Recommendations for credit cards in the USA with cashback rewards?
I've had the same secured credit card through my bank for years; I only use it for car rentals and when my debit card gets declined on international online purchases. It's very easy to maintain as there are no fees and I always pay off the balance within the week; however, there are also no rewards. I know that a lot of credit cards out there have cashback rewards, and it seems like kind of a waste not to take advantage of that. But there are so many different ones that it's horribly overwhelming for me to try to research which one(s) might be a good choice. Costco has one which would have probably been an easy choice if I were able to spend more money there, but as of currently I have very little space and only hold a membership for gas.
So, do any of you lovely folks have recommendations to give me a starting point for what to look into? What cards have you used and been happy with?
ETA: I am in the US!
If you are not interested in optimizing, tracking categories, etc. I highly recommend the Citibank Doublecash. It simply gives 2% back for everything, no categories, no annual fee.
I used to have fun gaming the rewards systems and getting all kinds of crazy free plane tickets and such, but I got tired of organizing it all, and I'm satisfied with the basic 2% back since it takes zero effort and costs nothing.
Apple Card is similar, but with some exceptions. You get 1% back on card swipe/chip transactions, 2% back on Apple Pay transactions, and 3% back from various partnered vendors.
Where I live, NFC payment terminals have become ubiquitous, so I'm pretty much always getting at least 2% back.
What I like about the card however is how well designed the app that powers it is. Unlike other big banks I've used, Apple seems to make a point of encouraging users not to carry a balance long enough to accrue interest. The default payment options will ensure you never pay interest, and if you adjust it to not pay down your balance for a given month, the app raises red flags to warn you. To me it feels like an example of software leveraging dark patterns for good.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Apple Card as well. The feature that got me to sign up was the 4.15% APY savings account that you can have your cash back rewards deposited directly into. My bank’s savings account may as well have been a checking account with something like a .01% APY, so this was a definite improvement.
I am currently in the process of setting this up as my only savings account. It is insanely good! I haven’t seen 4.15% anywhere. Ally bank consistently has the best APY savings, and it is at 4% right now. Also, most savings accounts only let you withdraw money 4-6 times each month. As far as I can tell, the apple savings has no withdrawal limit. Truly insane for a savings account.
I did not know about this, and was just letting my cashback get used up when paying down my balance. I'll have to go get this set up.
If you’re having trouble finding it, make sure you’ve updated your phone. I think it was added fairly recently.
Honestly the only real problem I have with Apple card is that I don't particularly like the bank they partner with. But I suppose that was still preferable to Apple being the bank.
Actually I found their low limit to be annoying (I signed up with the purpose of buying my MacBook with it, and the limit was only slightly higher than the price of the computer), but I know that can be a positive for some.
I don't remember if I was given this limit from the get-go, or if it raised automatically, or I requested it, but my Apple card's limit is $13K.
I had definitely heard plenty of other people talk about the typically lower limits, but my take is that it plays into the more conscientious design of the card/app as a whole. It was also probably necessary to allow them to approve a lot more people. A lower-than-typical limit is a lot better than large swathes of iPhone owners getting denied for a credit card tied directly to their mobile OSes.
Yep. Discover was my first card but was sitting on their ass not giving me a credit increase so I got a citi double cash and use it for everything except whatever the discover category is for current season.
Good default cards right now are ~2% back, so the Citi Double Cash or the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature.
Beyond that, it is anything that matches your lifestyle, so finding 3-6% back in categories you spend money on. For example, @Eji1700 mentioned the Amex Blue Cash Preferred if you spend a lot on groceries and Chase Sapphire Reserve can be good if you travel and eat out a lot, but both of those have annual fees, so it really depends on how much you already spend in those categories.
I'll second this as my preferred approach. Managing 5% rotating categories and carrying a bunch of cards was less fun than the optimization on paper. I have the Fidelity card for 2% by default, and then 1-2 cards with >2% for my higher spend categories (restaurants and travel).
I have the Fidelity card and will mention that it only gives 2% if you transfer the rewards to a Fidelity account (not hard to do; their cash management account is free and reimburses ATM fees, so I've done that option). I considered Citi, but my boyfriend has had a really hard time with their customer service and overzealous fraud protection.
Secondly, adding another Visa or Mastercard is a good idea for the rare time the main card doesn't work - mine always gets declined at parking garages, so I always have a backup.
I use two main cards, the Fidelity card and my Wells Fargo Propel Amex... which will soon be an Autograph Visa. 3% on gas, restaurants, travel, and some other things. I have a bunch of other cards from when I was planning optimization and "the perfect combo," but offerings kept changing before I could get the cards I wanted due to banks' rules. It stopped being worth it for me to try to figure out what would be best to go for next.
I'm a big fan of my Blue Cash Preferred, but for anyone interested, the supermarket requirement can be rather strict. If you do your shopping at a department store, like Walmart or Target, those won't count toward the benefit.
If you buy gas, get the Costco card. It gives 4 or 5% at all gas stations, not just Costco. You can calculate the ROI for your gas purchases, but it’s probably worth having that one
If you buy groceries, get the Amex blue cash everyday or preferred card. Preferred costs a yearly fee, but even shopping for just myself, I get more in the 6% from supermarkets than the fee costs.
Another good one if you have apple devices and plan to use Apple Pay: the Apple Card. It gives 2% on all Apple Pay transactions. There are very few cards that give 2% back across the board, so this is pretty decent. They also now give you a high yield savings account that has the highest APY I have seen, including the previous king Ally.
Another way to maximize the Amex blue preferred with Apple devices is that all purchases on the App Store count as 6% back on streaming (because of Apple TV) as well.
I changed my yearly YNAB sub through the App Store for example to get 6% back.
Thanks, I did not know that! I use my Apple Card for that right now. I think I’ll switch it over.
Personally i have the chase freedom and amex blue cash preferred.
Gas and groceries goes on the amex, everything else on the chase.
There's a LOT of optimizing you can do depending on your lifestyle, and you can also get the uhh...chase sapphire i think...so you can spend the points in their special point shop and get a better rate (i believe. I don't bother but you could look it up.).
The main thing that is annoying is that chase rotates its best cashback stuff, and you have to manually activate it every now and then (they send an email). Sometimes it's places you shop, sometimes it's not. Still it's cash back even if you're not getting the best deal.
Someone might have a better recommendation but those two are a good place to start.
The Chase Sapphire cards change all your Chase cash back into Ultimate Rewards (UR). The best deals are Chase's transfer partners for traveling, then booking directly with whoever you transferred points to (more reliable if there's a problem with the flight/hotel or something comes up vs booking through the Chase portal). I highly recommend the "Chase Trifecta" if this is something you'd be into (the travel-on-points blog has way more info on this than I could remember to type here). Overall, they are great cards, even if you don't get super into the points part.
Huh, I didn't know that "Chase Trifecta" was a named thing. I have the 3 cards that make the trifecta (including the Sapphire Reserve) and that thing more than pays for itself in terms of the benefits you get for the fees.
Heh I have these plus a bank of america card that lets me choose the high end cash back reward (it is 3% with them but you choose category and you have a set amount of times you can do so per year I think).
So I do restaurant charges on the boa, and pretty much everything on Amex preferred cash except for whatever the rotating catagory is on Freedom.
I've had a wonderful time with a Discover It card. It was my first cashback card after having a basic CapOne card. Discover isnt accepted everywhere but ive only had 2 issues in the 4 years of owning the card. They also have the cashback calendar for 5% cashback, but its still 1% all around if i remember correctly.
yeah I've only had issues with my discover card when outside the US. Which, granted, is where I live now, but it's still a great card for any US purchases I make.
One I haven't seen anyone mention yet is CapitalOne's SavorOne. It has higher credit requirements, but its rewards add up fast if you have compatible spending habits.
SavorOne is my most used card, other than Costco. Every grocery trip, good for both takeout and cooking. If you eat, it's a good card to have.
I carry an AMEX Blue Cash Preferred (6% on groceries and steaming services, 3% on gas; $95/year fee), Amazon Prime Visa (5% on Amazon purchases; requires Amazon Prime), and a Citi Double Cash (2% on everything else).
This gets me a good spread of entirely cash-back benefits and has three of the four major issuers covered.
What country are you banking in?
I could recommend a local Australian credit card with cash back... but I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess that you're not eligible for it.
Goodness, I forgot to state that I'm in the US. Added it to the post. I always think it's funny when people don't put their country in a relevant post and here I am doing just that.
Cool. I've also edited your title accordingly.
While others are recommending the Citi Double Cash, I would personally steer you toward the Citi Custom Cash instead. It's a 5% rewards card on your biggest spending category for the previous month, i.e., use it primarily for online shopping and you will always have 5% rewards in online shopping. If it's not the 5% back category, you get 1% rewards on everything else.
It's important to note the rewards versus cash back distinction though. You can use it as cash back at a rate of 1 point = 1 cent, or you can use the points with various vendors they've partnered with (for gift cards, travel, etc.).
Wife and I use the Amazon chase card. By the end of the year we can just stroll through Amazon lists and buy for everyone just with rewards. Really lightens the load when buying for huge families
It's probably worth mentioning that the card will basically pay your Prime membership for you with its 5% reward rate on most Amazon purchases. Assuming that one is paying for Prime, and already shops Amazon/Whole Foods to the tune of $2,400/year.
Even if you don't shop that much at Amazon, spending half that much in a year still cuts the cost of your Prime membership in half.
I have two cards and neither of them have a fee.
Wells Fargo Autograph gives 3% on restaurants, travel, gas stations, transit, popular streaming services, and phone plans, then 1% on everything else, so for everything else I use my Wells Fargo Active Cash Card which gives 2% back on everything.
Wells Fargo active cash is probably the best, simply because of the $200 reward. I say that as a Discover It user.
No one should bank at Wells Fargo given their historical lack of ethics.
Yeah; they were in the slave business. I read about that recently.
US bank Cash+ is a really nice one because you choose your own categories (one 5% and two 2%) and one of the options is 5% on utilities! I haven't seen that elsewhere.
I use the Chase card trifecta, and use pretty much all of my cashback points for transfers to Hyatt. Nights at the locations we frequent usually cost us $80-$120 in points, so it makes our trips cheaper, and $50 nights are a thing at some of their locations. YMMV, as Hyatt isn't everyone's cup of tea and they're almost exclusively located near airports, so some of the places I'd like to stay aren't available.
The big bonus for me is that I spend about $3000 a year on Humira (which eventually gets reimbursed) and the chase Freedom Unlimited card gives 3% back on pharmacy spending, so I get a free night every year. Plus we got 100,000 points sign up bonus for the Sapphire Preferred card, which has gone a long way. Overall, pretty happy with them. The only real downside is the $95 per year fee on the Sapphire, but the access to points transfers is worth it in my opinion.
It really depends on how much work you want to put into it. There's plenty of cards with rotating 5% categories but I'll be honest, I stayed on top of it for like a year and it just became too much of a hassle. My daily driver is my Fidelity Rewards Visa. @zakhar mentioned it above already with a link but what they didn't tell you is that you can redeem your cash back with the Fidelity Rewards Visa right into your brokerage account! Right now Fidelity's Money Market is paying nearly 5%
So if you don't need the money, redeem it into your money market account and let it grow!
Note that I also enjoy carrying my AMEX Platinum. The annual fee of nearly $600 is HEFTY but I end up paying for most of it with rewards that the card gives me. I get $20 a month on streaming subscriptions in credits. $200 a year in airline credits. Free Walmart+ which comes with free Paramount+. Plus a whole slew of other bonuses. I pretty much exclusively use it to reduce my Hulu bill by $20 a month, get credited back for travel that my work reimburses me for (so I actually make some money off it) and take advantage of some of their very juicy offers.
Oh plus the Amazon card because 5% adds up with how much damage I do there.
This is perhaps of niche applicability, but if you hold combined balances of over $50k to over $100k in accounts across Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, a number of Bank of America credit cards give between 2.25% and 2.625% cash back for all charges, with no category restrictions and no limits. It's presumably an intentional loss leader for them, but in banking as an individual it is often beneficial to take advantage of loss leaders.
Does Bank of America have any accounts that yield decent returns? No matter how I look at it, eking out an extra .25–.625% over the other flat 2% cards in no way makes up for what you'd be missing out on having that $50k+ in a HYSA bearing 3%, or investing it for even better returns.
Merrill Lynch balances are included; ignoring investments, at least on >$100k, they were at around 4.8% recently for bank deposits (FDIC, not SIPC, and actually with Bank of America) with before-2pm-eastern liquidity.
One of the frustrating things with Bank of America recently is everything seems to be hidden behind Merrill Lynch or private banking in some way. At this point, keeping any amount in direct BofA accounts makes little sense.