I just got my highest annual fee credit card ever, the US Bank Altitude Reserve (no longer open to new applicants it seems), and I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve done some credit card churning off-and-on over the last few years, but never got around to this one, despite it being so popular among credit-card enthusiasts, mostly because we haven’t traveled much recently. We are planning a big trip in the next year or so, so I jumped on the offer.

It has a $400 annual fee w/ a $325 annual credit (dining works), so I think of it more as a $75 annual fee card. It earns 3x (worth 4.5 cents on travel) when using mobile payment apps, so I bought a Pixel Watch used for ~$120, and I expect my regular Costco spending (we spend about $1k/month) to make up for both the watch and the fee in the first year (it should earn 2.5% more than the 2% Costco card, and that adds up to a bit over the watch + $75 annual fee for our spending). There are some other perks too, which will be pretty nice.

I thought this would be one of those cards I’d just close after using up the signup bonus, but there’s a decent chance I’ll keep this one longer term. If I only use it for Costco and other places that work w/ my new smart watch, it’ll be worth keeping, provided we can use the points for travel.

Do any of you do credit card churning? Do you have any credit cards you particularly like?

Company announced they will be doing mass layoffs soon. They said if anyone wants to volunteer for a retirement package to let them know. If only I was closer to my number…alas maybe next time (assuming I don’t get involuntarily cut).

Happened to notice today on the treasury direct site that they are discontinuing the ability to get savings bonds as part of your tax return. I’d actually been leveraging this to eke out an extra 5k a year. Sad times.