The Bilt card actually works better with the Chase ecosystem than Capital One due to overlapping transfer partners (United, Hyatt, SouthWest)

Venture X is my catch-all - nets me 2% back on uncategorized / general spend, and I generally don't have an issue using the travel credit to counter the annual fee. Priority pass for my fiancee and I is a plus, and the sign-up bonus when I signed up ($1,000) was leagues ahead of what other catch-all cards offered.

It's good, but after crunching some numbers I find it to be less of the unicorn some folks make it out to be.

The Alliant checking account earns 0.25% interest, and right now SPAXX is paying out 4.75%, so there's a delta of 4.5%.

So now there's $45 in interest a year you give up, closer to $32 after taxes.

$32/0.005 = $6,400 <- This is the breakeven point versus a 2% card with no deposit requirement (WF ActiveCash, Fidelity Visa, Citi DC, PayPal MC, etc.).

That amount might be chump change to you if you have a lot of uncategorized spend, but it's worth taking into account when choosing the best card. This was kind of my wake-up call where I realized that churning will do much more for you than optimizing spend every will. Even if you spend the $6,400 to break even, and then spend another $20,000/year, you're netting an extra $100/year. It'd take you seven years to catch up to the sign up bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred.