Credit card rewards suggestions

[maptome]

I was wondering now that credit cards have changed up a bit because of the credit crisis, what card do you have that gives the best rewards? We use our credit cards for everything. (Paid in full, no lectures needed.) What do you like? What are the rewards?

[nd_deadhead]

I have two cards with no annual fees and rewards. Like you, I pay them in full every month - to be honest, I'm not even sure twhat the interest rates are, since I haven't carried a balance in close to 20 years. And like you, I use my cards for virtually everything.

My primary card is a Discover - I love their cashback bonus system! They pay 1% of the balance, once you've reached a certain total of charges for the year. I charge enough that I'm very quickly up to the 1% level. In addition, they have a different promotion each quarter which gives 5% cashback bonus on different categories - travel (airfare, hotels, rental cars); home and fashion (home improvement stores, department and clothing stores); gas, hotels and movies; and finally, restaurants and fashion. Periodiacally there are other promotions - in June there is 5% back on restaurants.

Shopping on-line at aprticipating retailers is another way to get additional cashback. Last year I got 10% cashback on an HP computer I bought on-line.

Then the cashback rewards can be redeemed for even more. I just redeemed $40 of cashback rewards, and got a $50 Pizza Hut gift card; last month I redeemed $80 and got a $160 gift certificate for Enterparise, which I'll use on a rental car when I go to my nephew's graduation. Free money on top of free money!


The other card I use is a Target Visa. There are some places that don't take Discover. Target Visa awards points - 0.5% of most purchases, 1% for Target purchases. When you get to 1000 points, you get a 10% coupon for Target, good for a day of shopping (it expires in a month). We shop enough at Target that we do pretty well with our 10% coupons. I know when I have one coming up, and I save up my Target shopping for a 10% off day.

I should add up how much I earn in rewards every year - I know it's substantial. I think I've had two 10% Target coupons so far this year, and my Discover cashback bonus balance was about $800 before I recently redeemed some - but that carries over from year to year, so it isn't all from this year!

[maptome]

thanks deadhead!
I use discover also, but I never take advantage of the 5% promos. It's nice to hear a testimonial that they actually work.

I also shop at target a lot, hmmm.

[2cutiekitties]

I use Amazon rewards. We have gotten tons of $25 gift cards and we buy lots of movies and books, so works for us.

[maptome]

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties

I use Amazon rewards. We have gotten tons of $25 gift cards and we buy lots of movies and books, so works for us.

How many points buys a $25 gift card?

[sunnysandiegan]

We have an American Express card through Costco, which earns varying percentages of cash back (based on type of purchase). What I like best, though, is it has my picture on it and I don't have to fish out my ID from the ID holder (challenging to get out!). We aren't big spenders at any one store and most places take AmEx where we live. The cash back is nice. We picked ours up while on vacation and used that cash for several meals out.

We also have our credit union Visa - have had it longer than any other card we currently have - and they switched to a rewards Visa program a couple years ago. No fees. We rarely use it, but pay it off each month it does have a balance. Whenever we reach a reward balance of 5,000 points, I redeem them for a free $50 Visa gift card. The discussion of Visa gift cards has come up here before and it definitely depends on who you get it through. Our credit union doesn't have those wacky fees and strange dates and such on this gift card. It is simple to use and completely free. (We could choose to receive a variety of other gift cards or physical items, but this is the most versatile and suits us the best.)

Of the two we have, the AmEx is slightly better because certain things are 3% and 2% cash back. The majority is 1%, which is the same as the Visa we have. We don't use either credit card for everything, though, and we pay both off in full each month there is a balance. The car rental coverage is different for each and the Visa coverage is better. The travel protection for airfare is better through AmEx. We never needed either one, but we did charge those expenses on the card with the best coverage just in case.

[Dar]

I use three credit cards. I use Discover card but only for the 5% bonuses (which are awesome) because with their tiered cashback system it takes 3 or 4 thousand dollars of purchases to even get to the 1% cashback level.

I use my Costco Amex for stuff that Discover isn't giving 5% back on at the moment, because it pays me 1-3% every day.

I alos have a Platinum mastercard through my bank (USAA) that I use either when places don't take Amex or when I'm overseas, because they only charge 1% for foreign transactions and give a good exchnage rate, and the other cards both charge more. It gives me .8% cash back, basically...

I only do cards that give me cashback, because I hate being constrained and having to use certain airlines or eat at certain chain restaurants or whatever.

[TiredX2]

Our primary card is the Costco Amex (like a couple of people have already mentioned). I like the cashback and the 3% (I think) on eating out is great for us.

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties

I use Amazon rewards. We have gotten tons of $25 gift cards and we buy lots of movies and books, so works for us.

Our Amazon Visa is our backup card. We also have Disney Visas that we have used for the rewards the two times we have gone.

[mamadelbosque]

I have a futuretrust credit card that I use for *EVERYTHING* and pay off every month... That does two things for me: it builds my credit (I assume anyhow?) and it donates a percentage (1-5% depending on the sotre) of all purchases to my boys' college fund. 1% isn't much, but every little bit helps, yk?

[mnnice]

I heard on NPR the other day that Target was phasing out the Target Visa.

In general, I think reward cards are getting less generous with the rewards.

I don't bother with reward cards. You only have to spend a couple of percent more per month on stuff you could live without to go backwards. I think using cash works better for me personally. The pain of having to pull the actual money out of my wallet causes me to more disciplined.

[Denvergirlie]

I use my Discover card most often.

I am surprised at how many rewards people are able to rack up. I just don't have many bills, so don't have much to charge each month I guess?

I pay a few $10-$20 monthly subscriptions (netflixs and the like), cell phone bill, gas and groceries and an occasional trip to the thrift store.

What else is there to charge in a normal month?
** Electric bill and car insurance only take checks
I try really hard to maximise my balance on a monthly basis with Discover card, but am hard pressed to charge more than $500- $600 a month.

My rewards just don't add up that fast

[cschick]

Originally Posted by Pearl H

thanks deadhead!
I use discover also, but I never take advantage of the 5% promos. It's nice to hear a testimonial that they actually work.

I also shop at target a lot, hmmm.

I love the discover cashback bonus awards too.

This past January, during the vacations purchases award period . . . .

I used $40->$80 on a cruise with Royal Caribbean. I paid for the remainder with my Discover card.

And because it was the additional promo (the additional promos have max reward amounts, btw) on vacation purchases, I got $40 in reward dollars for purchasing the cruise So, I got all the reward dollars I'd used on the cruise "back."

But it's only worth it if you never carry a balance. Else, the interest you pay really outweighs any reward benefits.

And just go and sign up for the additional promos--they apply to a lot more than you'd think. Like the grocery one (March of this year, they had a "special" grocery store promo) . . . I guess I don't really consider Trader Joe's a grocery but a specialty food store (around here, I think it's more grocery-like out West) but Discover considers it a grocery. Since I purchase almost all mine and my husband's frozen lunches there AND a decent selection of wine there monthly, I got a nice amount of cashback bonus due to TJ's purchases during that 5% award period.

Oh, and the November-December promo last year was for "online shopping"!! Since I purchased all xmas presents from Amazon . . . that was nice too.

[cschick]

Originally Posted by Denvergirlie

I use my Discover card most often.

I am surprised at how many rewards people are able to rack up. I just don't have many bills, so don't have much to charge each month I guess?

I pay a few $10-$20 monthly subscriptions (netflixs and the like), cell phone bill, gas and groceries and an occasional trip to the thrift store.

What else is there to charge in a normal month?
** Electric bill and car insurance only take checks
I try really hard to maximise my balance on a monthly basis with Discover card, but am hard pressed to charge more than $500- $600 a month.

My rewards just don't add up that fast

I generally charge about $400/month with one or two big purchases in a year. I just find that the special offers tend to match up well with my purchases. Last month my bill was $433, I got $5.58 in reward from 5% promo and $0.79 from everything else. I think I generally see about $75-$100 in reward over a year.

[cschick]

Also, using ShopDiscover when you can is a big way to build your rewards.

In November last year, I had a $500 bill with over $20 in rewards on it. $10 of the rewards were from the 5% online shopping promo with orders from Amazon. The other $10 of the rewards was a single order I placed with Shutterfly on the 10% promo via ShopDiscover.

[Mulvah]

Edited by Mulvah - 10/16/11 at 11:34am

[freestylemama]

We have a Discover miles card and get at least 1 free flight a year from it. DH travels a ton and has to pay for all of his travel upfront (before he's reimbursed) and we put everything we can on it each month. We pay it off every month and our bills are between 700-2500 depending on DH's travel . It works very well for us. We're the people credit card companies hate. Many families would probably get in trouble with this model though.

[nd_deadhead]

My Discover bill averages $2000/month - I use it for virtually everything: gas (DH commutes 30 miles each way, 2 - 3 days a week), car repairs, cellphone bill, newspaper subscription, groceries, medical bills, prescriptions, clothing, travel, on-line purchases, haircuts, eating out, vet bills, new glasses.

In a normal month I get about $30 cash back; some months it's a lot more - like in December, when I charged the lodging for a ski trip during a 5% travel promo, and got $87 back! Or last month, when I got 10% back for buying a new computer from HP on-line - that was worth $145.

According to my statement, I've earned $373 since November.

[mamadelbosque]

Wow, I did not realize discover gave that much in cash back... I might just have to look into a discover card

[cschick]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

Wow, I did not realize discover gave that much in cash back... I might just have to look into a discover card

You kind of do have to know how to game the cashback system a bit--without signing up for the promos or using ShopDiscover, the cashback is not that great.

The promos you have to remember to go to the website and sign up for the next one every couple of months. ShopDiscover is a way to link to particular online retailers through the Discover site. The primary issue with ShopDiscover is that you generally lose other promotions from the retailers. For example, while I can link through to LandsEnd through ShopDiscover and get either a 3% or 5% reward on those purchases, I lose access to free shipping promos and some sale prices. Since LE shipping rates are high, it's a better deal for me to use the free shipping promos from LE than to get the extra cashback bonus.

[Dar]

IMO, the click-through promos (like ShopDiscover) aren't really that great, because you can usually get the same amount of cashback by going through a web portal like ebates and then you can pay with any card. However, when you can double-dip it works well.

For eample, I bought my plane ticket to Paris when Discover was giving 5% cashback for travel purchases, and ebates was giving 2% back for purchases made through hotwire. So I got a total of 7% back... and hotwire has the cheapest price for the ticket.