Rules that beat automatic picks

An automatic pick is a good guess about an average shopper. A rule is what you already know about yourself.

Every card-picking tool starts with defaults. It looks at the category a merchant usually posts under, checks which of your cards pays the most there, and suggests that card. Most of the time, the guess is right. The rest of the time it is wrong in ways you could have predicted, because you know things about your own shopping that no category table does.

The automatic pick knows categories. It sees that a store usually codes as groceries and ranks your grocery cards.

You know the store. You know the corner market codes as a convenience store, the pharmacy where you buy household basics never counts as groceries, and the one online marketplace you use pays best on your co-branded card.

That second kind of knowledge is what a merchant rule captures. In Cash Pass, a rule assigns a card to a shop, a chain, or an entire category, and it wins over everything else: rotating categories, automatic picks from your history, and every default. The app never overrides a rule you wrote.

Five rules worth writing first

1. Your main supermarket. If it reliably codes as groceries, point it at your best grocery card. If it does not, point it at the card that actually earns there.
2. All gas stations. One category rule sends every fill-up to your fuel card, whichever station you pull into.
3. The marketplace you shop most. Co-branded cards often pay their best rate at one merchant and very little anywhere else. A rule keeps that card for that store only.
4. Stores that code unexpectedly. Warehouse clubs, big-box grocers, and some pharmacies post under categories you would not guess. A rule based on how your statement actually shows them beats a guess every time.
5. Everything else. A fallback rule for your flat 2% card means that anywhere without a better option, you still earn a solid rate with no thinking required.

Five rules cover most of what a typical wallet does in a month. You can add more whenever a new habit shows up. With Pass, Cash Pass also suggests rules from your history when it notices a store you visit often that has no rule yet.

When a rule and a bonus disagree

Say you have a rule sending your supermarket to the 6% grocery card, but that card has already reached its annual cap. Cash Pass still follows your rule, because that is the promise. What it adds is a note at the register saying the card is past its cap and which card would earn more today. You decide whether to tap it anyway or update the rule.

Rotating categories work the same way. If this quarter's 5% category covers a store you have a rule for, Cash Pass tells you, and you can change the rule for the quarter or leave it alone.

When not to write a rule

• For stores you visit once or twice a year. The automatic pick is fine there.
• For categories where your best card changes every quarter. Let the rotating category tracking handle those.
• When you are guessing. Wait until a few statements show how the merchant actually codes.

Rules are for the places where you already know the answer. Write those down once, and let Cash Pass handle everywhere else.

Common questions about rules

Where to start

Pick the three stores you visit most, check how each one shows up on your statement, and write a rule for each. That short list will do more for your rewards than any amount of guessing at the register.