Kyle's Place

Credit Card Recommendations for Military Service Members

2025-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Credit Card Recommendations for Military Service Members

The audience for this is active duty military service members. Although many recommendations have nothing to do with military service, I would not recommend several of the below credit cards if the annual fee was not waived. I will attempt to keep this strictly about credit cards, however, some credit cards do require establishing a banking relationship as well.

If you have poor financial responsibility and would ever charge an amount to a credit card without the ability to pay off the credit card in full by its due date, do not apply for or use credit cards.

Before applying to a new credit card:

1) Ask your coworkers for a referral; typically you both will benefit from a referral. There are no referral links in this post. I only highlight primary category benefits of each card. Benefits are all subject to change.

2) Be cognisant of credit inquiries, credit card company application restrictions, and timeline to achieve minimum spend bonus offers. You will not be able to apply for a high number of credit cards in a short time.

3) Understand the credit card’s benefits and have a plan for how you will use the credit card.

4) Know which companies waive annual fees for military.

American Express
Chase
Citi
U.S. Bank

Maximizing Cashback and Points

Getting Started with an “Everything” Card

At the very least, you should be getting a minimum of 2% cashback on all purchases with your credit card. There are many ways to earn higher than 2%, but many require additional steps. For example, with the Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards, you earn 1.5% at baseline, however, if you have $100,000 in a Merrill Lynch brokerage account you can earn a 75% bonus through Preferred Rewards resulting in 2.62% cashback on all purchases. The Robinhood Gold Card earns 3% cashback on all purchases, but requires a RobinHood Gold subscription ($5/mo or $50/yr). Below are a couple recommended “no-hoops” 2% cashback credit cards.

1) Citi Double Cash: 2% cashback

2) Wells Fargo Active Cash Card: 2% cashback

Restaurants

1) Chase Sapphire Reserve: 3x points (50% bonus on all Chase points when redeemed through the Chase Travel Portal so effectively 4.5x points).

2) American Express Gold Card: 4x points on up to $50,000/yr, 4x points on up to $25,000/yr on groceries, $120 dining credit, $10/mo Uber credit, $100 Resy Credit, $7/mo Dunkin’ Donuts Credit

Online Purchases

1) Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards 3% on up to $2,500/quarter. Bank of America Preferred Rewards increases the cashback to 5.25% if you have $100,000 in an IRA or brokerage in a Merrill Lynch account.

2) Chase Prime Visa: 5% at Amazon

3) Amex Blue Cash Everyday: 3% on up to $6,000/yr

Travel

1) American Express Platinum: 5x points with airlines, Priority Pass Lounge access, Centurion Lounge access, $200 airline credit

2) Chase Sapphire Reserve: 5x points on airline purchases through Chase Travel portal, 50% point bonus (for all Chase cards) when redeemed for travel in the Chase Travel portal, Priority Pass, Chase Sapphire Reserve lounge access (note: if you have multiple credit cards with a Global Entry credit, you can use the additional credits on other people).

3) Citi Strata Elite: 12x points on hotels and car rentals, 6x points on air travel purchased direclty with cititravel.com.

4) Airline Specific (lounge access):

Delta: Amex Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Amex Delta SkyMiles Platinum. With both credit cards, you will get automatic Silver Status with the MQD Headstart on both Credit cards and two Companion passes each year.
American: Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite
United: Chase United Club Infinite

4) Hotel Specific (free night(s)):

Marriott: Chase Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful, Amex Marriott Bonvoy
Hilton: Amex Hilton Aspire Card
IHG: Chase IHG Premier
Hyatt: Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card

Grocery Shopping

1) American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card: 6% cashback on up to $6,000/yr.

2) American Express Gold Card: 4x points on up to $25,000/yr.

Gas

1) PenFed Platinum Rewards: 5x points on gas and EV charging

2) American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card: 3% cashback.

Rotating Categories

1) Discover It: 5% cashback on quarterly category. These categories include grocery, Amazon/Target/Walmart, PayPal, restaurants, etc.

2) Chase Freedom Flex: 5x points (effective 7.5x with Chase Sapphire Reserve) on quarterly category

3) Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards 3% on up to $2500/quarter of your selected category (Gas/EV charging stations, dining, travel, drug stores and pharmacies, or home improvement). With preferred rewards, 5.25% cashback.

Advanced Credit Card Topics

1) Churning and manufactured spend

2) Upgrading credit cards to maximize sign-up bonuses on lower tier cards, but receiving multiple benefits of higher tier cards.

3) Maximizing sign up bonuses

4) Point breakdowns

Credit Card Rumors:

1) You should never carry a balance on your credit cards, it is not a way to improve your credit score.

2) Having many credit cards does not mean you will have poor credit (the number of open accounts is a small factor relative to others when your credit score is calculated. Credit inquiries are a predominately temporary impact to your credit score. If you are anticipating taking out a loan, especially a mortgage, you should avoid necessary credit inquiries for several months prior to applying). I have nearly 30 active credit cards and over an 800 credit score across each credit bureaus.

3) Paying with a credit card is always safer than paying with cash or a debit card due to the liability and fraud protection available.

4) Even with some places charging more for credit compared to cash or debit, you can still “out-earn” the fee with some credit cards. For example, if a restaurant charges 2.5% for credit card users, but your credit card earns 4% cashback, you will still net 1.5% cashback by using your credit card.

5) You can have multiple of the same credit card to maximize its perks. Sometimes this requires upgrading from a lower tier card, sometimes you can apply through a co-branded credit card.

What’s in my wallet

Credit Card	Benefits Utilized	Carried or Drawer*
Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards	2.62% cashback on all purchases	carried
Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards	5.25% cashback on online shopping	drawer
Citi Prestige	5x points at restaurants, 3x at hotels, 3x transit, $250 annual travel/restaurants, 4th night hotel free (2x/yr), $100 global entry credit, cell phone protection ($1,000/claim, $1,500/yr, $50 deductible), Priority Pass Select membership, 24 months extended warranty	carried
PenFed Platinum Rewards	5x points on gas	carried
American Express Platinum	5x points on air travel, $200 airline credit, $20/mo digital entertainment credit, $100 global entry credit, $200 hotel credit, $100 Saks credit, $15/mo Uber credit, Walmart+ credit	drawer
American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card	6% cashback on groceries (on up to $6,000/yr), 6% cashback on select streaming subscriptions (including Apple subscriptions and gift card purchase through your Apple Account)	carried
American Express Delta Reserve	$2,500 MQD head start, $10/mo rideshare credit, $20/mo at Resy restaurants, $200 Delta Stays Credit, Hertz President’s Circle Status, Companion Certificate, TakeOff 15,	drawer
American Express Delta Platinum	$2,500 MQD head start (automatic Silver status combined with the Delta Reserve), $10/mo rideshare credit, $10/mo at Resy restaurants, $150 Delta Stays Credit,	drawer
Discover It	5% cashback on rotational category	carried depending on quarter
Chase Freedom Flex	5x points on rotational category	carried depending on quarter

*Drawer card means I only charge purchases to them for the benefit (and they typically stay in my drawer).

Personally, I value cash back over points because I can immediately treat them as monthly “rebates” on purchases. Even though you can redeem points for more than 1¢/ea, I generally value all points at 1¢ each because they typically require “saving” points over months or years to achieve higher redemption values (except PenFed which are valued at .75-85¢ each because redemption options are so poor) through transfer or travel portals. I pay $0 in annual fees for all of my credit cards.

Next cards I’ll be applying for:

1) Robinhood Gold Card, 3% cashback on everything

Update 25 Sep:

Removed the recommendation for the U.S Bank Smartly Visa Signature as it requires $100k in a checking or savings account to achieve the 4% cashback value which is not a good value. Added the Citi Strata Elite.

Access CAC enabled websites on iOS

2023-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Update 22 Sep 2023:

Confirmed the iPhone 15 Pro with a USB-C Smart Card reader connected directly works without any special connector (you can still use a USB Type A to USB Type C adapter, if your smart card reader requires it).

Native Smart Card Support in iOS/iPadOS

Starting with iOS 16 and iPadOS 16.1, Apple natively supports smart card readers and authentication, signing, and encryption using your Common Access Card (CAC) through the CryptoTokenKit framework. You no longer need to utilize expensive software or hardware devices previously required from third party sites to use CAC-enabled websites on your Apple mobile devices. Now all you need is an On The Go (OTG) adapter (1, 2, 3) to access websites such as webmail, HRC, DTS, IPPS-A, etc.

Setup

First, you will need to download the DoD’s PKI Certificate Authority certificates onto your Apple device. (note: some websites may require additional certificates, which can be downloaded from DISA). Once downloaded, open the dod_pke_chain.pem file within the zip file from your downloads folder. You will install them on your iPhone by clicking it, then navigating to your Settings->Profile Downloaded->Install. Recommend you always verify the certificates are authentic by following the instructions in the README included in the zip file.

Once installed, plugin your adapter, smart card reader, and CAC and navigate to the webpage of your choice. You will be prompted to select your certificate and enter your pin.

Certificate Management

All certificates are accessible in Settings->General->VPN & Device Management->Configuration Profiles while the root certificates are managed in Settings->General->About->Certificate Trust Settings.

I tested this with an iPhone 12 with the USB-3 camera adapter and a generic OTG lightning to USB3.0 adapter from Amazon. However, this should work with any OTG adapter or USB-C smart card reader directly to a USB-C iPad.

Troubleshooting:

This Connection is Not Private

Click Show Details->view the certificate and download the respective certificate from DISA.

For example, IPPS-A uses the DOD SW CA-60 certificate. You can either download the DOD SW CA-60 in DISA’s DoD PKI Management and install it or simply click visit this website.

You may also have to reduce protections if you have any additional privacy & security settings enabled for Safari such as Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection or Show IP Address if you have iCloud Private Relay turned on. If you are still having issues after installing the certificate, you can try restarting your device, clearing the history and website data, or use private browsing.

Cannot Use Accessory

I did run into some issues with Apple’s Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter where the power provided by the adapter was insufficient, but this was solved by plugging in a charger to the lightning port on the adapter.

Army MWR Rosetta Stone for Free

2017-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Like many, I was disappointed to discover Rosetta Stone’s military contract expired in 2011. However, don’t fall for the 10% military discount they offer in consolation, you can still get Rosetta Stone for free by visiting your local MWR Library!

Army MWR Library

The Army-Rosetta Stone contract may have expired, but MWR picked up the contract! To get full access to Rosetta Stone go to your local MWR library and get an account. Once you have your web login and PIN login to your account at mwrlibrary.armybiznet.com. Go to Online Resources to view all the free resources MWR has available, such as Rosetta Stone, Overdrive (download ebooks, audiobooks, and stream movies), access to Consumer Reports, access to various periodicals, journals, and more. You will be able to use the Rosetta Stone iOS and Google Play apps, but you must launch the application through the MWR website address.

Learning a Foreign Language on your Phone

I am using Duolingo, Babbel, and Rosetta Stone to learn Italian on my iPhone.

Installing PyQt5 on Mac OS X

2016-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

I am learning how to use PyQt to create a Python GUI. These are the steps in installing PyQt5 on Mac OS X. I am running El Capitan 10.11.4 with Homebrew.

Downloading pre-requisites

Create a virtual environment
- $ mkvirtualenv my_app -ppython3.5
- $ workon my_app
- $ mkdir my_app
Download SIP
Download PyQt
Move unarchived SIP and PyQt folders to your project folder
- $ tar -xzf [tar file] or use Archive Utility

Installing PyQt

You must install SIP prior to installing PyQt.

Installing SIP
- $ cd sip-4.17/
- $ python configure.py
- $ make
- $ make install
- Test the installation
  - $ python
  - >>> import sip
  - >>> sip.SIP_VERSION_STR should equal ‘4.17’
- Delete the SIP directory
Installing PyQt
- $ brew install qt5
- $ brew linkapps qt5
- $ cd PyQt-gpl-5.5.1/
- $ python configure.py --qmake /usr/local/opt/qt5/bin/qmake
- $ make
- $ make install
- Test the installation
  - $ python
  - >>> from PyQt5 import QtCore
  - >>> QtCore.QT_VERSION_STR should equal ‘5.6.0’
  - >>> from PyQt5 import Qt
  - >>> Qt.PYQT_VERSION_STR should equal ‘5.5.1’
- Delete the PyQt directory

Creating your first project

PyQt5 Documentation and a simple hello world application to get you started:

Python Virtual Environments Cheat Sheet

2016-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

Virtual environments make using Python a bit more manageable, especially when it comes to deploying Python programs and creating the requirements (able to use pip freeze > requirements.txt and only use packages necessary to that individual project). However, I commonly find myself forgetting some of the more basic commands. For Python 2 use pip, for Python 3 use pip3.

Downloading virtualenv

Download virtualenv using pip pip install virtualenv
Download virtualenvwrapper using pip pip install virtualenvwrapper. Virtual environment wrapper will make using virtual environments a little easier.
On a Mac:
- Create a directory to store your virtual environments, i.e mkdir ~/Documents/Development/virtualenvs
- vi ~/.bash_profile
- Add to file:
- Save and quit (esc + :wq)
- source ~/.bash_profile
- Quit and reopen terminal to reload bash profile

Basic commands to use virtual environments

lsvirtualenv: List your virtual environments
mkvirtualenv [name]: Create a new virtual environment. Use the flag -ppython3.5 after name to create a Python 3.5 virtual environment.
rmvirtualenv [name]: Remove a virtual environment
workon [name]: Enter a virtual environment
deactivate: Stop working on a virtual environment
pip freeze > requirements.txt: View modules installed in current environment
pip install -r requirements.txt: Install all modules in requirements.txt

Setting up virtual environments

To make workon [name] go directly to the directory of the project directory, edit the /virtualenvs/postactivate and add:
To make deactivate exit the project directory, edit the /virtualenvs/postdeactivate and add:
- by Harry Marr

BytesIO to POST file with requests

2015-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

I have been working on a project that prohibits me from saving files to disk. In my case, I needed to download an image from a website and upload that image elsewhere.

GET the file as a Byte Stream

This can be done using only requests and BytesIO; no need for Pillow or any other file manipulation modules! After getting the file through a GET request (r = requests.get(url)), read the response as bytes using r.content. These bytes can be used to create a BytesIO object file = BytesIO(r.content).

POST the file for upload

Now that you have a BytesIO object, requests can send that object as a file parameter. Use the getvalue() method to read the entire buffer of the BytesIO object. Create the files parameter for the requests encoded-file upload: files = { 'file':file.getvalue() }. Now that the parameters are ready, the file is ready for upload r = requests.post(url, files=files).

Putting it all together:

There you have it, upload a file without ever saving it to disk.

Getting Started: Swift 2 and Facebook SDK 4.8.0

2015-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

I was starting a new Swift 2 project and saw the Facebook developer portal did not cover Swift. I figured I would take it upon myself to fill in some of the missing pieces of the tutorial found on developer.facebook.com. Full sample project on Github.

Importing the Facebook SDK frameworks into the project:

Download the Facebook SDK add the necessary framework files to your project. You will need to select “Copy items if needed” when adding the files to your project (click Options if now showing).

Configure your .plist

Add the following to info.plist (right click, Open As > Source Code) inside the <dict>...</dict> tag:

Add the Facebook framework to your App Delegate

In your AppDelegate.swift import FBSDKShareKit and add a new application function.

In one of your ViewController.swift files import FBSDKLoginKit and add the login button to the viewDidLoad() function.

Test your program

Run your application on the emulator or on a device and you should see a Facebook login button that will direct you to login. Logging in will store your application in your Facebook account’s Apps section as an authorized application. Inside the Swift application you now have a logout button instead of a login button.

Kyle's Place

Credit Card Recommendations for Military Service Members

Credit Card Recommendations for Military Service Members

Before applying to a new credit card:

Maximizing Cashback and Points

Getting Started with an “Everything” Card

Restaurants

Online Purchases

Travel

Grocery Shopping

Gas

Rotating Categories

Advanced Credit Card Topics

Credit Card Rumors:

What’s in my wallet

Next cards I’ll be applying for:

Update 25 Sep:

Access CAC enabled websites on iOS

Update 22 Sep 2023:

Native Smart Card Support in iOS/iPadOS

Setup

Certificate Management

Troubleshooting:

This Connection is Not Private

Cannot Use Accessory

Army MWR Rosetta Stone for Free

Army MWR Library

Learning a Foreign Language on your Phone

Installing PyQt5 on Mac OS X

Downloading pre-requisites

Installing PyQt

Creating your first project

Python Virtual Environments Cheat Sheet

Downloading virtualenv

Basic commands to use virtual environments

Setting up virtual environments

BytesIO to POST file with requests

GET the file as a Byte Stream

POST the file for upload

Getting Started: Swift 2 and Facebook SDK 4.8.0

Importing the Facebook SDK frameworks into the project:

Configure your .plist

Add the Facebook framework to your App Delegate

Add login button to your View Controller

Test your program