The BEST Credit Card Strategy in 2025 *After Chase Trifecta Dies*

Well, it's official after 15 years as a

Chase and JP Morgan trifecta and

Sapphire user, which is basically what

the JPM card is. It's the Chase Sapphire

Reserve card branded for JPM clients. I

am leaving Chase and it has left me

going down the credit card rabbit hole.

So, in this video, while I'm still going

to break down how good Chase is and what

it's good at, I'll also break down why

I'm pretty pissed off at Chase and why

there are better options elsewhere for

some of your banking needs. But, we'll

still have good things to say about that

Sapphire card. So, I want to give you a

breakdown of credit cards and exactly

what to look for in credit cards. Keep

in mind, if you overcomplicate your life

with credit cards, you'll end up getting

burned. And that's ultimately what

credit card companies expect is that

you're going to confuse yourself with

all the perks. And so there is a value

to having things simple. And so I broke

this down. You could see this in the

Meet Kevin app. If you download the Meet

Kevin app in the Apple or Android app

store, you could see my post on it. But

we'll keep it simple here. So first up,

my opinion is everybody needs a daily

driver. This is going to be the card

that you go to when you don't know about

the categories or you don't care about

the categories. you're at the payment

terminal and you're like, "Dude, I don't

have time to go through this. I just

need a good card right now." Best card

obviously is going to be the one that

gives you the highest cash back all of

the time. We don't yet know about the

Coinbase crypto card that's coming this

fall in terms of how much cash back

you're going to get based on how much

you stake with them or hold in an

account. They're pitching it as a simple

4%, but we don't yet have the details on

this, so it's too soon to say. If you

get invited to the Robin Hood Gold card,

this is probably hands down the simplest

card you could ever have. 3% back on

everything.

Robin Hood is basically giving you all

of their profit for making a card. And

the goal obviously is to get more people

to have the Robin Hood Gold membership.

If you don't have Robin Hood Gold and

you could get that simple 3% back on

everything, your life gets a little bit

more complicated, but that could be

okay. So, your next daily driver would

be something like a city double cash

card, simple 2% back. Fidelity cash

card, simple 2% back. I've used the City

Double Cash card for years. Big fan of

it. Don't use it anymore today because

we lost a lot of benefits on the card,

which I'll explain soon. Wells Fargo

active cash is another example. I

personally use this one now, the Capital

One Venture, if you travel a lot, which

I do because you do also get 2% back on

everything. It sort of simplifies your

life. I do also have the Apple Card,

which is a great card. The problem with

the Apple Card is if you use the actual

Titanium card itself, uh, you only get

1% back. So, you really want to use the

Apple Card to Apple Pay and that's how

you get the 2%. That's complicated

though. So, I really prefer if you have

the Robin Hood Gold card, just use that.

Otherwise, use a 2x card somewhere. Most

cards are going to default you to 1% or

1 and a half. And this is where you have

to be very careful. For example, the

American Express card that gives you 6%

back on groceries, the MX Blue, drops to

1% after you spend $6,000 on groceries,

which is annoying because it has a $95

fee, which is already a $3,100 break

even in grocery expenditures. So, some

of the higher cash rewards cards you

have to be careful with, and if you

don't manage them right, it's just not

worth it. After your daily driver, it's

really important you have the best

possible store card for the place that

you regularly shop. So for me, I

actually put little rust stickers on my

credit cards because well, I like rust a

lot. Like here's my I call it my blue

card or like I've got my green card.

This is actually an MX Platinum right

here, this green card. Uh and this is a

Lowe's card because we do a lot of

shopping at Lowe's for our business, our

real estate startup. So, you got to have

a 5% off Lowe's card if you shop at

Lowe's. Obviously, I just put the Target

store card in my app. So, I never

actually activate these these cards, but

you know, we shop at Target all the

time. So, you put the Target card in

your app or you put the Amazon card in

your app and then you always get that 5%

off over there. It's simple. You should

always have that if you spend money at

Amazon or Target or Lowe's. They're free

cards, great options. Now, the third

thing to consider is banking. Uh, a big

fan, and it's just sort of a quick shout

out on banking. Use QuickBooks. If you

ever use QuickBooks for accounting, you

could literally create a QuickBooks bank

account right now. #notsponsored, but it

basically automatically reconciles

because your QuickBooks is your bank

account now. It's so amazing and it's

great for like your regular transactions

and it cuts down on your accounting and

your it makes your CPA's life easier

which ultimately saves you money. So I

think that's a big thing. Or consider

like Mercury way easier by the way to

use over like JP Morgan or Chase because

their technology is like not old and

antiquated. So it's very easy for Bill

Pay awires mega convenient app. Okay,

great. Now you got to get into the

family of credit card. Which family do

you want to use? You really have three

main families you could use here.

Capital 1, Chase, I'll have a lot to say

about Chase, and Amx. Those are your

three big categories that you're going

to choose from. And you have to

basically pick one family. Now, I just

recently left that JPM family. Uh, and

you know, for many different reasons,

but I personally think the bank has lost

its edge, and there are way better

opportunities to get elsewhere. I'm a

little biased though because I think JP

Morgan is a terrible bank for well

frankly real estate investors because

they really want you to invest your

business's money with their wealth

managers and they don't give great loan

products to their real estate customers.

They're in fact limited by DoddFrank

with what they can do in terms of even

Fanny Freddy loans. So they're generally

not a competitive lending bank and I

want to set up my real estate startup

for when rates come down to be with a

really competitive lending bank. and I

just don't think that's JPM. So, that's

my personal bias. This sent me down the

rabbit hole of what family of cards to

get. And after I went down the rabbit

hole, I personally chose the CH the uh

Capital One Venture X card. And I'll

explain why as a result. And this is not

sponsored, but I do have an affiliate

link met.com/cap1

uh for whatever that's worth if you want

it. But again, I'm not making this video

because I have an affiliate link. I'm

making this video because I did the

hours of research. I chose the Capital

One card. Like I literally still have

the approval like you know whatever

sheets that they give you in the card

and like activate your card stuff uh on

my desk right here. Like here's your new

Venture Hopefully there's nothing

personal. Here's your new Venture X

card. In fact, cuz I just went through

all this last night, I still have the

FedEx envelope that it came in. So it's

it's it's new and I'm excited about it.

All right, but anyway, here's the thing.

The Capital One card, any of these

family of cards, so family 1, Capital 1,

family 2, Chase, or a family number

three, MX, you have to travel to make

these cards make sense. Otherwise, just

use your daily driver. If you travel,

these cards are great. Alchemist said,

"I just wanted to say thanks for

everything you saved my life." Dude,

thank you for that shout out and $5. I

appreciate that. Uh, but anyway, Capital

One, you have to travel for these cards.

Okay, so there's no question that if

you're going to go into one of these

families of cards and you're going to

look at credit card fees, you must

travel. If you don't travel, this isn't

worth it. Like, don't even just stop the

video. Use a daily driver and and don't

keep going. Now, if you travel,

you want to use the portal for Capital

1. It's actually a really good portal.

Just yesterday or this week, I booked a

flight for Lauren because I spent 4

million points that I have with uh Chase

because I'm like, I'm going to spend

these points. I've been collecting them

for 15 years. I'm going to spend 4

million points. So, I booked a trip to

Japan. The Chase travel portal,

excellent. The people were very nice. I

actually had to change one of the dates.

They helped me cancel and rebook it all.

They were really nice. Like the Chase

Travel people

really, really happy about that. like I

think it's wonderful. Right. Uh now what

I'd like to make clear is that

the travel portals usually you have to

be careful because when you use them you

kind of want to compare to the market

rates and make sure hey are you actually

getting a fair market rate because you

don't want to get that premium charge

right like you don't want to be in a

place where all of a sudden uh they're

charging you more through their travel

portal. I have not found that to be

true. In fact, I found when I was

booking a trip through the app, which

was actually pretty pretty smooth and

easy to do, they actually gave me advice

in terms of when to book directly

through the app, which was great. This

is kind of what it looks like. Uh there

you can see Tokyo trip coming up in 7

days. But anyway, when we went to search

for the flight on Monday, it said,

"Wait, don't buy yet." And you know,

whatever. the flights were say, you

know, total of $6,000 or whatever it

was. Uh yesterday night it was 4,500

bucks for the total and it's like oh buy

this like this is a good price. And that

was built into the portal and and then I

compared to United to make sure I was

getting a fair price and it was the

same. So I'm like, okay, as long as

there's no premium on the portals, I'm

good with it. So, you get 10% back worth

redemptions through the travel portal if

you book hotels and rental cars since

they're worth 1 cent each. It's

basically 10% back on hotels and rental

cars, 5% back on flights and vacation

rentals, 2% back on everything else. So,

that's why I see this as like a daily

driver because you get 2% back on

everything else if you redeem it through

the travel portal, which I will anyway.

It's not a cashback card. It could

actually be your travel card and your

daily driver, which makes your life

really simple. And I'll tell you,

simplicity is critical. I actually used

to in the Chase Freedom days print out

labels with a label maker and stick them

to the back of the card to say which

quarter had which benefit for 5%. Now I

just put a label maker, you know,

sticker on the back of the cards here.

So I give it to Laura, my wife, and I'm

like, "Hey, this is where we're going to

use this card. like use this for

everything or whatever and she could see

the benefits. It makes it nice and easy

for her. So that's why I think it could

be a travel uh or a daily driver as

well. $300 annual travel credit. This is

why I say you have to travel because it

is a 3.95 fee. So you pay $3.95. I just

bought tickets. I immediately got $300

back. So now the card cost me $95. Every

year when you review, renew the card,

you get $100. But your first year you

can also get uh you know a new card

bonus. So it basically the card really

doesn't cost you anything if you travel.

All right. The other cool thing that's

really important to me is I get primary

rental car coverage. Very important to

me. Okay. That's the Capital One card. I

think the best pairing here is Robin

Hood card plus the Capital 1 Venture X

card. Great pairing. If you don't have

the Robin Hood card, you could just use

the Venture X card. If you want to get

special, pair it with the saver card

because you get 3% back at like Disney,

Six Flags, movies, sporting events,

bowling, 3% back at dining, 3% back at

grocery stores except for Walmart and

Target. Uh, so not bad. Nice pairing if

you want a little bit more complexity.

does mess up the whole daily driver idea

a little bit, but it does get you a

little closer to that Robin Hood card

for some of these other things that

you're you're spending money on

generally. All right, Chase Preferred.

Basically, the Chase Preferred card just

got nerfed along with the whole trifecta

benefit because they got rid of the

Chase Travel 1.5x bonus if you have the

reserve card or the 1.25x bonus if you

transfer your points to the preferred

card. So, this to me makes it not make

sense to care about the preferred

anymore. And I kind of think they killed

the trifecta because what they did is

they raised the fee for the reserve card

and they did increase the benefits. Now,

the reserve card you could basically get

for free. The way you do it is you make

sure you use it for dining and travel

$7.95. If you do, you're going to take

off $300 for dining, 300 for your annual

annual travel credit, and make sure you

use it for Door Dash. As long as you

order Door Dash like once a month, you

get $2,500 or sorry, you get $25 per

month, which works out to $300 a year,

the card basically can cost you as much

as negative $225 offsetting that Door

Dash monthly benefit and that annual

membership. So, like as much as I have

not great things to say about Chase and

I think they're an antiquated bank and

they don't do great for uh uh you know

their their real estate customers and

they really try to shield their wealth

management products which I don't really

believe in. This card still is good even

though you have a $795 fee. And I've

been a Chase Sapphire member for like 15

years. So like I I I can't really say

it's bad. and I've been there for 15

years and if I had to choose between

these two, you know, it could be close.

But, uh, these are good benefits, but

you have to make sure it's one or the

other. Like, you don't want to use

Capital One Venture X and Chase. You

want to pick, you don't want to mix and

match these or MX Platinum, right?

That's your third family. So, just use

it always for your dining, your travel,

your Door Dash, and you're good. You

should not book directly. you only get

4x on the rewards, so 4% back if you

book directly for hotels and flights.

Don't do that. Use the 8x Chase travel.

This is actually very similar to the

Capital One Venture X in that basically

with the Venture X you're getting 10% on

hotels, rental cars, 5% on flights,

vacation rentals, and here you're just

basically getting an average,

I call it an average, but you're getting

a flat 8% if you book through the

portal, which why would you book

directly if you could get twice as many

points on the travel app? And the Chase

travel app, I personally have found to

match market pricing as well. So again,

like as much as I'd love to bag on

Chase, this is actually good. Like their

Chase travel platform is good. Their

customer service is good. The people are

very helpful and nice there. Uh so I got

to give them credit where credit is due.

Now, uh they also potentially have the

points boost, but there's an asterisk

here because it's only on certain

flights and hotels, and I don't like

assuming that I'm going to get the

asterisk. The Chase Business Inc. used

to boost up from 1.5% cash back to 2.25

25 with the unlimited travel, which they

now call Chase Travel, but it's not

really worth it anymore since you don't

get the 1.5x boost. So, I this is why I

say the Inc. and the Freedom categories

kind of just died. Like, Sapphire alone

partnered with the because you get the

primary rental car benefit in my

opinion. You take your daily driver,

which could be the Robin Hood uh 3% or

another 2% card, partner it with your

Chase Sapphire. That's it. That's your

family number two. So again, family

number one, you go Capital One and Robin

Hood card, uh, Capital One Venture X

Solo, or maybe you do the SA Saver card.

If you're in the Chase family, you do

the SA Chase Sapphire Reserve card plus

your daily driver, but some of the whole

trifecta benefits have somewhat died.

Okay, cool. Then,

uh, AMX, okay, also have to travel. The

fees going to go up. the benefits are

going to change towards the end of 2025.

So, we're not sure if some of these

benefits are going to stay the same. And

I'll talk lounges in just a moment. Uh I

don't think these benefits are really

going to evolve. Uh you know, well, let

me let me rephrase that. These benefits

could change a lot towards the end of

the year. I don't know in what direction

they're going to evolve. So, some of

this on AMX might be dated soon. But

understand this. If you buy flights or

in hotels or hotels with their portal or

directly, you get five points. Great. I

could which is basically worth, you

know, 1% per point. So 1 cent per point.

It's basically the same as the Capital

1. The Sapphire is better though cuz you

get 8x for flights versus the 5x. And

then at Capital 1, you get 10x on the

hotels, 8x on the Sapphire. So in my

opinion, the Capital 1 or the Sapphire

beats the AMX Platinum. I think that's

why they're going to reboot their MX

program because Sapphire just like, you

know, lit the MX benefits on fire. So,

AMX is going to have to play catchup

here and we'll do a new video at that

time. So, make sure to subscribe. But,

uh, if you do have the platinum business

card, you do get the 35% redemption

bonus. This gets complicated. You're now

paying two annual fees. Now, you have

two different cards to get redemptions

on. If you play it correctly, it could

work out to 6.75 on flights and hotels.

Again, I'd rather have the Sapphire 8X

or the Capital 15 to 10X.

The card can also get close to free

because if you look at it, you could get

$200 in annual statement credits for

airlines, $200 towards hotels, $200

towards Uber. That's $600 off already.

$13 a month for Walmart Plus. That

basically pays for the card. Again, if

you're in one of the individual

families, there's a way to make the card

pay for itself. Yes, you get some random

like benefits as you do with like the

JPM card like Lyft for Apple TV. Apple

TV or Lyft with JPM for the reserve card

or Dunkin Donuts for uh um the MX card.

But some of these are limited time only,

so they change all the time and they're

complicated. Remember, that's the goal

of these credit card companies, to kind

of make it complicated for you because

they want you to sign up for the card,

assuming you're always going to use all

the benefits, but then you forget which

category they're on and then you end up

paying all these credit card fees and

not redeeming everything. So, those are

the three buckets to go for. If you do

pair the MX, obviously pair it with a a

daily driver for the platinum card,

great. I'm not convinced that the blue

or gold cards are worth it. Some people

say you could partner the gold card at a

$300 $325 annual fee for 4x groceries,

but you have to offset $25 of extra fees

after the annual dining credit. And that

means using your gold card sometimes for

dining and the reserve or the platinum

card other times for dining. Little

complicated. Not my favorite way to sort

of

create these complexities. Even if you

just solely use the gold card for

dining, which you could do, you still

have to offset those other $25 in fees

uh at that higher yield amount for the

gold card. My take here, I do think

Amazon or Amazon AMX is going to catch

up with better benefits over time,

especially now that Sapphire really, you

know, is is strengthening their

competition against some of these other

cards. So, that's my take. Uh either you

take a daily driver, combine it with

your Capital One Venture X or a Daily

Driver plus the Sapphire or Daily Driver

plus the Platinum. You have to pick a

family. That's my credit card update. A

lot of people have been asking for this.

Uh again, there are a ton of great

credit cards out there and there's by no

means a way to say here that I've

comprehensively covered everything. The

goal here is just to give you a bottom

line of what I found. Now, some people

ask me, "What about like the uh you

know, lounges or whatever." Okay, I've

done all of them, like legitimately

uh been through all of these before.

I'll just hold up some of these cards

here. These are like old cards that I

have. So, Platinum card, American

Airlines advantage card, United Card,

Marriott Bonvoy card. I've gone through

all of this. The Bonvoy card is not very

desirable anymore because you get 6%ish

directly with hotels through for Bonvoy.

But I don't want to be stuck in an

ecosystem. I want to buy any hotel. Like

what if I want Hyatt? I could get 10%

back with the Capital One card. So why

would I do 6% on Marriott and be stuck

if I could do 10% through the portal at

Capital 1 and have any company I want?

So, that's why I'm out of GodVoy.

Uh, oh, that's so funny. You could

actually see, look at this. Uh, I have

an example here because I always I

always do this. You can see how it's

faded. I'll just cover up some of the

credit cards here. Uh, numbers here, but

on the back, you can see how I did my

little stickies. I always put the little

stickies on to remember what the cards

are because it's so hard to keep it all

straight. American Airlines, I've had

the Delta cards, all of these. The

problem is you get married to that

airline

and if one time you take a slightly

higher fee because you want to be

married to your airline,

all of the benefits go out the window

cuz you just wasted more money, right?

My old Chase Freedom card right here,

Freedom Unlimited. I've got a whole lot

of cards. And there's a benefit to

simplicity. What I encourage you do is

you get the stickies for your credit

cards on like Etsy or something like

that and then customize your cards with

a little sticker. That's how I did the

red card, blue card, uh green card for

Rust, which I think are really cool.

They're just little Etsy stickers. Uh

and uh as far as lounges, I personally

find that this has been my experience

with airport lounges.

Airport lounges are really cool when

they're not full or mega crowded. Those

those two things are different.

Sometimes you will go to the airport and

they will literally shut down the lounge

because they're at capacity because

everybody has one now. Everybody has

lounge access now. Like they're not

really that exclusive anymore. They're

usually overcrowded or they're at

capacity which sucks.

Some of them offer free drinks, which is

great. But if you're rushing to the

airport to be early to the airport to

sit in a lounge, if you even get in, you

have to ask yourself if it would be

better to just go to a restaurant and

sit with your family in a booth and get

waited on.

My experience of the food that you get

at the lounges,

you're hoping it's better than buffet

food. The AMX Centurion lounges have by

far in my experience been the best. Uh

not the biggest fan of some of the

airline ones. The United lounges were

nice is probably the the next nicest. Uh

Amx Centurion probably had the best

food, but the problem is they have so

few of them mostly just at the

international airports and it doesn't

necessarily align with your where your

terminal is. So, I generally don't

factor in lounge benefits to credit

cards because I'm just going to look at

my daily driver. And then if I happen to

be by a lounge and I happen to have

extra time to kill, cool. But beyond

that, I want to know that on a daily

basis, I'm reaching for the card that's

going to give me the most rewards. Uh,

and for me, I've got the Capital One

Venture X card. I think that's great for

travel. Gives me my 2x. I don't yet have

the Saver card. I'm gonna consider the

saver card for that those 3% categories.

If I had the Robin Hood 3% though, I

would just do Robin Hood 3% Capital 1

Venture X or Robin Hood and uh and the

Sapphire. That That's where my bottom

line is on these. Platinum's got some

work to do to catch up.

>> Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this.

>> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Pafrath there, financial

analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always

great to get your take.