You know the best thing about being a part of the bloggy world? Free advice based on real life experience!So I know that I'm supposed to be giving you tips, but this time I'm asking for your help instead. I am thinking about getting a new credit card because the only one I have is a student credit card back from my sophomore year and doesn't give me any type of rewards.
There are so many credit cards out there that give you free miles, cash back rewards, etc., but I don't have any idea where to even start. So that's where you come in. Hence, the free advice. Do you have a rewards credit card that you love or heard of one that gives really good rewards or even just ones that give useful rewards? I don't want one that gives you points to use one silly things like a tool box or a $5 gift card for every 5,000 points. That's what I have now, and I'm trying to get away from those kind of rewards.
So that's it. I'm just asking for your tips on how to pick out a rewards card and any that you recommend (or don't). Piece of cake. Maybe next week I'll come back with a tip for you :) For now, check out WFMW at Rock's in My Dryer for more tips.
15 comments:
Hi -- Just found you via My Bella Vita. My husband and I are partial to the Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard -- it's free (no annual fee) and you accrue points/miles. Very useful for us since a good part of our marriage has been spent commuting on weekends between NYC and DC (and we're likely going back to that soon).
The other one we like is American Express Blue -- again, free membership, but you get some good and varied shopping perks and rewards.
If you travel a lot, accruing airline miles might be the way to go -- though I have found many airline-specific cards have an annual fee. Now, both Citi and Chase have points cards where you can redeem the points for airline travel, but have more choice. Those might be better esp because they are free of annual fees.
Hope this helps!
I have two rewards cards (actually 3, but whatev) and my favorite is the one that gives airline miles as it's actually a better value. I have to spend $21,000 to get a free flight, sure, but assuming a flight is at least $300, I would have to spend at least $30,000 to have enough money to buy a plane ticket with my other card that pays me cash. And I'm earning miles for my actual flights and such, and got a bonus 25,000 miles, too (which is 1 free flight). Unfortunately, my card has an annual fee after the first year, so I probably won't be keeping it. But you can look around for other cards that have the same benefits but no annual fee (I've heard good things about the Delta one).
My tip is a card NOT
to get...Capital One. Ick.
I had their rewards card
a while back...and their
company is seriously such
a hassle. With high interest
rates and rude service...it
was a nightmare.
They kept upping my credit
limit after I kept telling them
not to...and it was one
thing after another.
Chase has a pretty good one.
I dig anything where you can
get flyer miles.
Good luck, Britni!
I only have a Navy Federal credit card, I don't bother with any other credit card.
Just be careful with all of the annual fees and whatnot. Some credit cards are now charging you a fee if you pay off your balance each month.
So my advice is....BE CAREFUL and READ THE FINE PRINT!
Hey girl, this is SO up ym alley. First, when I was researching it a while back I found that the cards that give air miles end up giving me more than the cash back cards. So I ultimately chose to get a Discover Miles card, and I LOVE it. I out everything on it.. you get one point for every dollar you spend, and then you can get $50 off of ANY kind of travel stuff (flight/hotel/rental car/cruise) for every 5000 points. I put everything on it and this summer when i did all my crazy traveling I cashed in the past year's points and hardly spent anything on my flights. So this is the way to go if you travel sometimes. I felt like I got SO much more out of it than the cashback option.
We use the Discover at my job, too, and go the cashback route. My experience with Discover both at work and personal has been fantastic. I think they are one of the better credit card companies out there as long as you do your part to do things right.
We also have a Capital One Visa at work and it's really not that great. And we found a MasterCard with a cashback bonus, but it drives me nuts, too.
With Discover, we easily pay the bill online each month and get our statements emailed to us, stuff like that. I've been VERY pleased with them and VERY annoyed with the others.
If I were you, I would figure out what you would consider a valuable reward to be. It sounds like airline miles and cash back are the two biggies.
Then to decide between the two (miles v. cash), I'd figure out where I would fly with the miles if I had them and estimate the cost/miles for that trip. So, for example, you want to fly somewhere that would be 25,000 miles or $500 To earn the miles, you'd have to spend $25,000. Assuming you got a 2% cash back, you'd have to spend the same amount to get $500 in cash. Assuming all other incentives were roughly equal (bonus miles for signing up, etc) for that trip it would be a wash.
Personally, I've chosen the cash back option. I chose this type of card for a bunch of reasons, but the two biggest are: 1)because airline miles aren't what they used to be and it now costs more than 25,000 miles (and often times extra $) to get a ticket and 2)because I don't always want an airline ticket.
As for me, I have an American Express card. I've found their monthly/annual charges to be very competitive and their service is top-notch.
I hope that helps. Good luck!
I would totally recommend the Discover Card. It pays you cash back and then you can buy what you like. We use it for everything(even the electric bill) and pay it all off the end of the month. It takes a lot of discipline but it is well worth it. Plus they have a program where you get up to 5% cash back on certain items during specific months. Cash back is the way to go. Good Luck!
We have 2 American Express rewards cards: a skymiles and a cash back. Both are great with excellent benefits; we switched to a cash back card when gas prices started getting so high and we had a stockpile of miles. I blogged about it a few weeks back for a WFMW. You can check it out here:
http://afuturepastorswife.blogspot.com/2008/07/wfmw-cash-back-credit-cards.html
capital one has a great rewards cards with miles attached to it. i've used the free miles once and it's worked fine. so i'd recommend checking them out. from my other capital one the only rewards i've gotten are free magazine subscriptions, haha. but i can't complain i love some good mags.
We like our American Express Delta card. We pretty much never have to pay for plane tickets anymore, all of Ryan's med school interview flights were covered by the points we earned on the card.
I have a Bank of America World Points reward card and love it. They offer everything under the sun as a reward, but I usually end up taking the cash reward. I've never had problems with it either.
I have Blue by AMEX and there is no annual fee and got 0% APR for the first year. I don't quite understand the points system or if it is that great because I don't use it too often, but I have heard good things about that as well. Alson has a Chase card, and he gets triple points for gas and food (maybe some other things too?) so we use that a lot and then just pay it off. Every 5000 points he gets a $50 check in the mail (his point redemption of choice).
I use AMEX (American Express) and I use Visa Rewards for my debit card. I've gotten tons of rewards for using both programs. Of course the key is to make sure that you pay off the debt so you don't have to pay the ridiculous interst rate charges.
I would recommend going to Bankrate.com to compare different credit cards for your needs. Here is the link..
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/cc_home.asp
Good luck!
I found price comparsion websites like eComparison for example, a good way of comparing the difference reward cards and the benefits they offer before making a decision on which one would be best for me. In the end I went for a cashback card, but it is worth considering that for these type of cards to really be an advantage you need to clear the balance on a regular basis, otherwise the benefits from the rewards will be cancelled out by the higher rates of interest charged.
Discover card for sure! Not only can you get 5% cashback on some purchases, but you can also redeem your rewards for coupons if you want to. And, you don't have to wait a year to get the reward...it's whenever you want to get it. We paid for Christmas last year with our rewards.
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