Best Reward / Cash Back Credit Cards

The Citibank Costco card offers 3% on restaurants.

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I just opened a Barclaycard Cash Forward. The current offer is $200 back on $1000 spend in the first 90 days. This is on top of the 1.5% cashback + 5% redemption bonus and it also has 15 months of 0% on purchases.
https://home.barclaycardus.com/cards/barclaycard-cashforward.html

Just a reminder that first post is a wiki, so if something is missing or wrong, feel free to edit it.

@jaytrader OBC is no longer available, right? If so, no point in adding it to the wiki. And even if itā€™s still available via a well-hidden link, maybe it should stay hidden.

How about we create something like best single card, best 2- and 3-card combo at the top of the wiki? Of course this is a matter of opinion, membership eligibility, and spending patterns (to justify annual fees or memberships), so there are many great combinations. Iā€™ll start here with mine ā€“ heart this post if you like this idea and post your own best combos.

Overall best card and combos:

  • 1 card: Citi DC for domestic spend, CapOne QS or Spark for occasional foreign spend, CSR for road warriors and globetrotters.
  • 2 cards: Citi DC, CSR
  • 3 cards: Citi DC, Costco (for Costco, restaurants, gas), and one of: Freedom, Discover It, or CSR (restaurants, travel, quarterlies)

I donā€™t qualify for USAA, hate BofA, and would probably do better with Marukai or Alliant in terms of cash back, but DC also has really good benefits (purchase protection, extended warranty, etc).

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Yeah, itā€™s a link. Shall I edit my post?

I like the combination of Chase Ink (Cable/phone/internet only), Chase Sapphire Reserve , and 2 freedoms for only quarterly spend bonuses (~7.5% effective return). The chase categories on those three cards covers almost all of my spend. I value Chase points at 1.5cents/point (spend on airfare booked through them directly, or transfer to SW RR points). This means I earn a return of at least 7.5% on internet/phone/cable/office supply stores, 4.5% on restaurants and travel, 7.5% on minor MS for ~2 quarters a year ($3k spend per quarter for the 2 cards, at estimate 2 quarters with easy MS = 2x3000*0.075 = $450 a year value), and 1.5% on ā€œotherā€.

I also have recently started using my old unused Citi cards for price protection claims and durable goods purchases (2 year warranty extension, up to 7 years total). The price protection program is somewhat crazy, I donā€™t know how these programs are surviving ā€“ They are a fragile deal that will obviously be pulled if more than an insignificant number of people actually make claims. For some reason it appears the Price Protection thread on FWF was deleted sometime last week.
Iā€™m already at ~$900 in paid-out claims on $3500 in charges just in the last 2 months. $2500/yr limit per Citi card for the program. Virginia Surety which processes the claims seems to have gotten much quicker than when I used it last year. All my small-$ email submitted claims this year were processed in ~2 days. I even submitted 6 identical claims in a single email (!)ā€¦ A $500 claim I made was approved in only 4 days this past week. Last year it had taken ~3 weeks for an $80 claim. Iā€™m a little paranoid on how much money they pay out for the price protection programs so I like putting all this abuse on Citi (vs Chase) since I donā€™t really lose much if they ever close all my accounts.

I also carry a Hilton fee card but solely for the HH Gold and no spend goes on it and no rewards earnings from purchases. Been putting off starting a new thread relating to replacing the Hilton cardā€¦ maybe tomorrow.

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OBC is hidden???

I guess only in the sense that amex doesnā€™t advertise it on their homepage.

Everyone should feel free to edit the first post, itā€™s a wiki.

I think the new BOA Premium Rewards card is a better option than the Travel Rewards. With Platinum Honors Status it is also 2.625% but in actual cash back without the hassle of transferring points to another card. Also provides 3.5% towards travel and dining. $99 annual fee but you do get $100 airline incidental and Global Entry/TSA PreCheck to help make up for it.

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Nope. Note the phrase ā€œup toā€. But, you made me check it out.

"Earn up to 3% Cash Back Points! ā€ 

Earn up to 3% Cash Back Points on all purchases including spending at Marukai.
No limit on how much you can earn.

  • Earn up to 1% Cash Back Points on first $1,000 spent yearly
  • Earn up to 2% Cash Back Points on next $2,000 spent yearly
  • Earn up to 3% Cash Back Points on over $3,000 spent yearly"

Those details are on the Cash Back tab of the site.

Reminds me of the old Discover card with their ā€œup toā€ 1%.

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Actually, thereā€™s a $15 AF, $15 bonus after spending $1K/yr, and another $50 bonus after spending $5K/yr. The bonuses more than make up for the ā€œup toā€.

Not sure why I never got this cardā€¦thanks for putting it on my radar.

Any data on how hard you can hit it?

https://www.jcbusa.com/for_consumers/marukai-premium-jcb-card/

This is the link (California). This helps seeing the bonuses in addition to the tiers. There are a couple of lower spending examples.

The Amazon.com Rewards Visa from Chase should no longer be listed under the ā€œOffice Supplies & Wirelessā€ category. It never gave rewards on wireless. The new rules say that the cardā€™s 2% rewards for office supply stores ended on May 31, 2017.

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Done. I also removed it from the ā€œDiningā€ category, since 2% cash back does not qualify as ā€œbestā€ in that category.

Feel free to edit the first post ā€“ itā€™s a wiki.

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Were they mostly electronics? Did you have an easy way to monitor price drops? What documentation did you send in to support your claim?

Yes the largest 3 were electronics. Additionally, 2 of these had ā€œfree gift cardsā€ with the purchase and not the matched advertisement. This falls within terms - ā€œfree item with purchaseā€ is only not allowed on the advertisement you are matching, it is allowed on the original purchase - at least if theyā€™re itemized separately at $0.

The majority were not electronics.
Documentation is only whatā€™s asked for, pretty straightforward.
1)receipt (I sent both invoice plus PayPal transaction printout for the $500 one, because invoice just showed ā€œpaypalā€. The separate PayPal transaction info only showed merchant and not item, but it showed last 4 digits of credit card number.
2) Form provided on citi price rewind website
3) Website printout with the lower price. I printed to off from browser with headers shown, so it showed PCā€™s date/time.

Thatā€™s all. For price drops I mainly just pulled up Google shopping for comparison, sort by base price (excluding shipping). In most cases Iā€™ve been aware of the price to match before I even made the purchases, but I used a printout from later on. REI an exception, matched several labor day sales (@REI), also Wal-Mart third party. I waited until my charges posted (3-4 days after purchase) to submit any, but I donā€™t think thatā€™s a requirement.

Vacation purchases and/or ā€œcanā€™t wait for shippingā€ can be one of the ideal times to use it. Physical receipt from BM store, match to online.

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I always figured there was someone else out there enjoying some of the crazier price protection loopholes. Like you, I always considered it a Fragile Deal, so never I advertised it beyond a subtle passing comment here or there. The closest to denial I ever came was getting a letter saying they needed more time to review the claim. It still paid out (and realistically, it would have been a justifiable denial).

you can do what I do when I have exhausted 4 OBC cards (wife and myself0. I have used Discover Mileage 3% for the past two years. Gives back 1.5 % + original 1.5% after 12 months. I am using my sonā€™s card and I am authorized user. So far no problems. But about 15 OV and VGC each month plus regular spend. I pay it back when it posts, but leave a small balanceā€¦ Also same with the Aliant cardā€¦ But to pay it back quickly you need their interest savings acct.No fee for 1st year. No way I can find to ling outside CA to the Alliant CC. I link outside CA to the savings acct and Xfer to that. Then xfer to CC acct and it goes thru in 24 hours. All my OBC/BCpreferred/Blue cash everyday are maxed outā€¦ Need to wait till year is up on OBC and jan 18 for the others.

you can also get the Consumers credit Union 3% visa card that has 3% in groceries, but limited to 1k monthly for 6 months. They also have a high interest savings but many hoops to use. myconsumers.org

I do about 3-400k in spend a month. Which card will give me the biggest return?

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