Earn 3% Cash Back

I bought the Costco gold membership ($50 annual fee) back in Dec, 2007. I really enjoyed Costco's seafood, meat, cheese and prepackaged ready to eat food products, but spending $50 every year for a membership makes me less comfortable. I've been trying to find ways to compensate this $50. Some products such as organic milk and eggs are cheaper to buy at Costco than regular grocery stores like Randalls. So I buy them at Costco. I also buy bulks of pasta and non-perish food products at Costco every time I go to eliminate store visit frequency. Their coupons are a great help as well. I use them to stock up shampoo and tooth brushes and toothpaste, etc. But I still think I'm not really getting that much out of this $50 membership fee. Two weeks ago, while I was in their store, they had a promotion for the American Express True Earning Card. So I applied, and here are the perks:

• No annual fee for Costco members.
• 3% cash back on gas (excluding gas from other warehouse stores like Sam's Club) and restaurants; 2% on travel; 1% on everything else. Also, American Express is the only credit card Costco accepts.
• Last year, I spend $3,700 with my credit card. Assuming the same spending this year, I would get between $37 and $111 cash back.
  

Here are the disadvantages:

• This card will be canceled upon the termination of Costco memership.
• Interest rate is high. I have 3 month of interest free, with 16.49% afterwards. So it is important for me to pay my bills every month. Actually, I think I will log in to my online account and click bill pay the same day I swipe it.
• This card may increase your spending since you may want to get more cash back and hence take less control of your spendings.
• A hard pull on your credit.

At this point, I have three credit cards and each of them report to a different credit bureau:

• Chase Blink Mastercard
• Chase Amazon Mastercard
• American Express True Earning Card
  

I do not plan on having any more credit cards for a while.