Why Most of My Credit Cards Are Collecting Dust
This is the April 26, 2026 edition of the LazyPoints Weekly newsletter. It goes out by email every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Pacific–unless I oversleep–and is archived here on the blog. Want it straight to your inbox each week? Sign up here.
For years, I’ve kept my (physical) wallet pretty simple: one card for dining, one for everything else.
I do have many cards though (sign-up bonuses are a wonderful thing), and sometimes those other cards could earn extra points for a certain kind of purchase, so I’d use the digital wallet or go to the sock drawer if it wasn’t too much trouble. It was a balance between laziness and optimization, with laziness usually winning.
Since I got my Bilt Palladium, that compromise has largely disappeared. With my Bilt “point accelerator” active, earning 3x points on my Palladium is just the easy choice almost everywhere. As a result, most of my cards are sitting idle because they rarely have a true use case anymore. The only exception is my Atmos Summit, which earns 3.3x on dining and foreign purchases and helps ensure that I don’t max out the Palladium’s point accelerator.
For example, a few days ago, I got a targeted offer for my IHG Premier: spend $2,500 in the next two months and earn 5,000 bonus points. A year ago, I probably would have jumped on that. The extra earnings would have made my old go-to gas card even better at the pump and competitive enough on everyday spending to temporarily earn a spot in my wallet.
Now? Even boosted by the offer, the IHG card still can’t compete with the Palladium. In fact, my current challenge is finding enough uses for my other cards to keep them active. After all, I want to hang on to perks like IHG elite status and Capital One Lounge access, and I don’t want the banks to close my accounts for inactivity. I just don’t want to sacrifice too many points in the process.
Lazy take 🦥
For a long time, using a single credit card meant sacrificing rewards. The Palladium is the first card I’ve used where that tradeoff barely exists.
This week on the blog 📝
With United’s recent changes prioritizing co-branded credit card holders, I looked at whether the United Explorer is worth getting, especially for casual travelers.
And with gas prices on the rise, I updated our article on saving money and earning rewards at the pump. ⛽
Quick Points of the Week ⚡
Major News 🚨
Jet fuel shortage threatens flight cancellations. It’s not just rising costs; some flights might have to be canceled altogether. (TPG)
Mark your calendar 📅
Bilt Rent Day is this week. The details weren’t released in time to include them in the newsletter, but I’ll be posting about this month’s offers in the blog.
Extra points 🪙
Take a Rove survey, earn 250 miles. If you’re not a member, you can use our referral link (we earn miles too), but note that we’ve seen better sign-up offers in the past than the current 500-mile offer. (Rove)
Devaluations 📉
Are Amex Platinum airline fee credit hacks dead? The “incidental” credit is meant to cover non-airfare purchases but there have long been some workarounds—but those appear to have stopped working. (Thrifty Traveler)
Air Canada raises award prices. Most changes appear to be negative but modest, so most of Aeroplan’s lazy redemptions are still in play. (View From the Wing)
Last chance ⏳
Current Hyatt pricing ends May 20th. After blowing up their award chart, they also announced a slew of properties moving into more expensive categories. If you are eyeing a Hyatt stay, you might want to lock in the old award rates while you can. (Frequent Miler)
Extended partnership 🤝
Alaska and Bank of America extend partnership. Look for more investment in lounges, new card benefits, and possibly new card options. (Alaska Airlines)
Deals 🏷️
25% off Roame. My go-to award search tool is going on sale for the summer. Save with our affiliate link or code LAZYPOINTS25 (we earn if you sign up through LazyPoints).
$50 off Daily Drop Pro. I tested the deal-alert and award-search tool for a year, and it’s not my favorite. But if you want to try it out, there’s a 30-day refund policy. (Daily Drop)
Sign up bonus of the week 🎯
Links marked with an * are affiliate or referral links, meaning we may earn if you apply via our link.
In my excitement about the Atmos Summit relaunching its best-ever offer, I neglected the $95-fee Atmos Ascent, which is currently offering 80,000 Atmos points after spending $4,000 in the first 120 days. (There’s still a page for a similar offer on the Hawaiian Mastercard, but it doesn’t look like it’s actually available outside Hawaii.)
Overall, I’m not too enthusiastic about the Ascent. Because Alaska is still a relatively small airline, it is harder to take advantage of its checked bag benefit than with a card from bigger airlines like United or Delta. The earning rates are unimpressive, and while you can earn a $99 companion fare after spending $6,000, that can be tricky to redeem effectively. Plus, these offers come around fairly often, up to 85,000 points with an employee code (you can sometimes track them down online).
But this is a solid, elevated offer, and enough for a round-trip flight to Europe or Asia from most of the United States, maybe even two—not bad for $95. 🔥
Other great sign-up bonuses this week
50,000 points+ $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥)
100k points + 25k companion discount on the Atmos Summit (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥)
200k points on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant (our take: 🔥🔥)
70k points on the JetBlue Plus (our take: 🔥)
70-100k miles on United Credit Cards (our take: 🔥)
$320 on the Chase Freedom Unlimited (our take: 🔥)
Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)
125k pointson the Chase Sapphire Reserve*(our take)
75k points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred* (our take)
Enjoy the weekend! 🦥
I’m going to go use my IHG card somewhere to let it know we’re still friends.