Best Reward / Cash Back Credit Cards

Yes, I mentioned this just above (2nd paragraph).

Citi CC cash by check TP, does take more time, I ordered my $500 cash check last Thursday, hopefully mail will arrive this week. (No guarantees)

My goal is to stash away a bundle of $100 dollar bills for Christmas gifts for my family teenagers. :innocent:

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Why, instead of direct deposit?

Because we all know Patty is blissfully old school. :slight_smile:

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you should try the Discover Miles card. 3% unlimited cash back, but after 12 months. 1.5% on every purchase in the first 12 months, then 1 day after 12 billing periods, they double it. I wait the entire year but probably should change that method. Im on my 3rd Miles card now. (miles = cash) They do not care what you buy. Loads of 500.00 VGC go through with no problem. I cancel after 14 months, then apply again online. But you are only allowed 2 Discover cards. So I have the one with the 5% categories. This year very good cats. Grocery was the first Q., Wholesale clubs are now. So I got 75.00 x 2 so far. rest of the year seems no good for me.

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I have this card and the Citi Double Cashback card. I highly recommend the Citi card over the Fido card. The Fido card is run/managed by Elan financial services.

In the four times that I’ve required and/or been contacted by Elan’s customer service, there was one positive encounter. The remainder were frustrating, at best. Citi, on the other hand, has been surprisingly pleasant in the half-dozen times we’ve been in contact.

Just to be clear - I really like Fidelity’s investment, 401k, IRA, and HSA services, over Vangaurd and Schwab. I am not impressed by their a CC services/servicer.

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I have very few interactions with Elan for my account. My every day card is Bank of America unlimited cash rewards. I jumped through the hoops and deposited some ETFs at Merrill so I qualify for their premier membership and 2.625% rebates. No problems with BofA service. They are good at sending me notices of transactions with the card.

A family member uses the Elan card all the time and has gotten decent service but obviously ymmv. I manage their finances and it’s convenient that you can see the card on the Fidelity website.

Curious what the problems were if you care to divulge.

Many years ago, I tried to make a tax payment with the Fidelity card, for an amount nowhere near my credit limit. Tried it a few times, and calling Elan was useless. I do not know for sure that Elan was the one blocking the transaction, but another card worked right away. That was the end for me.

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I love the Citi Double Cash card because you can pay it with prepaid / debit cards see this thread on flyertalk. I’m able to make this a total of 4% on everything card by funding the debit card used to pay it with another credit card. Sorry, I’m not going to reveal my source for the debit card / credit card funding, but I will say it’s a credit union. I’m sure there are others out there.

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I recall one specifically and one generally. The other two were just very long delays to speak with someone.

  1. There was a whole slough to trudge through in order to get our cashback because I refused to link Elan with my Fidelity account. I don’t recall the specifics, but there was a lot of back and forth over several days. Apparently, they don’t take very good notes, and supervisors (non-scripted) are few and far between.

  2. After having the card for about 3 months, they declined an online purchase. They left a vm saying to call a number to re-enable the card. The number they left went unanswered for an hour. Once they finally answered, they were semi-incompetent and it took at least 45 minutes to clear up their confusion.

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This seems to be more a ā€œyouā€ problem - the terms of the card pretty clearly states that it is ā€œ2% cashback when deposited into your Fidelity brokerage accountā€ (or something to that effect). No Fidelity account or an unwillingness to link it to the card, and you wont be eligible for the cashback. If they were able to accomodate you anyways, that should be more of a plus in their column.

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Other redemption options are available, but at less than 2% rate.

I would agree if that requirement were stated in any of the docs accompanying the application and/or ad, including the 6pt fine print docs. That was the only way that I was able to require them to provide the payout in another way.

It doesnt really matter at this point, but…

Deposit* your rewards into any eligible Fidelity account,* such as a brokerage account, Cash Management Account, or a 529 college savings plan.

and in the footnotes:

The 2% cash back rewards value applies only to Points redeemed for a deposit into an eligible Fidelity account. The redemption value is different if you choose to redeem your Points for other rewards such as travel options, merchandise, gift cards, and/or statement credit.

  1. To receive a deposit, you must link your eligible FidelityĀ® account to your card. This can be accomplished in any of following ways. 1. You may contact Elan Financial Services Customer Service at the toll-free phone number located on the back of your credit card and provide them with your eligible FidelityĀ® account (s) number. 2. Simply select the ā€œManage Reward Pointsā€ hyperlink from the credit card snapshot page on Fidelity.com and follow the easy steps. You may also watch a brief video that describes the linking process on the credit card snapshot page also found on Fidelity.com.

That language has always been there. At least since opening my card 6+ years ago.

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It doesn’t really matter at this point, but in the pre-application documents that were provided to me, there were no redemption requirements. There were all sorts of other ā€œfine printā€ requirements and limitations, which I made note of and found to be acceptable. Regardless, I now redeem my rewards for a statement credit, although I can’t do it online and have to call, I prefer that to letting Elan connect to any of my Fidelity accounts.

PayPal Mastercard offers 2% on purchases, plus 3% on PayPal purchases. No fee, redeem any amount right away. It’s one of the best cash back card offers.

Cons: High APR, and 3% foreign transaction fee.

I’m comparing with Citibank 2% or Wells Fargo 2%. NerdWallet rates Wells Fargo 5.0, Citibank 4.6, PayPal 4.3. Wells Fargo has a sign-up bonus. The other two do not. If you pay off the balance each month, PayPal seems the best.

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That’s out of 10.0, right?

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Out of 5.0.

My question was more of a statement about those ratings being ridiculous Forgot to add a :wink:

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How would you rate them?