I use the Fidelity Visa as my primary card for many of the reasons you listed. Simple, no annual fee, no rotating categories to activate every quarter, straight 2% cash back on everything. It's about the best I found with those constraints (simplicity).
I have had the card for 5-6 years now, and had the number stolen twice (not sure how, either bad POS terminals, or online, or unrelated to me). Both times they cancelled out the fraudulent transactions and shipped me a new card with no grief.
I carry two credit cards, both set up to automatically pay the full amount each month. We keep tabs on the charges every week or two so it's never a surprise. I recommend only going for cash back, every other "perk" can be bought cheaper on the open market than being tied to it through a card.
I recommend American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card. This is the card that got us to break our "I'll never pay for a credit card" rule.. It's $80 per year, and I get about ~$1400 cash back through it. It's 6% back on groceries and 3% gas, 1% everything else. We have a big family which means lots of food is purchased on it. A lot of places don't take American Express, so it's good to have another anyway.
The other is a Citi Double Cash Mastercard. The deal with this one is that it's a flat 2% back on everything, so anything not gas or groceries goes on this one. This one is worth $800-1000 per year to us. Mastercard is accepted anywhere that American Express isn't.
Credit cards aren't scary once you're comfortable in your monthly spending. They're only dangerous if you're still at the "acquiring stuff without paying attention" phase of life (I've been there before).
Edit: Any credit card is going to offer you good fraud protection and absolve you of responsibility for those charges. The reason debit doesn't is because you know the pin, so if that's compromised, they assume you did it, which is flawed. Generally, if you run a debit card through as a credit card, then it's ran through the issuer (visa/mc) and handled like a credit card. But the downside is that it will jack with your cash on hand while it's sorted out. With a credit card, there's no immediate impact to you, and it's all handled very quickly. That's why they charge merchants those exorbitant fees to take CCs.
You may look at one of the cash back options then. I have Citi Double cash for that. They also tend to have great 0% balance transfer options for both just a blank check or cash into the bank account.
What's in your wallet? The Capital One card seems to be well advertised, if nothing else.
Check with your bank or credit union. I bet they'd love to have your credit card business. See if they can offer perks competitive with the big boys, or nearly so.
I've had my Discover account for decades. I like the straightforward nature of their rewards, which accumulates as actual cash money that you can transfer to your bank account or apply as a statement credit. I'm sure others do this too, but many just give you "points" which are about worthless, IMO.
Are you a Costco member? If so, their Visa is pretty good and gives you cash back for buying stuff there, as well as gas and restaurants.
This might help:
If paid off every month the Amazon CC might work well for your needs. The interest rate isn't very competitive, but the Amazon cash back is useful.
I just accepted a job offer that requires some travel and expense compensation, so I'll be shopping for a card with airline miles or hotel points soon. Might as well cash in on free money.
Some people I know swear by American Express. You have to pay it off every month plus some have a rewards program. Downside is they do have annual fees. For me, I've done the other credit card deals but they always seem to add an annual fee later or raise their rates, sometimes both. I've found your local bank that has your account may have the best deal. I only use credit cards for major expenses I don't want to use cash or have the cash for or emergency expenses. Gets paid off quickly, matter of a couple months. Learned you do have to use them once in a while or you lose them, canceled for lack of activity. Especially if you keep them zero ballance. Lost my emergency card that way, wasn't renewed when it expired. I like to keep a card for emergencies. I live on the other side of the country from my family and mom is 81 years old now. She's in good shape but you never know at that age. Plus other family getting up there and/or health issues. Peace of mind that I have a card that I can immediately use without concern of balance or cost to immediately get someplace if I needed to. Have had that issue in the past when I didn't make as much as I do now.
Are you a member, or do you have a credit union near you?
I found one local to me that allowed me to pick the date to pay off entire balance without charging any interest.
If I didn't pay it off on that date each month (like when I had to replace central air) the interest rate wasn't that competitive,
I saved and made sure it was paid for as quickly as I could (overtime at work).
I did have to ask if this was available.
I use it for all online purchases, fuel, and emergencies.
I've got an Amex Blue Cash - a version with no annual fees; it may not have the same cash back amount as the ones that have fees, but I don't pay anything for it. Main downside is that there are a few places that don't take Amex, although this is getting smaller and smaller.
Amazon prime points card. They build up pretty fast. Barring that the only other cards i use are for hotel points. Building up my best western points right now for the challenge hotel.
I run 3 cards here, a Sears card that I really need to just cancel, I took it when I bought a washer and dryer as it was 10% off plus another $100 gift card or something for signing up, so something like $220 in total rewards. The washer and dryer was the only thing I ever bought on it so I should just cancel.
The other two are my go-tos. Amazon Prime is my #1 card, the 5% on Amazon is tough to beat since I basically buy everything ever from Amazon. I also use a Chase Freedom as my #2, they have 5% back on categories that rotate, so I will use the Chase Freedom heavily quarterly based on the rewards. Sometimes 5% on gas so thats my gas card for 3 months, sometimes 5% on groceries and restaurants so its my card for groceries and restaurants. The Amazon card sees 99% of the use though.
I am diligent and pay it off every month. Thats all that really matters. Credit cards are a great tool if you are responsible. Never bought something I could not afford to buy in cash that day.
Tom_Spangler said:Are you a Costco member? If so, their Visa is pretty good and gives you cash back for buying stuff there, as well as gas and restaurants.
2nd this. If you have a Costco nearby, it's the only way to go. IMO.
In reply to WonkoTheSane :
Wow you just described $60k/yr in credit card charges. That’s on another level and it’s great you get over $2k in rewards but DANG.
@Woody, I think the main recommended cashback credit cards have already been mentioned. The usual recommendation is to get two for best bang for the buck. I haven't got the Amazon card myself (yet) but if you're shopping a lot on Amazon, the 5% back on that one should definitely be worth it.
Discover.
Easy to work with, make payments, monthly FICO score, and dispute settlement is pretty easy too. Someone somehow got my card number and purchased something with it, I call Discover and they didn't ask many questions and quickly froze the card and sent a new one with a new number. Rewards are decent too.
Final advice, pay it off every month!
mike said:Are you a member, or do you have a credit union near you?
I found one local to me that allowed me to pick the date to pay off entire balance without charging any interest.
If I didn't pay it off on that date each month (like when I had to replace central air) the interest rate wasn't that competitive,
I saved and made sure it was paid for as quickly as I could (overtime at work).
I did have to ask if this was available.
I use it for all online purchases, fuel, and emergencies.
THIS! In addition to the creidt card I use two different free credit union checking accounts which pay me 1.75 and 2.75% interest respectively on up to $20K each. There are a few things like some min transactions and viewing the account online once a month to do but they aren't terrible. Then I have a 2% cashback card which gets used for everything else. This translates 2% back and I get the carry-over and % from checking.
NEALSMO said:I just accepted a job offer that requires some travel and expense compensation, so I'll be shopping for a card with airline miles or hotel points soon. Might as well cash in on free money.
My recommendation as someone who travels a fair amount - unless you are 100% sure that you are always traveling on the same airline and always stay in the same hotel chain, forget about getting a tied in credit card. Get one that gives you independently usable travel points instead and just collect 'regular' airmiles with the airlines you are flying with.
Amongst my colleagues we pretty much all have either the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve. The latter is rather expensive ($450/year) but worth the money if you travel a lot. Either is worth it for things like primary rental car insurance and other perks like that, plus the Chase points are reasonably valuable.
Oh, and if you want to disappear down a rabbit hole for a while, check out "The Points Guy"'s blog.
www.nerdwallet.com
Research what cards will best fit with your needs.
I can say I do have the Chase Sapphire (metal card which is kind of neat) and my absolute FAVORITE thing about the card? I call the number, by the 5th ring an English as a first language speaker answers and asks how they can help.
No 10 minutes of automated menus to take me to an ESL call center reading a script.
I've had the Amazon Prime card for years. No annual fee and I pay it off in full every month. The reward monies just show up in my Amazon balance, which is always a nice little surprise. It has no international transaction fees and the usual rental car insurance, so it's handy when traveling. As always, Chase is watching for fraud and has been good to deal with when it's happened, including next-day shipping a replacement to Canada once.
Go through nerdwallet and figure out what you need.
I have 6 cards:
-Chase Sapphire. It has a $500 fee or so per year, but I easily earn that back in rewards. Plus, it pays for your TSA precheck, and gives you $300 back in travel charges. We charge almost everything to this card, as it pays for us to visit my brother and/or BIL through a plane ticket.
-Chase Freedom. 5% back on certain things depending on the quarter. No fee. I think this quarter it is grocery stores; last quarter was gas stations. Then we transfer the points the the Sapphire card.
-Chase.... Something. This was a 0% interest card that I had for emergencies. I need to close it as the introductory rate is over; I haven't used it in months (years?).
-Amazon Prime card. For Amazon purchases. This is administered through Chase (important fact)
-BOA.... Something; another 0% emergency card. Came in handy--washer and dryer went out literally the week after I lost my job. Charged $2000 to the Sapphire, transferred the balance for free (read the fine print to make sure it is free!), and now we have 18 months to pay it off (it will be paid off in a week or two).
-Visa through a credit union. My first credit card. I charge something on it about once every 3 months.
I'm thinking about getting the Costco card since we do a lot of shopping there, but I don't want to have another place to check--Note something important here. I really only have to monitor two cards. 4 of my 6 are through Chase. 1 login. Easy to monitor all of them at once and see if I need to pay anything. BOA is easy to check. The last one (My first) I don't use.
I have a bunch for no good reason, but the 3 I use are an AMEX blue cash, Amazon Chase and Citi American Airlines.
Amex is pretty basic with a little cash back. I've used their travel agency a few times for some great deals.
Amazon without trying will earn enough cash back to pay the prime fee and get some odds and ends. I hate the Chase website, almost enough to get rid of this one.
Citi AAdvantage is very situational. Its $100/yr but if you fly American you get free checked bags. The places we fly, AA is our preferred airline. I use this one for work expenses pretty exclusively to make those easier to keep track of. Their sign up bonus is usually pretty good too.
As everyone says: pay them off in full
dculberson said:In reply to WonkoTheSane :
Wow you just described $60k/yr in credit card charges. That’s on another level and it’s great you get over $2k in rewards but DANG.
Yeppo! It helps when you travel a lot for work and you pay for everything up front (then get reimbursed). And, we go through a lot of food around here :). Although I have been travelling less lately so I guess my haul probably won't average out that good this year.
The biggest thing is that we put EVERYTHING on the cards. I would guess that we use less than 2k in cash per year, because we can get something back by using the cards. Every bill is on auto pay on the cards, charitable donations go on it, etc. All household expenses. Buying new windows? On the card.
We treat it like cash as far as never spending what we don't have today, but why turn down free money, right?
We have a southwest card and Delta.
with rewards we flew to Las Vegas for $22 each and Hawaii for $191.
Payed off every month.
WonkoTheSane said:dculberson said:In reply to WonkoTheSane :
Wow you just described $60k/yr in credit card charges. That’s on another level and it’s great you get over $2k in rewards but DANG.
Yeppo! It helps when you travel a lot for work and you pay for everything up front (then get reimbursed). And, we go through a lot of food around here :). Although I have been travelling less lately so I guess my haul probably won't average out that good this year.
The biggest thing is that we put EVERYTHING on the cards. I would guess that we use less than 2k in cash per year, because we can get something back by using the cards. Every bill is on auto pay on the cards, charitable donations go on it, etc. All household expenses. Buying new windows? On the card.
We treat it like cash as far as never spending what we don't have today, but why turn down free money, right?
Since this bubbled up to the surface, I thought it would be fun to check how my rewards are this year, since there was no work travel and significantly less gas usage across the board. But also due to the pandemic and the twins getting old enough to transition to beds, I ended up redoing two bedrooms for the kids, so I built three beds, got some desks, redid flooring, etc., finished up the house windows from two years ago, so it was a bit heavy on the improvement expenses over the normal yearly budget.
Total spent on the Citi: $47,402.63, cash back: $919.64 or 1.95%
Amex: $12,561.84, cash back $550.10 ($470 after yearly fee) or 3.75% (after fee).
Another hit to the Amex is that we started shopping at CostCo, which doesn't allow you to use anything other than Visa, so that comes directly out of the bank (debit card used as credit), so no points are awarded. So between lack of gas and reduction of local grocery store purchases, we're down over 50% return on that.
May be time to break down & grab a CostCo card.
Interest paid: $0.00
You'll need to log in to post.
