Module 3 · Maximize Earning
It was a Tuesday night and I was buying groceries.
Nothing special — the usual run. Produce, chicken, yogurt, the snacks my kids eat in three days flat. I was at the checkout, and I reached for my card on autopilot. The one I'd been using for years. The one that was just... there.
And then I stopped.
Because I had recently learned something that made that automatic reach feel expensive. My grocery card was earning 1x. My Amex Gold — sitting two slots over in my wallet — earns 4x at US supermarkets. On a $200 grocery run, that's the difference between 200 points and 800 points. Every week.
I switched cards that night. I've never looked back.
This lesson is about that switch. Not just for groceries — for everything. Because the gap between earning 1x on most of your spending and earning 3–5x is almost always just knowing which card to reach for.
The goal is simple: match every purchase to the card that earns the most on it. Here's exactly what's in my wallet and how I use each one.
No other card earns on housing payments at all. This alone is the reason to have the card.
Up to $25,000/year. Every supermarket trip on anything other than the Gold is a missed opportunity.
Restaurants, takeout, delivery apps — all of it.
If you're booking hotels or flights through the Chase portal, this is where it goes.
If you have the Palladium, it's your catch-all. Higher than the Freedom Unlimited's 1.5x on everything.
You don't need to memorize this. Screenshot it. Put it in your Notes app. The goal is that the next time you're at checkout — grocery store, restaurant, booking a flight — you know which card to reach for without having to think.
If you have a Bilt card, the 1st of every month is your highest-earning day.
On the 1st, Bilt doubles points on all non-rent purchases, up to 1,000 bonus points per month. Your normal earn rates double.
The strategy: shift existing spend to the 1st. Don't increase what you're spending — just time it.
Things worth moving to the 1st:
If you hit the full 1,000 bonus points every month: 1,000 × 12 = 12,000 bonus points a year from timing alone. No extra spending. Just awareness.
Most people default to one card for everything. It's convenient. It's also quietly expensive.
If you're putting groceries on a 1x card instead of the Amex Gold, you're leaving 3 points on the table for every dollar spent. At $500/month in groceries — not unusual for a family — that's 1,500 missed points every month. 18,000 a year. From one category.
The cheat sheet above handles the majority of most people's spending. Four categories, three card programs, and you're earning 3–5x on most of what you buy instead of 1x on everything.
Before you assume a purchase hits a bonus category, check how the card issuer actually categorizes that merchant. It's not always obvious.
Go to awardwallet.com/merchants and search any store. It shows you how that merchant codes across different card programs — whether Amex sees it as a supermarket, a dining purchase, or just general retail.
A lot of people assume Costco codes as a supermarket. It doesn't — it codes as a warehouse club, which doesn't qualify for the Amex Gold grocery bonus. If you're using your Gold at Costco expecting 4x, you're getting 1x.
Run this check before any significant recurring purchase. Thirty seconds. Can permanently change which card you reach for.
Pull up your card statement and look at your last $100 of spending. Go line by line. For each purchase, ask: was that the right card? Could I have earned more?
Most people find at least one category where they were leaving points on the table. That's the one to fix first.
You know which card to reach for on every purchase. Next, we go further — stacking portals, Rakuten, and card offers on top of your base earning so the same dollar works even harder.
Head back to your Member Library to continue to Lesson 3.2.