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Retirement Savings: How Much Should I Save Each Month?Best Cash Back Credit Cards
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ON BY Ken Tumin
If you pay off your credit card balances consistently, you should consider a credit card that gives you cash back. There are many now that give 5% cash back on everyday purcashes (defined as purchases from gas stations, supermarkets and drug stores) and 1% elsewhere. Many of these cards limit your cash back in one year to $300. That comes out to $6000 in everyday purchases per year. A Fatwallet thread does an excellent job at listing the top 5% reward cards. Two of them currently have sign-up bonuses:
The Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa Card currently has a $100 gift certificate sign-up bonus. According to this thread this sign-up bonus is still valid with the code HG1. The card offers 5% cash back on everyday purchases and 1% elsewhere. It has the typical $300/year cash back limit. There are no annual fees.
There's also a $50 sign-up bonus for the Chase Rewards Plus MasterCard. This one has the same 5%/1% cash back policy, but the reward limit per year is $750 instead of $300. This sign-up bonus is only valid until 1/31/06.
If you spend a lot on non-everyday purcashes, you'll want a card with cash back rewards of over 1% on all puchases, however, there are not too many of these. There was hope that EmigrantDirect would launch a credit card with some high cash back percentage, but it turned out to just be 1.25% along with the very tough condition of maintaining $10K in your account. The GM Card gives 5% on all purchases but you don't get cash back but rebates for a new GM car. The best pure cash back percentage that I've found is 1.50% from Fidelity's Investment Rewards Card which requires a Fidelity account. Another good card is from Pentagon Federal Credit Union. Its Visa Platinum Cash Rewards card gives 1.25% cash back on all purchases and doesn't have balance requirements like EmigrantDirect has.
The Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa Card currently has a $100 gift certificate sign-up bonus. According to this thread this sign-up bonus is still valid with the code HG1. The card offers 5% cash back on everyday purchases and 1% elsewhere. It has the typical $300/year cash back limit. There are no annual fees.
There's also a $50 sign-up bonus for the Chase Rewards Plus MasterCard. This one has the same 5%/1% cash back policy, but the reward limit per year is $750 instead of $300. This sign-up bonus is only valid until 1/31/06.
If you spend a lot on non-everyday purcashes, you'll want a card with cash back rewards of over 1% on all puchases, however, there are not too many of these. There was hope that EmigrantDirect would launch a credit card with some high cash back percentage, but it turned out to just be 1.25% along with the very tough condition of maintaining $10K in your account. The GM Card gives 5% on all purchases but you don't get cash back but rebates for a new GM car. The best pure cash back percentage that I've found is 1.50% from Fidelity's Investment Rewards Card which requires a Fidelity account. Another good card is from Pentagon Federal Credit Union. Its Visa Platinum Cash Rewards card gives 1.25% cash back on all purchases and doesn't have balance requirements like EmigrantDirect has.