Cash Back Credit Card Comparison | Hacker News Reader

Cash Back Credit Card Comparison

docs.google.com

69 pointselectricwater55 comments

Author of this page, if you're reading this, thank you for making this a plain text table of data with none of the tracking and marketing cruft that most people would do with this data. I really appreciate the efficiency of this approach and I'm grateful to you for keeping it simple.

Thanks very much floatingatoll

This is way better than reading endless blogspots and searching on google. How much time did you invest into making this?

Why are you asking them? They didn't write it.

The 'Author of this page' phrase might be confusing.

I didn’t make it; my phrasing apparently failed. I’m sorry :(

I believe it may have been sourced from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/b5qjvf/i_r...

Thanks for the data! Are you sure that the USAA card gives 2.5% cash back? Their website says it's only 1.5% [1].

[1] https://www.usaa.com/inet/wc/bank-credit-card-preferred-cash...

The USAA 2.5% "limitless" card still exists for now (I have it) but it hasn't been offered to new customers for some time.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/usaa-limitless-2-5-cashback-n...

Hah, I was so confused on reading this comment. First I thought you are the author, so then who are you thanking. Seems like I am not the only one :)

If you're into optimizing things like this, I highly recommend the Doctor of Credit blog[1]. Most credit card blogs are basically just ads for credit cards that make their money off affiliate links, but DoC has made an explicit choice not to do that, and generally has good information without the "this is a super lucrative card everyone should apply for" junk that you see everywhere else.

[1] https://www.doctorofcredit.com/

Barclaycard Arrival Plus missing from the list, it's my go-to card. I recommend it to everyone.

* 2 points for each $1 spent + 5% bonus on redeeming (effectively 2.1% in cash back)

* 70,000 points ($700) on signup with minimum spend

* $89 annual fee, waived first year

* No foreign transaction fees

https://cards.barclaycardus.com/banking/cards/barclaycard-ar...

Counterpoints:

* Redemption is extremely limited (only 1cpp for reimbursements for "travel" charges, and minimum 10,000 points ($100) redemption)

* That annual fee quickly eats into effective cash back after the first year. There are 1.5% cashback cards with zero annual fee; for that extra 0.5% to be worth $90 you have to put more than $18k in spend on the card every year.

I got one of these for the sign-up bonus (and I'd recommend doing so!) but I wouldn't hold on to it for a cashback card.

I get these once or twice a year, meet the minimum spend, use the points and cancel the card. Repeat after 6 or more months as a "new customer".

It's a good card, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to everyone. For all but the biggest spenders, the Citi DoubleCash makes more sense because it also gives 2% but with no annual fee. Since you're paying the $89, you'd have to spend over $89,000 annually ($89 / 0.1% difference) to make the 2.1% worth it over the 2%.

That's not a good deal. You have to spend $89K on it just to break even.

Another good guide from The Wirecutter, that covers more than just cashback:

https://thewirecutter.com/money/credit-cards/

If your spending is high enough: Chase sapphire reserve. Has an effective annual fee of $150 but strong benefits. You can cash out or get a 25% bonus when using it to pay for air travel.

It’s metal which seems nice but really isn’t. You can’t stick it into many machines and eventually it delaminates.

I believe the Chase Sapphire Reserve has a 50% redemption bonus on "travel" booked through their portal, and Chase Sapphire Preferred is the one with the 25% bonus.

Annual fee is $450 not $150. You forgot to mention the $300 travel credit is only relevant if you spend $300+ on travel each year regardless of whether you have the card.

It's easy to cash out the travel credit without traveling.

Wait really? How? I thought it was called travel credit for a reason...

They don't take the credit back on refunds.

Uber/Lyft count for travel which helps a lot.

Huh yeah I didn't expect they'd count most transportation as travel. Thanks.

Really. They don’t GPS you to know you’re away from home. It’s not _that_ hard. This is the broad categories they cover:

Merchants in the travel category include airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, campgrounds and operators of passenger trains, buses, taxis, limousines, ferries, toll bridges and highways, and parking lots and garages.

Surprising they cover taxes and buses and parking etc... cause I have travel cards that don't necessarily include those. Thanks.

The reserve has a 50% (not 25%) bonus for anything on their travel portal — air, hotels, or car rentals. (The "preferred" is the Chase card with the 25% redemption bonus on their travel portal.)

There's also a bunch of good info on https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/ though that is more geared towards signup bonuses.

Personal opinion: Straight cash back cards are not exciting at all. You’re better off watching what you spend than getting excited about getting $20 back for spending every $1000.

Credit cards in the US are exciting right now because of premium rewards, mainly airlines miles, credit card points (Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi TY, Amex Membership Rewards), which could be worth 2-5 cents per point. Unlike cash back cards, these usually come with a fee though many waive it the first year.

I prefer cash back cards because I don't fly enough to care about miles. I also don't really want to think about points that I don't get to spend however I want. But I can imagine if you like the other rewards offered on some cards, you're probably getting more value than with cash back.

If you fly even 1-2x a year then why not fund that trip with one signup bonus from one card vs getting a cash back card (which usually don’t even come with a signup bonus and if they do it’s very small)?

If you don’t want to be tied to one airline card, a Chase Sapphire card which you can use to transfer to airlines or book directly with their reservation portal will give you 1.25 cents per point redeemed on flights or hotels.

I've tried to pay with points before and it never seems to work out advantageously. A $200 bargain basement Southwest flight will cost like 60000 points. Is Southwest, or international for that matter, an anomaly?

That’s just...wrong. If you transfer to Southwest from Chase or book directly it should be around 15000 points. Both Chase and Southwest have a point value of greater than 1 cent per point, so there’s no way that could be true for a $200 flight.

Alright, I'll look again in the future. At the time I wondered if the 'wanna get away' fare was basically cash only.

For a no AF 2% card the PenFed card not on the list (https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards/power-cash-rewards) looks better than Double Cash as it doesn't have foreign transaction fees. To receive the full 2% cashback a PenFed checking account is required, but there's no annual fee on that account either.

For travel you might want the Pathfinder Rewards card instead. If you're not traveling Citi has the advantage of letting you create virtual account numbers and showing you your FICO score.

Some of these are incredible - 6% cashback on groceries? I'd be surprised if the profit margin on groceries was as high as 6%.

One theory is that the high rate on groceries is a way to make you carry around the card every day, so you're more likely to use it on other things.

With contactless payment systems like Apple Pay, there's little need to carry around more than one default credit card.

Unless you end up somewhere that doesn't support ApplePay, and doesn't accept AmEx. It's uncommon (where I live, at least), but it definitely happens.

I assume that's why the parent said there's little need to carry around more than one

But if your 'one' is the '6% on groceries' AmEx, you do need to carry more than one (or accept that there will be places you can't spend money).

That card is still accepted anywhere Amex is accepted. But yes, if you want to cover vendors who don't accept Apple/Google Pay or Amex, then you would need to carry multiple cards.

That's why the one card I carry is Visa. If apply pay doesn't work, then I don't get the biggest % reward, but it doesn't matter that much to me.

6% on groceries with $95 annual fee.

But most families will easily recover that just on their grocery shopping alone.

I use this Amex card for everything, the 6% back on groceries is great and more than pays for the cards higher fee. The last two years we've capped out the 6k max which is $350 right there.

Bonus, the card is clear plastic which everyone comments on when they see it.

That's fun - can you see the antenna they mould into the plastic?

There's no antenna, contactless payment cards are pretty uncommon in the US.

There is an Amex clear card with antenna. They kind of built it into the design. I can't remember which one is was though.

I have the Canadian Amex Simply Cash, it's clear and has an antenna for contactless payments

Interesting. I have a similar Amex clear plastic card and I don't recall anyone ever commenting on it.

$95/(0.06-0.03)=$3,166.67

If you spend $263.89 or more per month at grocery stores it makes sense to upgrade to the Blue Cash Preferred. Keep in mind this excludes Costco, Walmart, Target.

If you buy groceries at Whole Foods and are a Prime member, you can get 5% via the no annual fee Prime Rewards Visa, which makes sense if you spend under $95/(0.06-0.05)=$9,500 per year at Whole Foods.

I have an earlier iteration of this with a lower cashback rate and no annual fee. I have to spend over a certain threshold per year to unlock the marketed cashback - it's substantially less below that spend.

One thing that should be made clear is that the cash back is not on groceries, it's on purchases made at grocery stores. Groceries bought at Wal Mart, Costco, Target, etc. don't qualify. Similarly, the percentage cashback for gas doesn't apply to gas stations attached to other stores, e.g. Murphy, Kroger, etc.

I suppose this card could be different, if so it might be worth the annual fee.

This actually isn't very much. I have this card and while it does barely pay for its yearly fee, that's about it. I spend about $300/month on groceries which I think is reasonably in most places except for the most expensive cities. Here's the math:

$300 * 12 (months) = $3600 (yearly food budget) * 0.06 (rewards) = $216 - $95 (annual fee) = $121 reward dollars annually.

Now consider the amex interchange rate of 1.95% + $0.10 per retail transaction. Let's say I shop 24 times in a year. ($0.10 * 24) + ($3600 * 0.0195) = $72.6.

The most amex could possibly lose on my card in a year is $73. But only the most disciplined people will use it for groceries and only groceries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com