Comment by nutjob2
2 days ago
The 3% is good, but you have to pay $5 a month, so equivalent $60 annual fee.
They have late fees and cash advance fees.
> most purchases earn 5% or 6%
I assume thats using the high end cards with fairly hefty annual fees, or category cashback.
Fair points.
> The 3% is good, but you have to pay $5 a month, so equivalent $60 annual fee.
It's $50 a year, which isn't nothing, but more than pays for itself with either the 3% IRA match or 1k free margin. Understandably, not everyone wants to invest, so point taken.
> I assume thats using the high end cards with fairly hefty annual fees, or category cashback.
The only one with a fee is Amex Blue Cash Preferred, which I use for 6% groceries. The rest are store cards(AMZ/WM) or free category cards(of which you can often get multiple, oddly enough). For example USBank Cash+ for 5% back on all utilities and electronics, year round. Then there are some that automatically just 5% your highest spend category.
That looks like a a crazy amount of cards. I carry exactly one debet card in my wallet (.eu) and use it for everything.
It is, but I typically only carry two - the 3% back and the grocery 6% back as the others are mainly online or automated.
> I carry exactly one debet card in my wallet (.eu) and use it for everything
Not sure about eu but in the US that's generally not advised, due to the semantics of how the cards work and legal fraud liabilities. Basically, if someone skims your debit card, they take your money and you have to sometimes fight to get it back - but still, you are without the money for a time. If someone skims your credit card, they're stealing from the bank, and for obvious reasons they seem much more eager to investigate - but you still have your money.
I only ever use debit cards these days when I need cash from the ATM.
4 replies →
Using debit card for online purchases has substantial negatives and credit cards are much preferred (this may be US specific), but in the EU credit cards are a different kettle of fish and not as good as US cards.
3% for $60 annual fee is not bad. AmEx has Blue Cash card with 6% back, but it costs $95 and only works for (some) grocery stores. So if you have a decent churn $60 is not bad. Of course, if you play these games you should never ever hold a balance or pay late (and using cash advance on credit card is always, always a bad idea!) so you can ignore those fees.