What is the best Credit Card Program?

[boettj]

There are tons of different credit card promotions out there. Some are good, others are just a joke. For example, my DF has a BJ's Wholesale visa. After spending X amount, he receives a coupon for $20 in the mail. Another is my SouthWest Airlines card. For a certain amount of purchases, we get segments towards a free flight. Neither of these cards have an annual fee.


Keep in mind, that these cards work better when you are spending and paying them in full. When you retain balances, you normally do not get any benefit.


Thank you

 

[tnd]

I like the Costco Amex. It's free if you are a Costco member. We get 3% cash back on gas and restaurants, 2% on travel and 1% on everything else. Once a year we get rebate checks that you can cash at Costco or spend there.

 

[CEK40]

We have the Disney Visa from Chase. We love it because we get "Reward Dollars" for what we charge that can be used for our trips to WDW. I agree with the previous poster that when you charge you should be able to pay it off each month and not carry a balance.

We don't charge needlessly but for bills, college tuition, groceries, gas, the needed monthly expenses or things that we would normally pay cash for we charge and then pay it off at the end of the month. That way the interest rate really doesn't effect us.

Also, they offer specials for Disney Visa Card members before others can get them on discounted Disney travel, free dining, bonus rewards points for certain charges made during the month. You also get six months interest free on your vacation ressies if you charge them on the Disney Visa. You can use them for other things like Disney movie tickets, DVD, etc.

I guess you have to love Disney, and if you do then this is a great card, at least for our family.

 

[georgina]

I'm sure the best card will vary based on spending, travel habits, etc. I have several cards I use for different things -

Costco Amex - like tnd explained above
Chase Rewards - reward has been cut to 3% cash back only on the first $400 spent on gas, groceries, drug stores. so I use it for $400 a month, then switch to -
Citibank card, which gives 2% in those categories, and 1% cash back everywhere else
REI credit card - the one we have had the longest, huge credit limit, 1% back
LLBean card - free shipping on LLBean purchases, 1% back in reward certificate, huge credit limit
Chase Marriott - got it for one year free, we don't travel that much, so I am accumulating points this year, then may cancel and use the points next year for travel
Chase Disney - I use only when planning a trip or offered bonus points

I WISH we could charge college tuition at DD's school! Of course I would only do it if there were no extra fees to charge. I have many monthly bills and several charitable donations go directly to my credit cards.

 

[lucigo]

I'm guessing that rewards cards become harder and harder to find in the next few years with all the changes that have been happening to "protect" us. I have tried several.

We have a Disney Visa that has been great for getting 6 months no interest on Disney vacations but don't use it otherwise.

Our SeaMiles card was in theory supposed to be worth a free cruise eventually but there are lots of stipulations and now I just want to use the miles and ditch it.

We had a CitiBank card that refunds 1% to our mortgage (boring).

The one we are using the most is our Navy Federal card. Among other rewards we can get $625 back in our account for every 50K points (dollars spent). I figured if I couldn't find anything to spend them on the cash will always come in handy. I will probably be cashing out for spending money on my next cruise.

 

[twinnersmama]

I like my Discover More card. You get 1% back on everything and every quarter there is different categories that you get 5% back on (ie: this quarter's is gas, grocery and amusement parks, I think)

I cancelled my old Discover and got a new one with the "spend $599 and get $100 cash back" deal they now have. I have to pay off my upcoming WDW trip, so what's better than $100 back?

As a side note: I do put almost everything on this card to get the max cash back, BUT WE DO PAY IT OFF IN FULL EVERY MONTH !!

The only down side is there are some places that don't take discover.

 

[loonytoony]

I like my Discover More card. You get 1% back on everything and every quarter there is different categories that you get 5% back on (ie: this quarter's is gas, grocery and amusement parks, I think)

I cancelled my old Discover and got a new one with the "spend $599 and get $100 cash back" deal they now have. I have to pay off my upcoming WDW trip, so what's better than $100 back?

As a side note: I do put almost everything on this card to get the max cash back, BUT WE DO PAY IT OFF IN FULL EVERY MONTH !!

The only down side is there are some places that don't take discover.

discover is the best. I like to that you can cash in $40 rewards for a $50 restaurant gift card like Chili's, Longhorn, etc.

 

[XYSRUS]

I like my AMEX Blue Cash-1.5% cash back on every purchase and 5% cash back on gas, drug stores and grocery stores...I charge everything and pay it off every month. Every year I get enough back to pay for that month's bill! March is free month for me!

 

[boettj]

I like my Discover More card. You get 1% back on everything and every quarter there is different categories that you get 5% back on (ie: this quarter's is gas, grocery and amusement parks, I think)

I cancelled my old Discover and got a new one with the "spend $599 and get $100 cash back" deal they now have. I have to pay off my upcoming WDW trip, so what's better than $100 back?

As a side note: I do put almost everything on this card to get the max cash back, BUT WE DO PAY IT OFF IN FULL EVERY MONTH !!

The only down side is there are some places that don't take discover.

You mentioned, and I have found, that Discover is not everywhere. A pain in the butt. How often do you have this happen? I've noticed this with work AMEX card. Fewer places are taking AMEX due to higher transaction fees.

Secondly, the reason I ask is that I want to ditch my debit card. Don't get me wrong. I love the darn thing, but. Isn't there always a but? In my case, there is a rather large but. First problem is that my card number was stolen about two years ago. Thank god BOA caught it, and rejected all but three of the charges. The three that made it through only came into pending, and were wiped out before it hit my account. However, it did deplete my funds until the pending and overdraft fees were waived. This is why we are moving to using a credit card for our monthly transactions. Then paying the card in full. Sort of like a sweep account.

The other problem we have been facing is overdraft fees. My DW and I are currently digging out of a major financial whole. This has resulted in our checking account bouncing around zero. This results in an over abundance of overdrafts. That 1.50 item just cost me 31.50. Ugh. By using a credit card to handle transactions, we can avoid the overdraft fees. The trick is to stay within out spending limits set by our budget.

Thus the reason why I am looking for a solid program with a credit card. When filling my car up today, I noticed that Shell has a deal on gas with their card. This is rather appealing as I drive 154 miles round trip to work. (I don't have to go into the office everyday.) So I rack up the miles. While my car gets good gas mileage, 30-34mpg, a rebate on the gas I purchase seems like a good fit. Wondering if anyone else uses their card.

 

[mrspaha]

Discover has an open road credit card, where you get 5% rewards on gas and automobile purchases. However, that is only up to purchases of $100/month -- which you can reach pretty quickly.

The thing I don't like about Discover, with your normal everyday purchases, you don't get the 1% rewards right away. It starts at 1/4 of 1% for the first $x number of purchases (can't remember the amount), then it goes up to 1/2 of 1%, and then finally 1%. Then on your anniversary date, you start all over again with the 1/4 of 1%.

I have a citibank master card that gives you 2% on grocery, drug store, and gas purchases, and 1% on everything else. You get a check after your rewards total $50.00. That's the card I normally use for all of my purchases except for the first $100 of gas purchases that I put on Discover.

 

[lucigo]

If you are having financial problems and bouncing around 0 in your bank account be very careful about getting a credit card. You can easily get into trouble before you know it. Get one card with a low credit limit and pay it off every month. Get an overdraft protection account for your bank account. Go into this slowly and be careful.

Many years ago my first DH lost his job due to military downsizing and we quickly found ourselves paying overdraft fees. We ended up going cash-only for about six months in order to get control of our lives. It was HARD but was necessary.

Good luck!

 

[ilovebassets]

I like my AMEX Blue Cash-1.5% cash back on every purchase and 5% cash back on gas, drug stores and grocery stores...I charge everything and pay it off every month. Every year I get enough back to pay for that month's bill! March is free month for me!

We also have AMEX blue cash and I have been very happy with it. AMEX is accepted at most places--only rarely do I have to pull out the Starbucks Visa when AMEX isn't accepted. I'm also very placed with AMEX customer service overall.

 

[swilshire]

AMEX is the only card my daughter's law school accepts. She can't ever pay with her Visa, so I have to dig out my Hilton Amex, which I seldom use, to make the payment every semester.

Sheila

 

[georgina]

So I went and looked up Amex Blue Cash - it says you can earn 5% in those categories (groceries, gas, drug stores) once you spend $6500, and 1.25% on other purchases after you spend the $6500. That's one reason I don't have a Discover card - I hate those tiered rewards. I would have to sit down with a year's worth of statements to figure out if it would be worth it for us.

 

[auralia]

it's kind of tough to get a card right now. We wanted to try out the disney visa and we were denied !!! and we have a credit score of 760 the bank that does disney visa does our car loan and we are always on time, we have no revolving debt except the car loan and mortgage, and we bought a much smaller house/car then we could afford so we have plenty of funny money and always pay off credit cards in full, if we can't use cash we don't buy it unless it's a house or a car we have payed off 2 other cars and never been late on a single bill and they denied us based on "too many inquires to our credit report" ... those inquires were when they looked it up to give us the car loan... those are the only accesses to our report in the last 2 years (before that it was for our mortgage). Rediculous, we are very responsible with credit have plenty of money in the bank and IRA's and this is how the disney visa company (i think it was chase) treats us... i am so mad they have my car loan, but note I have always payed off my loans early and I never every pay intrest to my current CC company because I pay in full every month... perhaps they can see this and know they won't make any money off of me? oh and dh is in the military so he certinally will not be having employment problems (10 years in)

 

[jgates]

We use the Chase Sapphire which has no caps on earning but only pays 1%.

I also have a AmEx Delta which I took only for the free companion ticket and total of 35,000 miles if I charged $1000 in first 3 months. I will cancel when it comes time for the annual fee and still have my free flight, plus the possible companion tix if the initial flight price is low enough.

Also have a Chase Marriott, but really only using it for a balance transfer item I did. They often have good balance transfer rates.