Now that we know that the American Express Fidelity card (that earns 2% cash back on all purchases) will be transitioned to a Visa card on July 1st, a lot of people are wondering what the best option for loading serve online will be. You can load a maximum of $1,000 per month and a maximum of $200 per day. It’s important to remember that using American Express issued cards (like the AmEx Everyday Preferred) will not earn points, but the spend will count towards minimum spend requirements. Because of this we will only be looking at third party American Express credit cards.
Contents
- 1 The Options
- 1.1 BBVA NBA TripleDouble Rewards American Express – Up to 5X
- 1.2 U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards American Express Card/U.S. Bank FlexPerks Select+ American Express Card – Up to 2x
- 1.3 PenFed Defender American Express Card – 1.5X
- 1.4 Accelerated Rewards American Express Card from Bank of America – 1.25X
- 1.5 TravElite Credit Card From FNBO – 1.5X ($99 Annual Fee)
- 2 Our Verdict
The Options
BBVA NBA TripleDouble Rewards American Express – Up to 5X
The majority of the year this card will only earn 1x point (1% cash back) for Serve loads, but twice a year (NBA All Star Weekend & Finals Week) it will earn 5x points (5% cash back). This should give you at least 8 days to load at the 5% rate (3 over all star weekend and five over finals week), meaning you can max out one month fully and another month partially.
U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards American Express Card/U.S. Bank FlexPerks Select+ American Express Card – Up to 2x
Both of these cards earn 1x FlexPerk point per dollar spent, the kicker is that FlexPerk points are worth up to 2¢ when redeeming for airfare and up to 1.5¢ when redeeming for hotels.
PenFed Defender American Express Card – 1.5X
This card earns a flat 1.5% cash back on all purchases, it’s easy for most people to become a member of PenFed, but the defender card has an additional hurdle:
Must be in military service, the National Guard, the Reserves, or an honorably discharged Veteran of the United States Military to apply
Accelerated Rewards American Express Card from Bank of America – 1.25X
Card earns 1.25 points on all purchases, Cash Rewards American Express from USAA also earns the same but requires you to be part of the military.
TravElite Credit Card From FNBO – 1.5X ($99 Annual Fee)
This card earns at 1.5x on all purchases, but it has an annual fee of $99 and no sign up bonus.
Our Verdict
In total you’ll be able to put $12,000 in spend through this cards, if you put that on a card that earns 1.25% compared to a card that earns 1% you’re only earning an extra $30 so it’s really not worth bothering with those cards. I think the killer combo is this:
- BBVA NBA card, load whenever you can for 5x
- FlexPerks card for the rest of the year, get the annual fee card with the higher bonus and then downgrade to the no annual fee card if you don’t get good value out of FlexPerks. Card is worth getting for the sign up bonus alone and then you have a card you can load and earn points with.
Am I missing anything that deserves a mention? Remember there is a full list of third party American Express credit cards found here.
