I'm looking for a credit card that offers a great member rewards program either in the form of cash back or frequent flier miles along with a decent APR. The best deal I've encountered so far is discover which offers 1% cashback (2% if received in the form of gift certificates with certain vendors). Does anyone know of anything that beats this?
Check American Express... Although Discover has a good program, it's my opinion that American Express' Membership Rewards program is the best program currently on the market.
Listen up!!! Because you want a low rate, it sounds liek you will be carrying a balance on your rewards card. A few words of advise--you will be hard pressed to find a good rewards card with a low rate. You will "get more cash back" by either not carrying a balance on the card, or bagging a rewards card and get a card with low fixed rate like Blue. Once you revolve on a rewards card, you defeat its purpose because either you will continue to charge all that you can on the card (increasinf the average daily balance and thus your finance charge) or will stop using it until you pay off the balance (thus not getting your cash back or airline miles because you are using another card or cash/checks) Stay away from Discover!!! Especially if you are going to carry a balance. They use 2 cycle billing which wipes out your grace period and retros the finance charge back to the date of purchase and can almost double your finance charge. They, and First USA are the WORST cards ever to carry a balance. Of course, no problem if you pay in full--EACH month--but NEVER revolve on those cards! Good luck!
Yep, American express is the best... if you can get it (it's also one of the hardest to get). If you want miles, then maybe Amex Delta SkyMiles is for you (2 miles for every $)... they also have a nice cashback card. Another interesting one is from Capital One, can't remember the name of the card, but they are offering miles good on many airlines carriers. And of course, there's Discover with 1% cashback... btw, they have a nice online account access system...
Just to clarify, no I'm not carrying an existing balance. I'm willing to look past a high APR for a great program. With regard to AMEX, I already have a corporate card. I called them up and was told their membership rewards program costs $75 and works out to 1 mile for every $ and 1% in the form of merchandise certificates. Needless to say, Discover seems to beat that. I asked if this program applied to all AMEX cards and was told that it did. Do you know the name of the nice cashback card? I want to look into that and the Delta Skymiles.
go to americanexpress.com, click on apply for a card, the check out the platinum cash rebate card, the Delta Skymiles options credit card, the classic dleta, or the gold
By the way I have the Delta card, I you do not have to pay $75 for it. It is free with a Gold Card membership of $55. I use the Delta card all the time for my business. I have accumulated over 40,000 miles without taking one trip. http://www.creditsense.com
