Rich's Tongfamily (Richtong.net add-on)

Ok, the most exhausting last resolution for last year was to really maximize the many credit cards we managed to take advantage of and also figure out how to

Amazon Prime

Free Grubhub+ but there’s no discount for anything, but nice if you use them.

For the US, its $0.10 off on BP Gas with Earnify app. $0.25 on Fridays through 2026.

Amex Platinum

Amex Benefits Dashboard is your friend for this and it gives you the exact status.

There is a $200 airline credit where you need to specify an airline. We need to pick Alaska Airlines. The easy thing to do is to get the $595 Alaska Lounge pass for this so that

Cell Phone protection does not work apparently work for annual plans. is working really well where you need to pay your entire monthly bill and then you get Cell phone damage protection. There are two claims a year. There is a $50 deductible for each incident. If you have a lot of phones then you could also use the Chase Sapphire Reserve Business plan, but this also has the “pay your completely monthly bill requirement. I will probably ask about annual plans as well.

Premium Car Rental Protection with primary coverage is a nice perk that only.

Some of the other benefits:

• Hilton Honors Gold. Better than nothing
• Marriot Bonvoy Gold Elite. Better than nothing
• Leaders Club Sterling. 5 pre arrival upgrades from Leading Hotels. We’ve not used this for every much but pretty good.
• International Airline Program. You get 5x points when you gook this way. They say that it is for reduced fares, but we’ve not tried it yet.
• Fine Hotels + Resorts Program. 1800 properties 4pm checkout, breakfast, room upgrade $100 credits. 2 day minimum. The hotels are nice when paired with the other rebate
• The Hotel Collection. $100 credit. 2 day minimum
• Hertz Presidents Circle with CDP 211762. This is actually very nice benefit.
• National Emerald Club Executive
• 5x Points on Amextravel.com
• Trip cancellation and Interruption, Trip delay > 6 hours,
• Extended Warranty for 1 extra year
• $75K/year for 2 Guest Access Centurion Lounge, 10 visit to Delta Sky Club. This is an awful lot of points, but could be useful, depends on the value of the $75K on other programs. We can get up to 7% of other cards, so for us this would need to be worth more than $5K, but if you are getting 2% back, then this has to be worth for than $1,500.

The rebates are pretty interesting, so we use these alot, but you have to keep up with them every month:

• $300 Digital Entertainment Credit. $25/month. This just about fits the current Disney+Hulu at $25, but I’ve not found that much to watch there, it also work sixth , Paramount+ for $13 f and peacock premium plus $17/mo. (note Walmart membership gives you ad supported peacock worth $8 and paramount worth $8 so you can stand commercials, then the most economic is to get Disney here and then Paramount and Peacock below). That’s not us though. The most practical is to bing a bunch of Peacock (Real Housewives!) and Paramount (Star Trek) and then pop back to Disney+ (Star Wars) when you need to
• $75 for lululemon per quarter. You can buy gift cards, so you could theoretically use them for up to $300 single buy.
• $300 fine + Resorts hotels or The Hotel Collection (2 day minimum) every six monthstion . This must be prepaid on Amex Travel
• Walmart free shipping $13/mo. I rarely use this one, but nice to have and there is also the Peacock and Paramount ad supported stuff.
• Saks $50/six months with Platinum – American Express. Almost nothing in Saks cost $50 and they charge $10 for shipping, so this is great if you have a Saks near you and can get gift cards instead. They now support email gift cards, so next time I’m going to try that.
• Resy $100/quarter. This is pretty easy to spend since (unlike Chase see below), it is anything you can reserver on Resy.
• $209 for CLEAR. This is actually pretty useful now that the TSA lines are so long, but make sure to arbitrage as sometimes the regular line is shorter these days
• Uber One and Uber $15/month and $20 in December. This is actually a nice credit because it is not use them or lose them unlike Chase.
• Nexus or TSA Pre. Every four years this can be used to pay for it.

Chase Sapphire Reserve

Chase Sapphire Reserve Dashboard is a good resource for this. This is expensive and actually pretty hard to use, but a little focus and the card is free.

• $250/six months but only for Chase The Edit hotels. This has to be prepaid and it must only be hotels listed as “The Edit”. But a decent benefit. Some people complain the prices are high, but they are about right for us.

• $150×2 Dining Credit for Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables in Visa Dining of Open Table. This is actually very hard to use because there are very few Sapphire Reserve exclusive tables around. We just did this at the end of 2025 but in Seattle for instance there are only four restaurants on the list
• $150×2 StubHub Credit for tickets. This is another one that can be good, but you have to really plan. I set a calendar on this all the time.
• Apple TV individual. And music. Too $300. We use Apple One, so sadly this is useless. it is too bad that it doesn’t work as a credit against Apple One.
• $10/mo Lyft credit . This is a use it or lose it bonus
• 8x chase travel portal (no points unless listed) so beware as to whether you get hotel points. Good for hotels and cars
• $5/mo restaurants through DashPass 1/month,no rollover. This one is nearly useless since it is so small
• $10×2 promo grocery, retail, non resturate, DashPass. My main problem here is that it doesn’t really work for delivery since these are expensive. The most cost efficient use is to do a pick up at 7-11 or other convenience store for snacks. Also the Dashpass doesn’t seem to work right with Chase Sapphire Business Reserve since you get $10×2 but I can’t figure out how to make that work with Dash pass.
• 3x dining, delivery for business meals

• IHG One Rewards Platinum

• 8x Chase travel. Hotels and cars
• 5x. Chase travel. Airlines
• 4x flight and hotels booked direct

• Nexus/tsa/global entry $129/4 years. Used

Chase sapphire reserve business 9154

This card is just for Business but again like the Chase Sapphire it has massive signup bonus and with a little work is basically a free card.

Again you can use the Dashboard. it has some things that are the same as the personal card and some other nice perks

• $50/six month. Gift Card site. This for instance has Lululemon gift cards, so works well with the Amex Lululemon deal (basically get $400 a year to spend there.
• $250/6 months. The edit. Must prepay and compare.
• $10×2, $5 restaurant door dash. Have to activate and as I said the 7-11 deal is good and and the restaurant door dash is useless.
• $10/ mo Lyft must bill to card and it is use it or lose it.
• $200/year or $16 annually for Google Workspace. So pays for one seat these days.

• $120 for nexus/precheck
• Visa infinite concierge 1-877-660-0905 which I’ve not tried
• Cell phone protection $100 deductible but it does have to work against a monthly bill, doesn’t work for annual.
• Charge portion of trip $100K evac, emergency medical emergency assistance. Must change part to card
• Trip delay >6hours but is apparent very hard to get.

• 8x Chase travel. So better for flights not for hotels and cars and no Alaska credit for instance if you buy there 
• IHG platinum elite. This sounds good, so we will see
• 5x lyft bonus
• 4x flights and hotels booked direct. Not as high as the Amex or the Chase Sapphire
• $200/six months. Zip recruiters
• One year extended warranty
• Primary auto insurance if it is for business use

$120k unlocks and I’m not sure it’s real worth it:

• $500 on Chase shops
• IHG diamond platinum
• Southwest a list
• $500 sw travel credit 

Chase Ink Cash

This is an older card, but the newer ones have a nice bonus which is 5x bonus on utilities, office supply stores. Remember with all chase cards, you can combine the points back and forth so nice to have this one as a no-fee card.

Alaska Airlines

We use them extensively as they are part of OneWorld and the only folks with mileage based plans (at least for 2026). The main thing to note is they have all kinds of bonuses like:

1. At each reward level, they have perks to pick and its complicated to choose them.,
2. They do make quite a few mistakes with partner airlines, so make sure to take a photo of all your boarding pass.
3. You can only find the perks in the Alaska iOS application. We’ve not figured out how to see them on the Internet. View > Rewards.