Comparing Rewards CC's

**MonkeyMama** · 10-31-2014, 04:20 PM

I'd recommend the American Express Preferred Blue Cash card (with a caveat below), and the Citi Double Cash card or Fidelity American Express.

Fidelity American Express - 2% cash back on all purchases. The problem with this one is that it's American Express (not accepted everywhere) and you need to transfer the rewards into a Fidelity account to get the full 2% value. (We just deposit the rewards into a ROTH we have with Fidelity).

Citi Double Cash - this is a new card that we are trying to transition over to (Mastercard, accepted everywhere), but they gave us a really low credit limit. It sounds like it would be fine for your purposes. You earn 1% on every purchase and 1% on every payment you make on the credit card. I believe you can redeem this reward directly to your bank account, so this would make it a full 2% cash back for a paid off card. (Or you can just apply the reward as a statement credit, which will make it slightly less than 2% as you will pay "balance minus statement credits" for that second 1%).

AmEx Blue card Preferred - 6% back grocery purchases, 3% back on gas, and 1% back everywhere else. I like this card because the bulk of our spending is gas and groceries. The caveat with this one is there is an annual fee. I think it is $75. I was willing to pay it because I received a $150 sign-up bonus so I figured the first two years were free. & I figured something better would come along after that. In the meantime, the rewards far outweigh the fee. (This is the first credit card I have ever had with an annual fee. I'd generally avoid, but the math works well on this one).

Other than that, you should at least always be getting 1% back on all purchases. I have a Visa with my Credit Union (CU) that I just consider my long-term card, and it has always had 1% cash back. The other cards come and go; big rewards tend to disappear over time. But if you don't want to change cards every few years, looking for a 1% cash back card might be more your speed. (We've had 1% cash back for about 20 years, from whatever CUs we have belonged to over the years).

A really popular thing these days is also "rotating bonus categories" that change every quarter. (I personally do not like those and just want a bonus that is consistent and makes sense for our spending patterns, but I throw that out there because people do seem to like those).

Google any of the above for the fine print. As I have evaluated them all for our own needs, I do not know or remember details that won't work for other people's needs. Some have spending caps for rewards, etc. There is a lot of good info on the internet.

**Firstofmanysteps** · 11-02-2014, 06:56 AM

Try Sallie Mae card

It gives 5% per month on the following

- $250 on Gas
- $250 on Grocery
- $750 on Book (Amazon is counted as a bookstore)

No annual fee and you get a $25 bonus for using the card in the first 90 days.

**Drake3287** · 11-02-2014, 09:18 AM

Your doing the right thing in looking for reward credit cards, it's one of the biggest topic's on this site. My wife and I use the no annual fee Costco American Express card and charge EVERYTHING and our yearly cash reward is always over $1,000. I'm like you, haven't paid a penny in interest in many years. I think a lot of people have problems with disciplining themselves to pay it off every month, thats the big secret in making it work.

Comparing Rewards CC's