Current choices for Cash Back Credit Cards

[Golden sunsets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset All my Bank of America CC's give me notice, I set them to notify me of anything over $1.00 The Cash reward one, is super great if you are willing to join their Preferred Rewards program (which is free and great). It does mean having a Merrill Lynch brokerage account. With the Preferred Rewards designation my Cash CC returns 5.25% (instead of 3%) on my choice of category, and 3.5% (instead of 2%) on grocery and wholesale clubs.

Yes. But there is a $2500/quarter spending limitation on the bonus. The $2500 includes your 3% category and the 2% grocery store category. I find that we exhaust the $2500 well before the end of each quarter.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets Yes. But there is a $2500/quarter spending limitation on the bonus. The $2500 includes your 3% category and the 2% grocery store category. I find that we exhaust the $2500 well before the end of each quarter.

Good point, I haven't run into this yet, so far I have spent a max of $1,522 on groceries in a quarter, leaving me about $1,000 to spend on my category which is online shopping.

I guess I don't spend enough

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets Yes. But there is a $2500/quarter spending limitation on the bonus. The $2500 includes your 3% category and the 2% grocery store category. I find that we exhaust the $2500 well before the end of each quarter.

I use 3 cash rewards cards and usually hit the limits right near the end of the 3 month period. I sometimes change the categories in the 3rd month to maximize the reward.

[ocean view]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum Which of the 2%/no fee cards gives you notifications when used? I use Penfed's Power Cash Rewards for 2% (with PF checking acct), but it doesn't give me notifications.

It looks like PenFed offers Visa purchase alerts. Have you tried this?

https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards/...urchase-alerts

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ocean view It looks like PenFed offers Visa purchase alerts. Have you tried this? https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards/...urchase-alerts

Thanks! I just registered my PenFed CC.

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ocean view It looks like PenFed offers Visa purchase alerts. Have you tried this? https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards/...urchase-alerts

Thanks! I was not aware of this. Either it's pretty new, or just really hard to find. Even knowing it was there I had a hard time navigating to it from my PF account or home page. I finally found it by doing a search for "Alerts".

[ocean view]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum Thanks! I was not aware of this. Either it's pretty new, or just really hard to find. Even knowing it was there I had a hard time navigating to it from my PF account or home page. I finally found it by doing a search for "Alerts".

I don’t have a PenFed card, but a Visa through my local CU. I was really frustrated by the CU alerts that would arrive days after the transaction. In my frustration, I finally found the instructions to set up these alerts directly from Visa. I took a shot that PenFed CU had the same thing. Hope it works out for you.

[misanman]

For those of you with the Fidelity card - apparently the rewards scheme has changed and I'm wondering if anyone has see the change yet? There are now three levels, Gold (2.25%), Platinum (2.5%), and Platinum Plus (3.0%). Your level also determines the yield on cash balances in your account as well as some other bene's. Upgrades are supposed to be automatic.

Edited to add - looks like this is only for professional wealth managed clients - would likely not apply to most members on this board. Sorry for the unjustified excitement :-(

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by misanman Edited to add - looks like this is only for professional wealth managed clients - would likely not apply to most members on this board. Sorry for the unjustified excitement :-(

Ahh... Wealth Management! Those magic words that tickle the ears of the uniformed. I'll keep my 2% card.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by misanman For those of you with the Fidelity card - apparently the rewards scheme has changed and I'm wondering if anyone has see the change yet? There are now three levels, Gold (2.25%), Platinum (2.5%), and Platinum Plus (3.0%). Your level also determines the yield on cash balances in your account as well as some other bene's. Upgrades are supposed to be automatic. Edited to add - looks like this is only for professional wealth managed clients - would likely not apply to most members on this board. Sorry for the unjustified excitement :-(

One can be in Fidelity's Wealth Management program without paying any management fees, unless I am misquoting here, or the "professional" aspect is another form of the program.
Thus if correct, the automatic upgrade would not cost anything.

[Done]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dtail One can be in Fidelity's Wealth Management program without paying any management fees, unless I am misquoting here, or the "professional" aspect is another form of the program. Thus if correct, the automatic upgrade would not cost anything.

Fidelity’s Wealth Management requires managed assets and fees.

Minimum investment:
$250,000 managed through Fidelity Wealth Services

Gross advisory fee: 0.50%–1.50%

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Done Fidelity’s Wealth Management requires managed assets and fees. Minimum investment: $250,000 managed through Fidelity Wealth Services Gross advisory fee: 0.50%–1.50%

Okay stand corrected. Thanks.

[Katsmeow]

So after reading this thread I have done a little tweaking of cards:

1. Still use Amex Blue Cash Preferred for grocery stores (6%) and 3% for gas stations, streaming services, transportation (rarely use).

I was using this for almost everything else except Apple store purchases and when Amex could not be used.

2. Apple store purchases - 3%. You can get 2% if you use Apple pay but we haven't been going anywhere to use. I was using this card though to get 1% at places where I couldn't use Amex. I am no longer doing that though.

3. Chase Amazon Prime Card - 5% on Amazon purchases. I sometimes used it to get 1% on other things, but no more.

4. Fidelity Preferred Visa - I just got this card because of this thread. It is just a straight 2% deposited to my Fidelity account. I will now be using this for everything except where I get more than 2%. The net effect is that I will be using Amex a lot less. I will be using the Apple card and the Prime card a little less but not a huge change.

[tb001]

Any thoughts on the best cash back/rewards card to use for health insurance? Because of covid, for the first time we can put our insurance through cobra on a credit card. I was initially looking at the fidelity 2% card but now I’m wondering if the BofA card might be a better option. Maybe there’s a useful sub category there? It’s almost 40k for our family of four and our biggest annual expense, so getting a decent cash back rate would be nice.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tb001 Any thoughts on the best cash back/rewards card to use for health insurance? Because of covid, for the first time we can put our insurance through cobra on a credit card. I was initially looking at the fidelity 2% card but now I’m wondering if the BofA card might be a better option. Maybe there’s a useful sub category there? It’s almost 40k for our family of four and our biggest annual expense, so getting a decent cash back rate would be nice.

I don't believe there is a subcategory for medical on the BOA cash rewards card. Additionally with one card, you would be limited to 2.5k per quarter or 10k per year out of the 40k expense.

BOA also has a Premium Rewards card that one can effectively receive 2.625% back with the caveat of having 100k at ML/BOA. This card does have a $95 fee, but if you travel then $100 of baggage costs are reimbursed each year, plus your breakeven point would be below the 40k expenses vs. the Fidelity 2% card.

[Golden sunsets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dtail I don't believe there is a subcategory for medical on the BOA cash rewards card. Additionally with one card, you would be limited to 2.5k per quarter or 10k per year out of the 40k expense. BOA also has a Premium Rewards card that one can effectively receive 2.625% back with the caveat of having 100k at ML/BOA. This card does have a $95 fee, but if you travel then $100 of baggage costs are reimbursed each year, plus your breakeven point would be below the 40k expenses vs. the Fidelity 2% card.

I did get another BOA cash back card yesterday, so that we will now have $5000 in quarterly spending available at the 5.25% reward level for on line, or other qualifying category and 3.5% for groceries/clubs. We use our Chase to autopay Telcom and cable/internet which earn 5% rewards. Everything else earns 2.625% on the BOA premium, which costs $95/yr, with a $100 annual credit for airline baggage costs.

[tb001]

The 2.65% cash back seems like the best deal if we went with the premium card at BofA. Finishing up a home refinancing, so plan on applying for this and the amex card soon. I really like the idea of using these high cash back cards to buy gift cards. I think we could end up with 5% back on majority of our consumer spend.

[samm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by googily Citi Double Cash gives 1% when you purchase and 1% when you pay the bill.

+1
Had this card for many years.

I like to have cards issued by both Citi & Chase

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dtail ... BOA also has a Premium Rewards card that one can effectively receive 2.625% back with the caveat of having 100k at ML/BOA. ....

I like this card, but will point out to folks, the BOA cards % back increase by having some $$ at ML/BOA, does take some time to get 'activated'.

Perhaps this was because I was new to ML, or because of their method of calculating the Preferred Rewards level based on the previous 3 month average amount of money.

I think it took about 3 months for the "Preferred Rewards" to assigned to my accounts.

Once you are in, though it is great !

[omni550]

"Chase is making a big splash in the world of rewards credit cards with the introduction of a brand-new card on September 15 – and it’s a doozy. The Chase Freedom Flex℠ is the latest addition to Chase’s Freedom credit card line, offering a truly unique cashback program that combines rotating 5% categories with ongoing 5% and 3% categories as well.
If there was one word to sum up how to describe Chase Freedom Flex℠’s suite of rewards, it would be generous. Right off the bat, Chase Freedom Flex℠offers quarterly rotating 5% cashback categories for things like grocery stores (not including Walmart & Target), internet and phone services, streaming services and more. However, most cards that have 5% cashback categories only offer 1% cash back on purchases outside that category."

https://www.comparecards.com/guide/f...27fa6278&mta=1

omni