Best Credit Card for rewards

[tednvon]

Good Morning,

We are fortunate to be able to pay balance of credit card each month and use it for lots of purchases. We have an Amercian Airlines Advantage Card which has been OK, but hard to get flights sometimes.
Anyone really researched cards like Capital One to determine which might be the best deal if you can pay balance each month....

Thanks as, always, to the people in the know on these boards.

Ted

 

[kz]

Due to current gas prices it would have to be our Shell Mastercards. We get a 5% rebate each and every month based on our gas consumption last month.

 

[Texas Proud]

Citi dividend has 5% off gas, groceries and drug stores... 1% off everything else

I think Chase has a similar deal, but do not know what it is called..

 

[SteveR]

Ted,
I have the Citi AA Advantage card too. I have had it well over 10 years and must have over 400,000 miles on AA. Too bad I moved to the land of Delta so I am not able to use it much. We are looking for a Delta miles card but I would rather get one that pays money rather than miles since the miles can go away just like their pension programs.

 

[maddythebeagle]

Citi dividend has 5% off gas, groceries and drug stores... 1% off everything else

- ditto use that one. Discover also has some 5% cards (one for gas, one for home improvement stores, and one for restaurants).

 

[justin]

I have the Citi Dividend. From my research it is the best deal if you don't carry a balance. There is a limit of $300 cash back per year. But that is per card, so get one for you and one for your spouse. Citi also has a rewards card with 5% for gas/groceries/drugstores and 1% everything else. The limit for that is $750/yr worth of gift cards (great selection of those though, including travel/airline tickets).

We get a check of $50-$100 every month or two. Although almost all of our purchases are gas or groceries (Super Walmart is a grocery store according to them!). No annual fee either.

My parents have been hanging on to their Amex Delta skymiles card with $60 annual fee for years and years. They have received plenty of free flights, but with the blackout dates and limitations, it seems like more trouble than it is worth. I'm trying to persuade them to switch to Citi dividends. I figure it is easier/cheaper to get the cashback then shop for airline deals you want.

 

[sailor]

My parents have been hanging on to their Amex Delta skymiles card with $60 annual fee for years and years. They have received plenty of free flights, but with the blackout dates and limitations, it seems like more trouble than it is worth. I'm trying to persuade them to switch to Citi dividends. I figure it is easier/cheaper to get the cashback then shop for airline deals you want.

I have both Citi Dividend and Amex Delta. Use citi for gas & groceries and amex for everything else.
Delta Amex is plenty worth "the hassle", if you know how to work the system.
Sailor's family for example will be visiting Europe in October, 50k miles per person:
Atlanta -> Amsterdam -> Warsaw -> Paris -> Dublin -> Atlanta,
but I won't use 25k miles to fly to Boston in September (wedding in the family), since I can get AirTran ticket for $154.

sailor

 

[justin]

Sailor,

If you're willing to spend time working the system the Delta skymiles can be good. I think they have caribbean and mexico tickets for 30k miles. That would be hard to beat with a cash equivalent. Are you paying the annual fee too?

 

[sailor]

Are you paying the annual fee too?

I pay $135 annual fee (for the Platinum card) which gives me one companion ticket per year, Medallion Qualification miles and no cap on miles.
For me it's worth it, but if you don't care about the above, Amex runs first year free promo on the Gold card all the time - I know a couple who gets a new card every other year in husband/wife name avoiding $85 fee.
They also have a lot "double miles" email invitation programs, so make sure that you register your email with them.
I think we got double miles on everything for 5 out of 8 months this year (not counting regular "double miles").

 

[OldAgePensioner]

Not sure if this is possible these days but when AT&T started it's Universal Card (MC), I got one with no fee for life. Went almost 10 years without using it and it never got cancelled.

So keep your eyes out for those deals.

 

[MJ]

I also the cit platinum dividend card. I have found a while back that it is the merchant code that determines the rebate. I once bought $20 worth of gas at Sell gas station and only got the 1% rebate. Upon inquiring, I found out the gas station didn't have the merchant code for the 5%.
I had the same problem with 2 similar fruit & veg stores not far apart so I shop for the specials. I discovered that I got 5% rebate from 1 store and only 1% from the other.

 

[WanderALot]

I have the Citi AA Advantage card too. I have had it well over 10 years and must have over 400,000 miles on AA. Too bad I moved to the land of Delta so I am not able to use it much. We are looking for a Delta miles card but I would rather get one that pays money rather than miles since the miles can go away just like their pension programs.

We got the Delta SkyMiles American Express card. They award you 15k miles on the very first purchase. Their offers range anywhere from 12.5k to 17.5k for getting the card. You can also get an additional 2.5k if you get an additional card. I called them up and told them that I've received an offer for 17.5k in the past and they went ahead and awarded me the extra 2.5k miles.

The cool thing about this card is that it's no annual fee for the 1st year. When we got the card, I had 15k miles on Delta, so I was able to get a free ticket right away (saved over $400!). On top of that, I'm very close to getting another free ticket and it's only been 8 months since I got the card. I'll be canceling this card to avoid the annual fee.

 

[lazyday]

The Citi card which gives gift cards instead of cash back is almost as good IMO, since you can get gift cards for gas. So, instead of getting back 5%, it's like getting back 4.75% which is close enough for me.

I figure Citi will like me better if i use that card instead of the cash back one, and it came with a better bonus for signing up. ($100 free gas)

Thanks Justin, i didn't realize it also has a higher cashback limit. I probably wouldn't hit the $300 anyway.

There's another thread on this topic somewhere, and i think it had another alternative to the citi card which sounded good for non-grocery/gas. maybe it was a pentagon credit union card?? i think it was better than 1% back. If interested, search here and perhaps nofeeboards.com or raddr-pages.com

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I have the citi dividend card, and also like OAP I have an at&t universal rewards card. I also got the universal card about 14 years ago when it doubled as both a credit card AND a long distance calling card (which it still does), also never used it, and last year they changed it to a 5% rewards card on gas, groceries and drug store purchases. Citibank owns the universal card now, so in essence I have two citibank cards that pay 5% on those three purchase points. When we use up the $300 limit on one (this year in mid July), I take that one out of our wallets and replace it with the other, for the next $300.

We also use discover, but they have funny rules on how much you get back. Its only .25% in many warehouse and deep discounters like sams club and walmart. They use the phrase "Up to 1%..." a little too much. Some of the cards limit the reward until you spend a lot of money, some cards start limiting as you spend more, so check all the fine print.

The 5% off gas station cards dont work here, as those gas stations charge a lot more than a 5% premium for their gas. I can buy regular unleaded for ~$2.98 at a no-name station that takes credit cards; Shell stations in the area are charging ~$3.38, and 76 stations are brazenly charging $3.69 for regular.

 

[Bourne]

I would recommend Starwood Amex Platinum card. It comes with a $30 annual fees.

You earn 1 point per $ spent and 2 at SPG hotels. Starwood has a Anytime/Anywhere redemption policy starting at 2000 points. 20K points can be transferred to most airline programs for 25K miles.