List Of The Best Credit Card Rewards Programs
October 01 2008
By MoneyBlueBook
Updated Selection Of The Top Credit Card Rewards For Each Spending Category
The economy may be struggling with higher gas prices and soaring food costs, and families may be reluctantly tightening their financial belts when it comes to spending money on vacations and even cutting back on basic necessities, but according to a Forbes personal finance article, many of us are under-utilizing a potential source of free money. This source of extra funds stems from loyalty programs, commonly in the form of credit card with rewards programs that offer everything from frequent flyer miles for free airline tickets, to free gas and grocery discounts, to free gift cards and straight up cash incentives for everyday purchases. In exchange for becoming a loyal user of their reward credit card program, card issuers are very willing to dish out a large variety of attractive rebates and rewards in the form of free dollars, miles, and redeemable reward points.
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While I personally prefer cash back credit card rewards that require little to no redemption maintenance actions, those who want to earn the highest credit card rebates generally go with point rewards or airline mileage offers that provide higher earning opportunities. Of course, with the higher rebate rewards comes the extra work of redeeming and keeping track of bonus points and miles earned. But if you are savvy and don't mind engaging in a little bit of periodic program micro-managing, you are bound to enjoy quite a bounty of credit card usage incentives.
Oftentimes, card holders are already earning and may already be sitting on a pile of unredeemed rewards that they are neglecting to use. By not taking advantage of already earned points and rewards, consumers are letting these tax-free windfall bonuses slip through their fingers. Make sure you take a good look at the programs you are already a member of. For those of you who are not members of any or wish to know which credit card reward programs are considered by financial experts and noted by authoritative sources like Forbes to be the best credit card offers available based on program flexibility, broad acceptance, and annual fee restrictions, read on. The following list of the best credit card rewards programs were selected by contributors from Forbes based on the following reward categories - airline travel, hotel rewards, restaurant rebates, entertainment rewards, grocery rebates, gas rewards, and your most basic cash back rewards. I offer my own opinionated tidbits as well.
Reviews Of The Top Credit Card Reward Programs Noted By Forbes and Its Credit Card Eggheads
Airlines
1) Miles By Discover - With the Discover Miles card, you get Double Miles on travel and restaurant purchases. One Mile for every dollar on all other purchases. You are free to earn unlimited mileage rewards and enjoy no expiration date limitation. The miles you accrue can be redeemed for free travel including free airline tickets, and for gift card rewards. There is also no annual fee to worry about.
2) Platinum Delta Skymiles Credit Card from American Express - With the popular American Express card for Delta Airlines, you earn 1 mile for every dollar spent on eligible purchases, good for future free flights. As an additional incentive, new sign ups get an instant 20,000 bonus miles after their first purchase. The miles earned never expire, and there is no cap limit to the total number of mileage rewards that can be earned. There is a $150 annual fee.
3) JetBlue Card From American Express - With the Jet Blue Airlines credit card, you earn 1 Award Dollar for every one dollar you spend with it. However, you get to earn double Award Dollars on purchases for travel, dining, entertainment, and leisure. With the conversion rate of 200 Award Dollars for 1 TrueBlue Point, and 100 TrueBlue points equating to one free round trip airline flight, cardholders can earn a free flight after spending $10,000 worth of purchases on double point category expenses. As a special signup card offer, new applicants earn an instant 50 TrueBlue points with their first purchase. The annual fee is $40.
5) Capital One No Hassle Miles - With this popular card from Capital One, you earn 1.25 miles for each dollar spent on all purchases. With the mileage reward redemption, there are no blackout dates and no airline seating restrictions. There is no expiration date for the miles earned and no limit on the mileage rewards you can accrue. This Capital One card is a great choice for someone who plans to use the card often.
Hotels
1) Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express - The Starwood Preferred card is the Swiss army knife of frequent flyer and hotel loyalty reward cards. You get to earn 1 Starpoint for every dollar spent and double Starpoints at Starwood hotel properties and participating retailers. With the Starwood card, you can earn points for free night stays and upgrades at a huge number of Starwood hotels and international resorts. You can also transfer your Starpoint rewards to select frequent flier programs. The first year's annual fee is waived, but it's $45 thereafter. The annual fee after the first year is worth it if you love to travel and do so regularly.
2) Hilton HHonors from American Express - This is a nice Amex card to carry around if you are a frequenter of Hilton family luxury hotels (if you haven't stayed at one before - let me tell you, they are really high class). With the Hilton credit card reward program, you earn 3 bonus points for each eligible dollar spent. You get more points - 6 points per dollar for money spent at Hilton hotels. There are no hotel blackout date restrictions and no annual fees.
Restaurants
1) True Earnings Costco Card From American Express - Most dining credit cards only cover fast food places, but the True Earnings Costco credit card covers all restaurant purchases. With the True Earnings rebate rewards card, you earn 3% for annual gasoline purchases of up to $3,000 (1% thereafter), 3% for restaurants, 2% for travel, 1% everywhere else, including Costco. There is no annual fee if combined with your paid Costco membership.
Entertainment
1) American Express Gold Card - With this classy gold card from Amex, you earn 1 point for virtually every dollar spent, with no preset spending restriction or limit. This card was designed for cardholders who desire exclusivity and special access to unique Gold Card events like exclusive tickets for select concerts, entertainment shows, and sporting events (Super Bowl for example). Reward points can be redeemed for various travel, shopping and entertainment rewards. With the special sign up offer, applicants can earn 10,000 Membership Rewards(R) bonus points when you spend $500 in 3 months - redeemable for a $100 gift card. The first year's annual fee is waived but it's $125 thereafter.
2) Disney Rewards Visa Card from Chase - With this cute Disney reward credit card (there are multiple designs to choose from), you earn 1% in Disney Dream Reward Dollars for all purchases. With the Disney card, you are also eligible for discounts at Disney resorts and parks like Walt Disney World and Disneyland. This card has no annual fee.
Cash Back Rewards and Rebates
1) Blue Cash from American Express - If you are a big credit card spender, the Blue Cash credit card was designed for you in mind. With this card, you have the potential to earn up to 5% cash back with unlimited cash reward earning potential. The rebate percentages are based on a tiered system so the more you spend, the more cash back you earn per dollar spent. Best of all, there is no annual fee. If instead of American Express this card was offered by Visa or MasterCard, it would indisputably be the very best credit card rewards program available.
2) Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards -Excellent - With this Capital One cash back credit card, you earn up to 3% cash back on purchases at gas stations and grocery stores as well as a full 1% cash back on everything else. There is no limit on cash back earnings, and your rebate rewards never expire - hence the "no hassle" moniker.
3) Chase Freedom Visa® $100 Bonus Cash Back - Who doesn't like the ease of a cash back credit card? With this extremely popular Chase credit card offer, you get to earn 5% cash back offers in popular categories like gas, home improvement and department store. Unlimited 1% Cash Back on everything else - no spending tiers or caps on how much you can earn. Up to an additional 10% Cash Back when you shop online at select merchants through Chase.
June 3, 2009 at 8:20 am
Hi Ray, I noticed that some of the credit card links are not working. Does that mean those credit card reward offers are no longer available to new customers? I don't understand why the credit card issuers keep coming out with new deals, only to pull them back after some time. What happens to those credit card accounts? Do they get canceled or do they stay active with the same reward program that they had before?
June 5, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Tiffany,
Yes, some of the credit card offers that I've disabled are either no longer available or their terms and conditions have changed. However, you'll notice that many of the credit card deals listed above are still working.
As for the second part of your question regarding card program cancellation - credit card issuers generally don't close out existing cards even when the underlying credit card reward programs have been modified. For example, the famed Citi Card Dividend program used to offer 5% cashback on groceries, drug stores, and gasoline purchases with 1% cashback for everything else back in the day. When Citibank finally modified the card reward offer to incorporate only 2% cashback, all existing Dividend Card holders were switched to the new 2% back policy, albeit after receiving notice of the change.
In rare cases that card programs are scrapped completely, most major card issuers have kept those card programs active, at least until the card's expiration date has passed, at which time the account holders are automatically issued new cards and switched to the new program.
June 11, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Reward credit cards are great if you can pay the monthly bills back on time. Else you get stuck with huge interest penalties and fees that you'll regret months down the road when you're still paying them off. If you just want the benefits and conveniences of credit card use, then just apply for a credit card that offers nothing in return. Or you can just stick with debit card usage (although for security reasons I don't recommend debtit cards). Standard, no reward card offers tend to have the lowest purchase APR rate.
But if you go with a high yield reward card like a frequent flyer mile program or cashback deal, then beware of the much higher rates.
December 4, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Beware of CHASE as they like to jack up the rate of a loyal customer who has excellent credit and has NEVER once made a late payment! My rate went from 8% to over 13%! When I called to ask why, they said because of the economy! HA!