The 3 BEST Credit Card Trifectas [2024]
Credit card trifectas allow cardholders to maximize their point or cash-back earning through a small selection of cards!
The Credit Card Trifecta: How to Maximize Rewards
If you're a frequent traveler or someone who loves to shop, you know that credit card rewards can add up quickly. But did you know that you can maximize your rewards by using a specific set of credit cards known as a “trifecta”?
At its simplest, a credit card trifecta is a combination of roughly three credit cards that work synergetically to help you you the most rewards possible for your spending. Each card in the trifecta has its own strengths and weaknesses that balance each other’s, allowing you to get great rewards across different categories of spending with only a few cards. Unlike some card set-ups that are optimized to use 5+ credit cards, trifectas are far simpler but can be equally as powerful!
However, when deciding to get a trifecta of cards, it's important to choose the one that best matches your spending habits and preferred rewards.
Let’s start with some basics.
There are two main types of credit card trifecta systems: points-earning trifectas and cash-back trifectas.
Points-rewards trifecta: The cards in this form of trifecta typically earn points or miles that can be redeemed for travel expenses, such as flights and hotels. These systems are best designed for those who want to get free travel from their spending rewards.
Cash-back trifecta: This trifecta is designed for people who want to earn cash back on their everyday purchases. The cards in this trifecta typically earn a certain percentage of cash back on all purchases or certain categories of spending, such as gas, groceries, or dining. These are best for those who want the simplicity of having everything they buy become cheaper, without having to put in the time to plan their rewards.
While both these trifecta systems can be incredibly effective, they don’t mix well; before you start building a trifecta, you should consider whether points earning or cash-back is better for you.
Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s jump into our credit card trifecta recommendations!
The BEST credit card trifectas
1. Chase Sapphire Reserve + Freedom Unlimited + Freedom Flex
The Chase Sapphire Reserve
The Chase Freedom Unlimited
The Chase Freedom Flex
The classic Chase trifecta is one of the most popular travel credit card set-ups for several reasons: this trifecta is simple to use but incredibly effective across all spend categories. Let’s break down the benefits:
The travel card of the group, the Sapphire Reserve, gives you 3x points on travel and on dining, as well as a wide range of other travel benefits (e.g., Priority Pass lounge access, a $300 travel credit, Global Entry credit).
The category-specific card, the Freedom Flex, gives you 5x points on a rotating selection of categories each quarter, often giving bonuses on things like gas stations or Amazon.com spending.
Finally, the everyday-spending card, the Freedom Unlimited, gives you a flat 1.5x points on everything you spend, regardless of category.
This setup is almost guaranteed to maximize the points you get from your spending regardless of category (except groceries unfortunately), and returns what is (arguably) the most valuable form of credit card point in Chase Ultimate Rewards. You’ve got all travel and dining covered from the Sapphire reserve, specific categories each quarter covered with the Flex, and then the Unlimited for everything else!
The biggest issues with this set-up are that although it guarantees great points returns on a lot of daily spending, you do have to remember to activate the Freedom’s rotating 5x category, the Reserve does have a high annual fee ($550), and the trifecta’s benefit does heavily depend on the usefulness of the rotating category.
Overall, these three cards work together with excellent synergy to provide you with a great system for earning Chase points on all your purchases, which can then be transferred to high-value transfer partners like Hyatt!
Related: The Complete Chase Credit Card Tier List
2. Citi Premier + Custom Cash + Double Cash
The Citi Premier card
The Citi Custom Cash card
The Citi Double Cash card
While this Citi Bank trifecta is slightly less common than the Chase set-up, this combination of Citi Bank cards can give impressive returns on spending when used correctly. Unlike the Chase set-up, the Citi trifecta can be used to return points OR cash-back, depending on what is more valuable to you, giving a lot more flexibility to your redemptions.
The Citi card trifecta consists of the Premier, which gives well-rounded 3x points on gas, dining, AND travel. The second card, the Custom Cash, gives 5x points on whichever category you spend the most on (e.g., anything from transport, to entertainment, to groceries). To round out the trifecta, the Double Cash card gives a flat 2x back on EVERYTHING else.
If it isn’t evident yet, this set-up allows you to get 2x MINIMUM on all your spending, and frequently 5x on your highest spend category. While Citi ThankYou Points aren’t as valuable as some of the other bank’s points, you can get 1:1 point-to-cent cash back. While this trifecta can be used for travel points (transferring to Citi partners), Citi points aren’t considered to be particularly valuable, so we look at this as the ultimate cash-back card trifecta.
3. Capital One Venture X + SavorOne
The Capital One Venture X card
The Capital One SavorOne card
While this is technically a “bifecta” instead of a trifecta, it is still an extremely effective card setup and only requires 2/3 of the cards!
The Venture X gives a flat 2x points back on everything (plus a WIDE range of other benefits, including free Uber One membership, $300 a year in travel reimbursement, and much more), while the SavorOne gives 3x points back on streaming, dining, entertainment, and groceries. 2 cards: guaranteed 2%/2x points back, with 3%/3x points. When you factor in all the additional benefits of the two cards (such as the great sign-up bonuses and lack of foreign transaction fees), this set-up is a simple no-brainer. You can transfer to points or cash-back, allowing for maximum flexibility.
Summary
The credit card combinations we have discussed here are our three favorites within a single point/bank ecosystem. While you can also have cross-ecosystem set-ups (such as the somewhat common Amex Gold + US Bank Altitude Reserve + Capital One Venture X), these are substantially more complex to use and take longer to build up your rewards. For the average spender, one of the three set-ups in our list of recommendations will likely be the simplest and most effective way to maximize your return on spending, for either cash-back or travel rewards!
We hope this article was helpful to you! If you have any questions about credit card trifectas, make sure to leave a comment below.