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Best Rewards Credit Card

Discussion in 'General' started by aftriathlete, Jan 1, 2021.

  1. aftriathlete

    aftriathlete Well-Known Member

    The credit score thread got me thinking — what are the highest recommended credit cards for rewards? I have Amex Platinum already, which is pretty good, and being military they let me off without paying the annual fee. But I ’ve heard there are better cards as most Amex Platinum bennies are primarily travel oriented, which you can imagine I didn’t use much this year. Also the “3x points” only when you purchase travel through the Amex Travel website isn’t really a benefit at all as their site just adds a 10% premium onto the purchase cost of everything.
     
  2. SteveThompson

    SteveThompson Banned by amafan

    I’m only interested in travel rewards, but I have tried a few cards over the years. I think it is generally accepted that the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is the best for travel rewards. I’ve been using it for 5-6 years now and can’t find anything better. It has a big annual fee but you earn it back fast if you charge very much and use your travel credit.

    https://thepointsguy.com/card-hub/chase-sapphire-reserve/
     
    JJJerry and TurboBlew like this.
  3. ClemsonsR6

    ClemsonsR6 Well-Known Member

    Capital 1 Venture Card and a Hotel Card.
     
  4. YamahaRick

    YamahaRick Yamaha Two Stroke Czar

    If you shop at Costco, having their Visa card and Executive membership is nice. 4% back on gas in the first year. I think it is 3% for dining out.

    If you use Amazon a lot, their Prime Visa gives back 5% on Amazon purchases.

    Citi has a card that gives 2% back on everything.
     
    TurboBlew likes this.
  5. TurboBlew

    TurboBlew Registers Abusers

    I was trying to explain to a co worker how the cost of the card ($60) vs standard membership can be earned back really quick.
    I told him to pay all his bills, mortgage, purchases with it and you will get healthy dividend gift certs plus if you spend $$ at costco
    you get the added protection benefit on electronics, etc. He kept focusing on the interest rate and the $120 annual cost of executive membership.
    Chisels pennies to loose real dollars of benefits. Also some companies may have a program where you get a gift card for signing up under their plan.
     
  6. j cal

    j cal Well-Known Member

    Pay mortgage with credit card is possible?

    Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk
     
  7. YamahaRick

    YamahaRick Yamaha Two Stroke Czar

    Oh, and the 4% on gas is every year; limit to $7000 in purchases, then 1% for additional transactions.

    Costco Visa + Executive membership gives 4% back. Regular membership is only 2%. Therefore, if you spend more than $3K ($250/mon) at Costco, it is worth it to get the higher priced membership.

    The additional warranty on electronics is also nice.

    Concierge Two Plus Two Warranty | Costco

    For non-Costco purchases, there are better alternatives. But after pursuing signup bonuses on a few cards, I try to limit my use to the Costco Visa. It seems gas (4%) and eating out (3%) are my primary uses, so there is no real advantage in using other cards.
     
  8. Big T

    Big T Well-Known Member

    Yep, my friends run everything thru their Alaska Air card. They fly free all the time.
     
    j cal and TurboBlew like this.
  9. Linker48X

    Linker48X Well-Known Member

    This.
     
  10. Personally, I use the Delta AMEX Reserve card. It gives me 1 mile for every $1 spent on everything. It doesn't matter if it is groceries, gas, ammo, or the electric bill...$1 is 1 mile.

    Then its 2 miles for every $1 spent on traveling. The catch is, I don't pay for my travel. That's why I got that card. I don't actually use it for traveling per se, but I always fly Delta or another Skymiles partner and I get mileage credit regardless of who pays for it.

    Every bill that is an automatic draft uses that card, and I use it for all purchases all year. Then it is setup to automatically pay off the balance in full at the beginning of every month, so I don't pay interest.

    Miles add up quick. You get something like 50k or 75k miles just for getting the card (cant remember which), then once you spend $2000 you get another 15k miles. Then once you hit $10k you get another 15k miles. Then when you hit $30k spent in a year you get another 15k miles.

    I typically put +/-$80k a year on that card. With that, plus the bonuses, plus the miles from traveling, shit adds up quick. I'm already at 700,000 miles. and Ive only had the card 3 years (I had about 100k miles already when I got it).

    You can use the miles to buy shit, or for flights, or for whole vacations.
     
  11. YamahaRick

    YamahaRick Yamaha Two Stroke Czar

    Free domestic RT ticket in coach = 25,000 points or $25,000 of non-travel expenses.

    Using the Costco card, $25K split between fuel (15%), eating out (35%), Costco (25%), and other (25%) would equal $725.00 cash.

    I'd rather have the latter, especially in this day and age.
     
  12. Sweatypants

    Sweatypants I am so smart! S-M-R-T... I mean S-M-A-R-T!

    wtf mortgage company let's you pay with a CC?

    also the Sapphire Reserve used to come with 100k point bonus, its been only 50k for a few years now. takes a little of the worth away, still not bad though if you travel a lot. if you have a slow travel year, you get hosed on that fee.
     
  13. G Dawg

    G Dawg Broken Member

    If you are looking for straight up rewards , Citi Double Cash Card is hard to beat.
    I use it exclusively for my bike shop purchases.
     
    beac83 likes this.
  14. StanTheMan

    StanTheMan Well-Known Member

    Capital One Venture card, 2 miles for every dollar, on every single thing you buy. I run everything possible through it. Had the card a year now and have an incredible amount of miles on it.
     
    Sweatypants likes this.
  15. sanee

    sanee Well-Known Member

    great card and already a big score if you dont have to pay the annual fee. Lots of cards out there and also programs change so its best to look up something like the points guy and see whats new. You have to find whats tailored to your lifestyle or its useless
     
  16. SuddenBraking

    SuddenBraking The Iron Price

    This really comes down to 2 questions.

    1) What do you spend your money on?
    2) What do you want from a rewards credit card? Cash back, hassle free travel redemption, the ability to transfer to partners, etc.

    Ignoring the above, your question is somewhat of a trick question because the "highest recommended credit cards for rewards" are "all of them". Because of the front loaded nature of the signup bonuses, you're better off spending on cards until you get the signup bonus and then moving that spend to another card. There's talk in this thread of people getting a few percent back here and there, etc., but if you play the game correctly (high credit score and disciplined enough to always pay off your balances), you can get a multiple of that back.

    For instance, my wife just got a Sapphire Preferred card with an 80K bonus after spending $4K in the first few months. Even redeeming those points for $0.01 a piece (something I'd NEVER do), that's a 20% refund she's getting ($800 back on $4,000 of spend).

    I used to play this game big time (thousands in manufactured spend per month, etc.) and took some extravagant vacations because of it, but with work and three young kids I've gotten away from it. My wife's credit card is the first new one we've gotten in a while, but I just refi'd my mortgage and bought two cars last year so might spend some time churning again in 2021 :D
     
    YamahaRick likes this.
  17. The thing is, I never pay for travel. I travel all the time, but the company pays for it. I need a way to be able to get free shit with the miles I collect, so that card works for me.

    Not to mention, there isn't a Costco anywhere around where I live. I don't know if I have actually ever seen a Costco.
     
    Phl218 likes this.
  18. Phl218

    Phl218 .


    There are services but the charge equals what you get in points/miles so it really only helps status.

    not mortgage bank takes direct cc payments (afaik)
     
  19. SuddenBraking

    SuddenBraking The Iron Price

    All due respect, the card you've got is probably the worst rewards card there is. They're called "sky pesos" for a reason - you'd be much better off with a Chase or AMEX card, IMO (or hell, just a Capital One Venture Card for straight cash back).

    I used to use one when I was pretty deep into the game (can't recall the name of it), but the charge was about 3.75%. I happily paid it because I was earning 20%+ on my spend at that time. Said another way, it's only useful if you need to manufacture spend to hit signup bonuses.
     
    YamahaRick and Phl218 like this.
  20. Phl218

    Phl218 .

    Thepointsguy

    has a pretty good overview of all cards depending on what you are looking for
     

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