I pay everything on my credit card and pay my balance in full each month.
I currently have a Chase card that I’ve only used to give me cash back on my purchases. It’s travel focused so I also get some perks related to traveling.
Anyone extra-satisfied with their rewards program card?
Edit: here are my rewards:
- 1x all purchases.
- 2x travel purchases.
- 3x dining, online grocery, streaming services.
- 5x chase travel purchases, Lyft, peloton.
- $50 annual hotel credit.
- One moth per year, 10% boost on the above.
- Free DashPass membership
- No foreign transaction fees
- Visa concierge service.
I have one from Bank of America, I get 1% on everything, 2% on groceries, and 3% on a category of my choice. For the first 12 months, the 3% gets doubled to 6%. My category is “online shopping” and it’s restrictions are very loose, so if I’m going to buy something at the store I just order it for pickup online and get the 6% back.
There was also a $200 bonus if you spent a certain amount in the first 90 days, which since it is my primary card was met almost instantly. Including that bonus, I’ve got close to $400 in rewards since mid-August.
Edit: no annual fee.
I’ve been a fan of the VentureX card from Capital One if you’re still looking for something particularly travel focused, but note it does come with a yearly fee, so that might be a dealbreaker for you.
If you just want to focus on cash back and you’re a member, the Costco Citibank card is pretty great.
Credit card reward programs are to scam you out of an additional 4% on the cost of goods by forcing vendors to pay access fees to their payment networks. So, none of them are good. They are all middle men driving up costs to take their cut.
So your advice is to, ah, pay the extra 4% anyways (because they’re not lowering the prices for cash paying customers), but don’t get anything back?
Some places do have discounts for cash. Quite a few food/drink places around me do that.
You aren’t required to participate in their system. Small businesses do in fact offer cash discounts if you ask. Be a better consumer if you want change.
Small businesses are also generally going to be more than 4% more expensive than big box stores.
I get what you’re saying, really, but when you’re broke, you’ve only got so many bullets to fight with your wallet.
Cool.