My husband and I are shopping for a new rewards card after an annoying experience trying to cash in American Airlines skymiles on our current card. We’re specifically looking for one that might be good for families, as we have a baby on the way, but that isn’t necessary. Do any of you use a rewards-type card that you’re really happy with? We’re specifically looking for a Visa or MasterCard, as we already have a Discover card.
I use the Chase Freedom card, based on the advice I read here and my personal level of spending. Personally I hate Chase’s customer service, but the rewards are good if you pay 'em every month. Get your payments in early - unlike other cards I’ve used (Discover), you can’t pay on the due date itself electronically. Bastards. It is a good card though and I’m nearly at the $200 cashout (if you wait to cashout until you hit $200, you get a bonus $50). I filter pretty much everything except for rent, utilities and car payments through the card. If it doesn’t charge me a fee to charge it, I charge it - my auto insurance, for example, goes on the card.
If you read that article, you might prefer multiple cards or just go with Amex Blue, if you spend more on the credit card than I do.
I second both the useless airline partner cards and the Chase Freedom card instead.
I use the Marriott Card (run by Chase these days). We usually use it for hotel stays (for my daughter’s graduation, we stayed free at the Renaissance in DC – about as upscale as you can get). Very easy to use – just book the reservations online and tell them you’re using their points. I was also grandfathered in so I don’t pay a yearly fee.
AmEx has a pretty good rewards program if it’s points you want. I charge my insurance on it and have built up a bunch of points.
Cash is king, so imo, any card that gives you a high cash back percentage is great. I used to think that airline miles were good, too. But, even in this day of high gas prices, I could still find cheap tickets (search early). But, as I take longer and longer vacations, I find the cost of staying somewhere easily outweighs the cost of actually getting there. So, I think hotel points are great (second best). At work, we have Marriott, but my other friends who travel way more than I do like Hilton better.
The AARP card offers points to be used for gift cards at restaurants, airlines, and some stores. It’s working out ok for us.
We had a Toys R Us card for a few years until they decided to switch it to a Mastercard from being a Visa, which messed up a bunch of automatic payments we’d set up and caused a fair bit of inconvenience. Having kids, with frequent birthday parties, as well as Christmas and birthday gifts, we had no trouble using up the rewards certificates.
When they switched the card, we started using a Visa that gives us Amazon.com certificates. As the kids are a bit older now (fewer things at TRU) and it helps with family gift-giving, this works well also.
Both were/are through Chase and I’ve never had any problem with the customer service. You can schedule a payment online on the due date and it’s handled as paid on time.
After bad experiences trying to cash Delta miles, I swapped to American Express Blue Cash. If you use a credit card a lot, the savings are significant. For your first $6,000 of expenditure you get 1% on some things, including groceries and gas, and 0.5% on everything else. But after the first $6,500 the cashback rises to 5% for some things, and 1.5% on everything else.
We have a 2yo and another wee one on the way in Feb, we picked up the cashback card while I was pregnant with #1.
We have a Sony card that we can earn points towards Sony products. Got it back in college when we were trying to acquire electronics. We also have a Mastercard through Citi (citicards.com) where we earn cashback on groceries n such. I like the later very much since on the Citi site we can set up virtual account numbers when purchasing online, although it’s created issues if I try to use in-store pickups ie: Circuit City.
Most people do not know that the use of credit cards brings the cost of everything up. The businesses have to pay a certain amount to the card company, they pass on the expense to the customer. So in the long run the customer is getting back a small amount on their purchases but are paying more for the items than they would if everyone paid cash.
Using a credit card for over the line or calling in through the mail, the difference is made up by adding a handling charge.
Monavis