Kristyn and I talked about at least four different analogies for setting up a team of credit cards. There’s basketball, football, superheroes, office roles, and even Bridgerton (sigh), but we finally decided that the most intuitive, relatable, and flexible analogy is a classic team from a heist movie! What really works well is that no two heist movies have the exact same team: they vary in size, quality, composition, and goal. The examples we talked about most often were the Ocean’s ## series and Italian Job.
2001 Ocean’s Eleven
The basic roles of the team are:
The Mastermind
The Brain/Coordinator
The Techie/Gadget guy
The Specialists, like the Lockpick, the Safecracker, and the Demolition Man
The Muscle
(Yeah, this was honestly really fun coming up with)
Every good team is going to have at least a few of these, but it could be just a couple, or an Ocean’s 13 style gathering that can’t even all fit on the screen at one time. So what do these roles mean for credit cards and travel? Let’s dive in!
The Mastermind
First up is an optional, but significant role: the Mastermind. Some heist teams actually don’t have one of these, like 2003 Italian Job. Mark Wahlberg was really more of the Brain/Coordinator in that film. George Clooney is a pretty classic Mastermind in the Ocean’s # series, though. The main purpose of this card in a team is to elevate your experiences and improve upon what you’re getting from the rest of the team. The Mastermind can’t go it alone, and many times they aren’t even in most of the action scenes.
2001 Ocean’s Eleven
Typically, only one of these cards at a time makes sense due to annual fees between $450 and $700. Often, the credits offered don’t completely offset the high annual fee for everyone, but there are other benefits that make them worthwhile. The most obvious examples are the Platinum card from American Express, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and the discontinued Citi Prestige. It would also include the highest card offered by most airlines with an annual fee in the same range, such as the United Club Infinite card. The annual fee is in the right range, and there aren’t credits to completely offset it, but it serves to upgrade frequent travel to a much nicer experience by including access to United Clubs and providing elite-like benefits.
The Brain/Coordinator
Next is probably the most important role: the Brain/Coordinator. A strategy/team can actually still function without one of the Mastermind cards, as long as you have one or more outstanding Brains. This is the position calling most of the shots day-to-day, and making it all happen. It’s not impossible for a team to have more than one Brain/Coordinator, with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchet from Ocean’s 8 fitting a two-person lead, even though one is clearly in charge. This is going to be the high-earning card[s] with the most transactions on it [them].
Ocean's 8
The annual fee range on these cards is quite broad, ranging from just below $100, all the way up to $400. The three best examples are the American Express Gold card, the Capital One Venture X, and the Citi Premier. They offer high earning on useful, everyday categories, or in the case of the Venture X, a relatively high base earning rate. Unless you’re working on a signup bonus or other specific spending incentive, this card is likely to do most of your earning and transacting. For that reason, I also refer to these as workhorse cards. Interestingly, Chase’s Sapphire Reserve can flex from the Mastermind into this spot [or part of this role] because of its broad categories with good earnings. The Venture X, on the other hand, can almost be treated as a Specialist, which is how it currently fits into my system, because a single trip per year is enough to actually offset the annual fee.
Specialists
After that come the flexible benefit cards, which are primarily hotel and airline cards, with flexible points and a focus on good benefits. This category is like the Specialists of your Heist team, getting you in where the job needs to be done (or gets you a collection of benefits that outweigh the fees). Specialists is a broad group, which I’ve split mainly into higher annual fee cards and lower annual fee cards, although all of them have a fee. High-fee cards are like the Techie of the team, while I equate the lower fees to the Locksmith/Safecracker. The most important thing about this group, though, is that every Heist team has a different set of Specialists depending on what they’re trying to pull off, and this is the biggest opportunity to make this team unique and your own!
Ocean's 8, Ocean's 11
High annual fee cards make sense if you can easily justify the $200-450 annual fee for the benefits or earnings provided. Typically, you can get the most out of these cards by using them for 1-2 trips per year. You can sensibly have multiple of these to fit your strategy as long as they don’t overlap one another, or have just one to focus on a brand. This is why I relate them to the Techie of your team, with good enough versatility that you won’t be hurt by having multiple of them. A common variant would be top tier hotel cards, which might have a couple credits offsetting some of the fee, but also offer excellent status benefits, and include an annual free night to offset the rest of the annual fee (think Hilton Aspire or Bonvoy Brilliant). I also include mid-fee airline cards like the Delta Platinum and United Quest card here, since they offer slightly elevated earnings, and good benefits when using the airline at least a couple times per year, like a statement credit or a companion pass.
2003 The Italian Job
On the other hand, we have the low annual fee benefits-focused cards. These B-tier cards typically have annual fees around $100 in exchange for a key benefit, but are usually not competitive on earning rates. Thus, this category often gets called "sock drawer cards," since it makes the most sense to get them if the benefit(s) they offer are worth more than the annual fee, and you don't really use them other than the once-a-year occurrence it takes to get full advantage of the benefits. In our heist analogy, we can call them the other specialists like the Locksmith or Safecracker. Hotel and airline co-branded cards in this annual fee range are the prime example. For airlines, the card usually offers benefits consistent with the first or second level on their loyalty program with priority boarding and free checked bags. On the hotel side, the benefit might be low-level status, plus an annual free night that’s easily worth more than the fee. My favorite is the IHG Premier card, which for $99 a year, grants the second-highest IHG status and a free night that can easily be worth $200-300 per year.
The Muscle
Rounding out the team is the Muscle. I call this a safety net card, which tends to offer a decent earning rate on all spending that are not covered categories on your targeted workhorse or specialists cards, essentially catching what falls through the cracks. Need to buy a couch or something that you can’t get from a store that has a special category on any of your cards? Use a 2% earning Muscle card to still get the most out of the purchase. This could be an Amex Blue Business Plus, a Chase Freedom Unlimited, or even the Capital One Venture X mentioned above.
2003 The Italian Job
Face/Con
There are also some wild-card credit cards that I would relate more to the Face/Con member of a team. These are usually low- or no-fee cards with one high and very specific earning category, or rotating categories. The Chase Freedom and Discover It Cashback cards offer rotating categories, while you could also earn high rates at specific stores with the Amazon Prime Rewards card (Amazon), or Chase Ink Business Cash (office supplies). A rotating category card is one where each quarter one to three categories are selected by the bank or issuer of the card to earn the bonus rate of typically 5 points per dollars for that quarter. Like the Face or Con member of the team, they change their appearance or their role in the heist frequently.
And that's it! These are the building blocks you can use to make your own team of cards that provide maximum benefit for your travel goals and style. Like I said before, teams can be all different sizes depending on priorities and budget. I'll run through a couple example strategies, and you can work with me to come up with your own, too!
This article includes credit card referral links, which provide us card benefits when used, with no cost to you.
Using these links supports our blog and allows us to keep bringing you new content.
Comments