapphire Preferred plus the Chase Freedom Flex card combination. The third combination is going to be City. Um, and so City has in my mind become super valuable over the last few months for a couple of reasons. I think it's historically been a pretty underrated points currency. And now that we have both American Airlines as a transfer partner and also with the the the Great Hyatt devaluation, as it's been uh affectionately called, um, City also transfers to both choice and preferred hotels at either a one to two or a one to four ratio. And so I think that, you know, depending on where you're going, you can get some really good value out of those uh points hotel programs as well. So the two cards that I have for the city combo is the City Strata Premiere and the City Double Cash Card. So again with again, with a caveat, if you wanted to, you know, bump up to the City Strata Elite, I think that would also work. Um, but I think the premiere is better for families, and I'm gonna tell you why. So uh the Strata Premiere, first of all, covers every major family spending category at 3x. So, and then the double cash fills in the blanks with 2x. So essentially, there's with these two cards, you you should never be earning less than two points per dollar. So the Strata Premiere is gonna earn 3x on groceries, dining, gas, air travel, and hotels. And if you're booking in the city travel portal, it earns 10x. And then the double cash earns 2x on everything. And the the double cash is it's a 1% when you buy and a 1% when you pay. Um, so it's interesting. But when you link it with the strata premiere card, those cash back rewards convert to city thank you points, very similar to the Capital One setup that we talked about before. Um, so again, groceries, dining, gas, like those are our three biggest expenses as a family, no matter what. And so to earn 3x on that plus then the 2x on everything else, right? So your Amazon spending, your utilities, your your kids' activities, um, basically anything that doesn't have a bonus category is what you would use the double cash for. And I think that um those two cards together are are really good combo. Um, the Strata Premiere card has a$95 annual fee. So again, pretty low. And then the double cash card has no annual fee. The city Strata Premiere also has a$100 annual hotel credit on stays of$500 or more, again, booked through the city travel portal. Um, so if you were going to spend$500 on a hotel anyways, and you book it through the portal, you're gonna get$100 back. So then essentially that, you know, makes the card free at that point, right? Because the annual fee is$95. Um, this also comes with trip delay and trip cancellation and lost luggage protections. It also comes with rental car protections. Um, and again, I already mentioned the AA transfer option, but it also transfers to jet blue, Turkish, flying blue, and we talked about the hotels, choice and preferred. Um, so I think if you live in an American hub, this combination is fantastic. Um the double cash card also has no foreign transaction fees, so easy card to keep, no annual fee, um, and really no downside. And I just think that city points are, in my opinion, becoming a lot more valuable to us and to our family. I have a plan to, I've already transferred some of our city points to American Airlines, actually. And um, I'm planning a Scandinavian trip over summer 2027. And so I will absolutely be transferring some um points to either choice or preferred hotels, depending on what I can find. The other thing, um, if you wanted to do the City Strata Elite instead of the City Strata premiere, you could do that. Um, but the annual fee is higher. It does have that card, the Elite does have some credits that help offset the higher annual fee. Um, and it also does have 3x on dining, but it doesn't have the 3x on grocery that I really like for the premiere. So if I were gonna get a combo, I I would do the premiere and the double cash. Um, but if maybe you already have the city strata elite or whatever, um, you know, that card combo works as well. I just, if it were me, I would probably downgrade to the premiere after holding the strata elite for a year and then um use the premiere double cash combo. Again, because the grocery, I just we spend so much money on groceries that if I am only gonna do like two cards, if I'm a family who doesn't have a lot of spend and I'm only gonna do two cards, I want 3x on my grocery spend for sure. Um, and like let's say you spend, I don't know, I feel like$1,500 on groceries a month is pretty cheap. We we definitely spend more than that, but let me just do some quick math. So you would be earning 4,500 points a month if you were using a 3x card, and that would get you 54,000 points a year, which maybe doesn't sound like a ton. But if you are transferring those points to American Airlines, first of all, sometimes they have like, you know, 9K flights on AA one way to the Caribbean. Um, or if you're transferring those to city or choice, you know, it's a one to two or one to four ratio. So you're gonna end up with either, you know, if it's a one to two, you're gonna end up with 108,000 points. And if it's a one to four, you're gonna end up with 216,000 points to book hotels. So like it's not a ton of spend, but I think you're getting a ton of value from that combo. So always do the math and you know, see see what makes sense for your family. My next combo is the MX Gold card and the blue cash preferred card. So again, um, I think I mentioned this, but if I didn't, these are all personal cards. So no business cards are included in this. I know some people are not comfortable opening up business cards for various reasons, and so I really tried to stick with just personal personal cards on this. And the theme here is kind of a cashback card combined with a points card to help you maximize your your points earning. Um, so okay, the MX Gold is a keeper card for us. We we have one, it's in Dwayne's name. It uh earns 4x on dining and grocery. And the blue cash actually earns 6% on grocery, which is even better than the 4X. So when you combine them together, again, you'll notice that these categories are very similar across all of the cards, right? And that's for a reason because that is what people spend the majority of their money on, at least their discretionary spending. So I really just tried to choose, you know, one combo from each bank. Okay, so let me walk you through this Amex combo. So this is combo number three, if you're following along. Um, so the Amex Gold, again, four X at restaurants, three X on flights booked directly with airlines, two X on hotels and car rentals booked through Amex Travel. And then the Blue Cash preferred, which again is a cash back card. 6% back at US supermarkets. There is a cap on this, it is$6,000 per year. So once you've capped that, then I would move my spend back to the Amex gold and continue to earn the 4X on grocery. Um, but the Blue Cash also earns 3% at gas stations and transit, and then 6% on streaming services. I don't know how much of us are spending a lot on streaming services, like it's maybe a couple hundred. A month. So I wouldn't put a ton of value on that. But six six percent is still solid. Um, the um the MX Gold card is gonna earn membership rewards, which again are transferable to um, you know, airlines and hotels. And then the blue cash preferred earns cash back. The gold card also has dining credits, so$120 a year at either Grubhub, Cheesecake Factory, Gold Belly, or certain restaurants. It's$10 a month, so it's not$120 to use all at once. Um, it also comes with$120 in Uber Cash. Um, and then the Blue Cash Preferred has like a$7 a month streaming credit. Um, and I think that's it. Now the cost for this combo is a little more than the other ones. So the combined annual fee amount is$420 on these cards. The Amex Gold has an annual fee of$325, and then the Blue Cash Preferred card has an annual fee of$95, but it is waived for the first year. So it's$0 actually for the first year and then$95 thereafter. Um, it also has a small sign-up bonus of$200 cash back after you spend$300 in purchases within the first six months of card membership. Um, the the caveat here is that this cashback cannot, to my knowledge, be converted to membership rewards points. So this would definitely be like a a cashback plus points combo where you obviously would, you know, earn your points on the one card and then use this cash back for like um, you know, I think you can do it as a statement credit or Amazon.com or whatever. Essentially, you you would just want to use that that money towards maybe some of the other expenses that travel incurs because we know even when we use points and miles, travel is not free. So also uh there's a couple of different blue cash cards. The card that I am talking about today is the blue cash preferred card. So I do want to call that out as well. Um, okay, so that is combo number three. The one other thing I do want to call out that is a little bit of a negative for this combo specifically is well, two things. One, warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's don't qualify for the 6% grocery. However, um we are for sure spending more than$6,000 on grocery, anyways. And so um, like that doesn't feel like a big deal to me. Also, Costco doesn't take Amex. So it's kind of that that piece is a little bit of a of a con for this combo versus the other ones that we've talked about. I was gonna talk about a combo for Bank of America of both their premium premium rewards card along with their travel rewards card, but Bank of America just announced a bunch of changes to their premium rewards programs. And historically, the way that this has worked is they have different levels of cash back that you can earn depending on how much money you have sitting in like a Merrill Lynch account, which is owned by Bank of America or vice versa. And so they have recently announced a bunch of changes to this program where the amount of money that you need to have sitting in the account has increased significantly. And so I don't want to give specific numbers at this point because I'm not 100% sure what they are and when they're gonna take place because they have kind of like a grandfathered rollout. And so, like some people are gonna keep their high rate through 2028, I think. Um, but I I don't know. So here's my honorable mention. Okay. Um, the premium rewards card through Bank of America earns 2x on travel and dining and 1.5x on everything else. When you combine that with the travel rewards card, which earns 1.5x flat cash back on all purchases with no annual fee, no categories, no thinking required. Um, and then the preferred rewards program boosts your earnings typically by 25 to 75%. That's what I was talking about earlier. That range, the percentage back that you get depends on your combined Bank of America and Merrill balances. Um, and it it goes up from there. So this is more of just a hey, there are awards cards through Bank of America that might be a good fit if you maybe want to look into it. I'm not gonna give you any more details because I don't think they would be correct at this point, as the program is in the midst of changing. So um this is your your PSA that it exists and go Google if you want to know more. Um, so to quickly recap, with Chase, we had the Sapphire Preferred card along with the Chase Freedom Flex. With Capital One, we talked about combining either the Venture or the Venture X card with the Capital One Saver Cash. Um, with City, we talked about combining the City Strata premiere with the City Double Cash card. Again, you could do the City Strata Elite in place of the Premiere, but I would recommend the Premiere. And then with Amex, we talked about the American Express Gold card combined with the Blue Cash preferred card. Um, every combo on this list, I think, can realistically earn a family either some free flights or free hotel stays within 12 to 18 months of normal spending. This is without opening up a million cards and having to jump through a million hoops like you see us do pretty often. Um, and I just think the best combo for you is gonna depend on where you spend your money. A lot of these are food forward, dining and grocery. Um, you know, so if you're in in an AA hub, maybe that's the city cards for now. Um, if you really want to fly Turkish, maybe it's Capital One. Um, if you're a b beginner, then I would probably maybe start with Chase. Um, if you're not in an AA hub. And then I just think like two cards can be a really sweet spot for most families without spending a thousands of dollars on annual fees. It's enough to cover your basic categories without the complexity of managing, you know, a full wallet of five, 10, 15, 50 cards. If you're trying to decide, you know, maybe which which combo is the best for you, maybe run your last three months or so of credit card statements and review spend categories. Use Chat GPT for that, um, or Claude, actually. Claude is my new favorite, and figure out where you're spending the most money and which categories, and maybe where you're leaving points on the table. And then maybe implement one or two of these, you know, cards or the combos to kind of accelerate your earnings without adding a ton of annual fees or a ton of other cards to manage. Um, I do have, as I mentioned earlier, we have a couple of referral links for a few of these cards. So if you are planning to get some of them, I'll put them in the show notes. Um, we for sure have um the Amex Gold, the Capital One Venture X, and the Um Chase Sapphire Preferred referral links. So I'll put those in the show notes if you've never had those cards and are planning to apply. We would always appreciate if you would utilize our referral links. That just helps us earn a few extra points and helps support our free content. If you have any questions or comments or anything like that, Instagram is the best way to find me. So feel free to send me a DM over at Travel Party of Five and I will answer you there. Thank you so much for listening, and we will catch you on the next one. Bye.