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What's the best Visa / Mastercard rewards credit card?
I already have an American Express Starwood credit card (which is great, especially since Costco only accept Amex), but am finding that not all vendors accept Amex, so am looking for a good Visa / Mastercard rewards card.
Looking for a card that:
• has a site which allows me to view my purchases
• allows me to download my purchase history into Quicken
• Has low annual fees, or is free
I'm not too concerned with annual percentage rates.
Clarification added March 13, 2007:
My current Visa / Mastercard credit cards are the Capital One MilesOne program and Northwest Airlines Worldperks visa (I can view my purchases via Capital One, but no download to Quicken option)
For airline branded credit cards, I'd be interested to hear which ones allow you to accumulate miles faster, have partnerships with other airlines, and have non-restrictive black out dates.
Good Answers (9)
Brandon D
Director of Engineering at LinkedIn
Best Answers in: Personal Real Estate (2), Using LinkedIn (2), Personal Investing (1)
Funny, I was in the exact same situation as you until recently. I love my Costco cashback AMEX card, but wanted a good rewards/cashback card for times when they don't take AMEX.
I did some research, and based on my own purchasing patterns, I decided to get the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Mastercard. I get 2% back on "everyday purchases" and 1% back on anything else. My AMEX seems to work at most restaurants (where I get 3% back) but in any situation where the AMEX gives 1% back but the Mastercard gives 2%, or where they don't take AMEX at all, then I use the Mastercard. This system works pretty well and between the two cards I'm averaging about 2.3% cash back on a monthly basis which is great considering I make about 95% of my purchases with one of those two cards - shame on you cash-only shops!
Links:
Dylan R
Hourly, As-Needed CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner located in Central New Jersey
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If you have young children and want to save for college, the Citi Upromise card might be worth looking at. Rewards earned can be swept into a linked 529 college savings account quarterly. Its like giving your points/miles the opportunity to grow or earn interest.
Rewards range from 1% on most purchases to 10% on certain grocery and drug store items. See the link for details.
You can manage your account online, download to Quicken, Money or Excel, and there is no annual fee.
Links:
I like my United Mileage Plus Card (offered by Chase), which has all the benefits you mention, but it does have a $60 annual fee. I don't know how it stacks up against third party cards that let you build miles for multiple programs.
I love my Merrill Lynch card: http://card.ml.com. Not sure about downloading to Quicken, but the customer service is excellent and the concierge service is decent as well.
Sheilah E
Owner, SME Management:.......... Business Management and Accounting Consultant
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You should be able to download to quicken from Capital one. I know quite a few people who do.
Band of Amercia Alaska Airlines Visa has a fairly good set up. Miles for every dollar you spend (they have several airline partners these miles can be used on). You also get one free companion pass each year and a couple board room passes. The annual fee is 75.00, but with the companion pass it more than balances out. Plus they give between 5K and 20K miles just for signing up. They offer several of these cards but I prefer the signature visa. There is also a dining rewards program that complements it. You earned between 3X and 10X the miles at various resturants and they keep the list current on the site.
Sheilah
sme@gci.net
My favorite reward is cash, so I use the Chase Visa Cash Plus Rewards card. No annual fee and it pays back 5% on Gas, Grocery, & Drug Store purchases; 1% on everything else.
I also like the Citi Dividend Platinum Select. There's no annual fee, you get cash back rewards (I think it's at 5% for gas and groceries the first six months), and they have a convenient auto-pay feature where you can arrange to have the full balance or a pre-set amount automatically paid. Also, I recently had to call them to resolve a payment issue. Their customer service was excellent.
I've used the Citi American Airlines card for years and I liked the website and the plan. However the steep $75/year annual fee is a bit much and I found it harder and harder to use the miles with American. I switched to the BofA Alaska Airlines card last year and I've been happy with Alaska but the BofA site lacks an intuitive interface. Too much clicking to find what I want. And again like AA, it's hard to redeem miles (but Alaska is better than AA in that regard). I also have a Chase card that I run my gas on, I get 5% rebate (new enrollees are at 3%) which for me is about $10/month. Well worth it.
I really like the REI visa card. Gives 1% back on all purchases with no annual fee. You do need to be a member of REI, and the 1% back comes to you in the form of your REI dividend, which can be used on REI stuff or converted to cash.
The downside is that there is a 2-month waiting period for the convert to cash option. In other words, you get your dividend notice in March and you can't get that money as a check until June, and you do have to request it as a check (though it is an easy online process).
Downloads to Quicken, online access of charges.
And right now they're giving $40 gift cards for joining.
Links:
More Answers (1)
Rick M
Media Operations and Sales Executive
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Depends on what you want to do. Virtually all allow to download to Quicken (I have 2 - American Airlines and Marriott). Virtually all have a website for viewing purchases. I don't know of any that are free, but that doesn't mean anything. Offering the rewards means they get something back, which means the card company is paying a fee that they want to squeeze a bit back from you on.
I pay my bills at the due date, so APRs are meaningless. If you do that, the rewards are all pure "profit" (LOL...nothing is really free or profitable in these arrangements). I pay all my available bills with my credit cards, to maximize rewards. I figure if I HAVE to pay certain bills, I may as well get something back for them. And what have I gotten? 4 plane tickets to Ireland for the family and 2 nights at a hotel (out of 9 nights). Not too shabby.
What you really need to decide is - what do you want? Cash back? Free plane tickets? Hotel rooms? Gasoline? It's really up to you to figure out which rewards suit you.