Top 4, Best Cards for Increased Spending at a Max Profit
Yesterday I discussed the 4 cards I currently used for increased spending at a maximum profit. Today I wanted to discuss what I think are the 4 BEST cards for increased spending on the market. I ranked these based on the yearly profit you could make. All of the cards bring you a return of at least 3.6% after accounting for fees.
While there are better cards for large amounts of increased spending, like a card earning 3% with no cap. I didn’t include them on this list because I wanted to focus on getting the best rate of return possible, leading to maximum profit.
Ideas for liquidating gift cards found here!
The Top 4 Credit Cards for Making a Profit
The top 4 is as follows:
4. Blue Cash Preferred
The Blue Cash Preferred earns a staggering 6% on U.S. supermarket purchases (then 1%). The 6% earning rate is capped at the first $6,000 in spend per cardmember year and drops to 1% after that. This card will actually bring you the best rate of return, but the cap limits it for big time spenders.
CLICK HERE to get more details and learn how to apply for this card and other cash back credit cards!
3. Wells Fargo Signature Card –
I have attempted to get this card on two separate occasions and failed both times. Wells Fargo is a tricky bank for approvals. You have to have other accounts with them, like a bank account, and they are pretty inquiry sensitive.
The Wells Fargo Signature card earns 5 points per dollar on gas, grocery, and drugstore spend up to $12,500 within the first 6 months of card ownership. The points are worth 50% more when you redeem them for airfare.
The crazy thing is the 5x earning rate used to be uncapped. And people took full advantage, some putting over a million dollars in spend on the card in the first 6 months. That generated over $50,000 in cash back…insane!
If you purchase $500 variable loads with a fee of $5.95 and a liquidation cost of $0.35 you would make a profit of $19 per card. Giving you a rate of return of 3.75%. You could purchase 24.71 cards before hitting the $12,500 cap bringing you a total profit of $469.49.
Be careful, Wells Fargo is sensitive to gamers so you will want to mix in some regular spend over those 6 months. Although since they added the cap they haven’t been shutting down as many people.
Yearly Profit – $469.49 (First Year Only)
2. Ink Plus/Bold/Cash
While this card is not what it used to be, RIP PPDG, and only the Ink Cash is still available for applications, it still has a prominent place on the list. I personally use the Ink Plus but I will talk about the Ink Cash since it is the only one still available.
With the Ink Cash you earn 5x Ultimate Rewards at office stores, internet, cable, and phone services. You can spend up to $25,000 per cardmember year in the 5x earning category. For this exercise I will focus solely on office stores.
I personally try to focus on getting Visa cards when there are sale at the office stores. Some will be of the instant discount variety and some will be of the rebate variety. You can mix in some $300 Staples online purchases too.
I am going to assume and average out of pocket cost of $5 per $400, which is probably a little high. I will assume a liquidation cost of $0.70 per $400. The $405 purchase would bring you a profit of $14.55, with a rate of return of 3.6%.
At an average cost of $405 you could purchase 61.72 rounds of gift cards. Sometimes the cost will be more than this and sometimes less but we are going to average it out. That would bring you a total profit of $898.03 for the cardmember year.
Yearly Profit – $898.03
CLICK HERE to get more details and learn how to apply for this card and other business credit cards!
1. Old Blue Cash
This card is an oldie but a goodie. It is not on American Express’ site anymore but there are still some ghost links out there. If you open up on the link in incognito mode you should be able to get the offer to appear. You just right click HERE and select open in incognito mode. Amex has been slowly moving people out of this card so it may not last much longer.
The card earns 1% on everyday expenses (groceries, gas, and pharmacy) for the first $6,500 in yearly spend. After spending $6,500 it earns 5% on on everyday expenses for the next $50,000 in yearly spend. This is a card for big spenders!
I am going to assume you spend the $6500 quickly and then max out the $50,000 in spend after. You could buy $500 variable Visas at many U.S. grocery stores for $5.95 a piece. Add in a liquidation cost of $0.35 per card and you would make a profit of $19 per card, a rate of return of 3.8%. You could purchase 98.82 variable load cards before hitting the $50,000 threshold, bringing in a total yearly profit of $1,877.58.
Word of caution – Amex has shut down some accounts for abusing this card.
Yearly Profit $1,877.58
Conclusion
I think these are the best cards on the market for increased spending when it comes down to best rate of return. Remember that these are not necessarily the best cards for long term increased spending because of the lower category limits on some.
If you are looking to get your feet wet or just want to do increased spending on a small scale I would recommend the Blue Cash Preferred. If you are more of a pro and want to do it on a large scale than the Old Blue Cash card would be the best fit.
Lower Spend - Chase Ink Business Preferred® 100K!
Chase Ink Business Preferred® is a powerful card that earns 3X Ultimate Rewards points in a broad range of business categories on the first $150K in spend per year. Right now earn 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards points after Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
[…] (Top 4) Best Cards for Increased Spending at a Maximum Profit! […]
Blue Cash Preferred has $95 annual fees
Yes it does. It also has amex offers which usually offset the fee.
Isn’t Chase notorious for closing accounts if you manufacture spend? Have you actually tried to do this with any of your Ink cards?
They have become more sensitive of late but more so to credit line cycling or ramping up from 0 to 100. If you spent 2k per month on your Ink Cash card in MS to get to the 25k yearly limit you are not going to have a problem.
Mark: how do I open in incognito mode? What is incognito mode? Thanks.
If you right click on the link with your computer mouse the third option down will be open in incognito mode on chrome. On Microsoft or safari it may be called private mode etc. It is a mode that doesn’t take cookies or history with you, private browsing. It sometimes allows you to get the best offers from credit card issuers..particularly Amex.
Mark, Where are you liquidating these Visa variable load cards at? Particularly for $0.35
Walmart lets you get a $1000 money order for 70 cents so two cards per MO for a cost of 35 cents for each card.