Credit card comparison

[braumeister]

Pretty nice new comparison site from Consumer Reports. Gives an indication of the cash back you might get from different cards.

Credit Card Comparison Tool - Consumer Reports

 

[panacea]

That's a pretty nifty tool. Too bad you can't put in multiple cards for each category. For example, my Fidelity Visa wins between my 3 cards but that's because it's 2% cash back for everything and most of my spending is on "everything else." But I actually use my Costco Citi Visa for restaurants and gas (3% I think; geez I can hardly keep it all straight) and my Chase Visa for specific categories that pay 5% in a given quarter (like wholesale clubs last quarter and this quarter).

 

[LOL!]

I wonder how personalized this can be since my credit cards offer temporary deals every so often. Also, I don't see a few of my cards in the drop-down list of possible cards. I guess that's why it is a beta version.

My Citi card has me down for 5% cash back as a credit on my statement for groceries, restaurants, and gas for a limited time. I'm not even sure if this was offered to all clients. I wonder if they look at your purchase history to decide what categories to offer to you.

Normally, I don't even use my Citi card unless I get 5% cash back with it. For instance, I got 5% cash back on a rental car a few weeks ago.

Otherwise, I use a 2% cash-back for anything that isn't 5% cash back.

 

[harley]

It's an odd tool, and doesn't quite make sense. It shows my cash back at one year, with my card being 3rd of 55. Then for 3 years it shows a total of double (not triple) my cash back from the first year, ranking the card 13th of 55. There's nothing about the card that limits the cash back, so it should be triple by year 3. Also it doesn't allow you to estimate the special options like the 5% cash back that Discover offers on various categories throughout the year. So, B- from me.

 

[DanP]

Interesting tool, thanks for sharing.

Using Amazon Visa almost exclusively these days because bulk of expenses ended up being Amazon, groceries or eating out.

So outside of Target store expenses on a Target card for the obvious 5% Amazon maximizes things for us.

Giving depth to the tool.

 

[pb4uski]

I prefer simple... for years we have had a Discover card with 2% on everything... we can credit it to travel charges so in essence it is 2% cash back... but it has an annual fee.

We recently changed to the Citi Cash Back card...1% when charged and 1% when paid... but since we are on autopay and pay our bill every month in effect it is 2% on everything but with no annual fee.

Another plus is there were inevitably places that did not take Discover so we had charges on our VISA too and the Citi Cash Back card is accepted everywhere (so far).

 

[Amethyst]

Same here...there has been an awful lot of "Everything Else" of late, so the 2% has really piled up.

As for the cards with rotating 5% back categories, I gave up trying to track them and "time" purchases to be in line with them. Whole quarters went by where we didn't eat at a restaurant, for example. And when we did try to make it work, there was the matter of remembering to pay bills from CC's we hardly ever use....I was using a spreadsheet to keep track of it all, and finally said phooey, I'm not keeping book on scraps.

my Fidelity Visa wins between my 3 cards but that's because it's 2% cash back for everything and most of my spending is on "everything else." But I actually use my Costco Citi Visa for restaurants and gas (3% I think; geez I can hardly keep it all straight) .

 

[jonat]

But I actually use my Costco Citi Visa for restaurants and gas (3% I think; geez I can hardly keep it all straight)

3% for restaurants, 4% for gas.

 

[Chuckanut]

Thanks.


4