you have to use your credit cards to your financial advantage....use their own system against them. we rarely pay cash, always use our credit cards, have cash back cards ( that gives us an automatic 2% discount on everything we buy ) and pay our balances in full every month..this means you have to monitor your spending, because to us the card is our cash...our credit rating is stellar, and we save cash on everything we buy..
We do the same thing with our amex account. I’m sure amex doesn’t like giving bonuses to folks that never carry a balance, but I’m OK with it.
Our local Walmart, to my knowledge, has never accepted amex. Menards doesn’t either. I asked why not and they said amex charges them more per transaction than other companies.