Contemplating a rewards card. Preferably no annual fee. Will likely pay monthly utilities (cant pay mortgage or vehicle payments with it) and dining/travel with it to build points. Always pay cash for travel and dining, but feel we are missing out on some freebies by not using a rewards card and paying it off every month. Opinions?
We use the Citi double cash back card. 1% when you charge and 1% when you pay. On a $3k trip to Temptation it is $60 back into your pocket. No annual fee. There is also a double miles card out there. You can also get an American Airlines or Southwest Airlines card and get 40,000 bonus miles. We booked our air to Cancun in October using those bonus miles. Free flight. There is a $69 annual fee for those and you have to charge $1k in the first 3 months to get the bonus. We have done both and canceled before the renewal. Hope this helps.
You might also consider what airline you fly on the most. They all have different perks. If use their card to purchase airline tickets some will waive the bag fees. If you travel enough that alone is worth the annual fee. But yes you are missing some perks. On a side note most fast food places have apps, for instance McDonald's has a rewards program for their MCafe drinks, they also have buy one get one free specials everyday. You will be surprise how much is out there. Good luck with your search.
We use the Capital One Venture card...we get 2 "miles" for every $1 spent...literally everything we purchase/pay for (with the exception of mortgage) goes on that card...there is a $59 annual fee but in the roughly 5 years since we've been using it, our "miles" have paid for 4 round-trip coach flights, 1 first class round-trip flight and a pair of one-way 1st class flights plus a couple hotel nights...you're spending the money anyway, might as well get some perks!
Capital One Venture has worked out great for us. We've had it about a year and a half and we were able to fly to Calgary from Philly round trip and are probably going to save a bunch on our trip to TTR in December. They just changed the rules recently that you can now use some points and pay the difference with cash. Before you had to have all the points. Just make sure you pay it off monthly as the interest rates are salty!
Thanks for all the advice. Id like the Venture card, but dont know if Id put $3k on it in 3 months for the 40k bonus miles. Decisions, decisions. LOL With the Venture card, is it easy to redeem points? Can you transfer points to online air reservations? Ive heard the points dont exactly transfer equally.
I'd bet if you tally up all the expenses a month you can pay for with a card you'd be there. We didn't think so either until we did the math and realized it. As for using the points there is a credit rewards website that you can either book travel or you can exchange for credit back onto the account. You have to book through their site which is similar to orbitz or Expedia. It worked great when we've done it. You can also redeem points for previous travel expenses you put on the card. We just look at it as money we'd spend anyway so why not get the extra money back one way or another.
We have been paying our bills like this for years and it really does add up, as long as you clear your cards every month to avoid interest charges. T
Just got a chase sapphire card in January and booked our flights direct it had already earned me $1426 in travel I got the app for my phone so I can check it out every few days just to make sure I don't over charge what I can payoff we now have more to use on a latter trip and it was easy to book flights there is a annual fee after first year but I've never flown direct never wanted to pay that much out of my pocket we have been very pleased with this service
