You know what, this is the year for cash back. Let's forget about points. What do I do? Are there any other cards that you could pair with a card earning three, 4% cash back that even makes sense? If we start first, assuming you have the smartly card, it's a really easy filter.

You're looking for any card where you can earn more than 4% and there aren't a lot of cards, even on categories that earn that much more. The most common cards that I would say can beat 4% are there's a handful of cards that do these rotating categories or categories that you pick like the Bank of America Customized Cash, the Citi Custom Cash, US Bank Cash Plus, where you earn five, sometimes 6% on some amount of money that when you annualize it ends up being around six to $10,000 a year.

But if you go all the way to the top and say, okay, let's look at a 5% card that's gonna earn that on $10,000 a year, relative to getting 4%, you're really just getting an extra 1% on $10,000, which is just $100.