So everywhere I go these days seems to have a rewards credit card. Amazon, Airlines, Department Stores, etc. all have them and have all sorts of rewards incentives that go with them. The credit card I’m using right now is just a standard Visa through my bank, with the basic kinda points/rewards program. As far as gift certificates go, my card has something like a 0.7% rate of return (1 point per dollar paid off, $25 gift certificate for 3500 points), which isn’t horrible, I guess.
Lately though, I’ve been wondering if it would be worth it to get one of these different reward cards. Before anyone says it, I have no problem with living outside of my means, have never kept a significant balance on my current card for about 3 years, and have a good credit score.
Does anyone have a reward card, and have good things (or, more important probably) bad things to say about it? How much are the rewards based tethered to the “host” company (like an airline card whos rewards really are dependent on flying a lot, or only build significant points by flying)?
Gives some basic info, things to watch out for, and a run down of the big credit cards and their deals.
I have 2 cards I use and I get reward points for both. If you go to the credit card companies rewards website, most will link to preferred merchants that will give you extra points if you shop at their stores. It just might be for online purchases and I haven’t used it much. The thing that scared me was some of the fees being placed on some cards reward points program. Just another way credit card companies try to fuck mostly poorer people; They think they’re getting a deal, but don’t put enough money through the cards to benefit and end up losing cash.
I’ve also heard some banks and credit cards will wait until the end of the day to tally up your purchases. Then they do them in order of magnitude, so the bigger ones get deducted first. So what ends up happening is somebody strapped for cash makes a couple small purchases, then shit happens and they have to make a big purchase, so the big purchase takes them over the overdraft limit, then they get overdraft fines for all the other charges, even though they were made first.
This whole thing came out because I was checking out Amazon and noticed they had Jack Links Beef Sticks, 12 packs of 2oz sticks for $16 if I subscribed and got a box automatically every month (GREAT deal, IMO… 24 oz of protein, great for a stand-alone snack). So I was wondering if getting the Amazon credit card might be worth getting for the free beef jerky.
I have a State Farm visa that pays 1% in “State Farm Dollars”, not great but I get about $150 a year off my car insurance bill. Plus they are pretty fair and good to deal with, and they aren’t BofA.