My family uses credit cards for all purchases and we pay them off in full each month. Although sometimes we'll use a 0% APR promotion for bigger purchases.
Which cards do you use for maximizing your rewards?
Citi Double Cash 2% for most purchases
Citi Custom Cash for specific 5% categories I can target, though in practice I usually use it for groceries
Discover Cash Back / Chase Freedom Flex for the rotating 5% categories
Personally I don't travel enough to bother with travel rewards cards but maybe that's an option for other people.
PS - I've found that Discover usually has higher discounted gift cards if you wind up using your cash back towards that, sometimes it works out better than just doing cash back against your balance.
American Express Blue Cash Preferred. That 6% on groceries comes in clutch with as much food as we buy.
In fact, all these cards with their programs are evil, they make us spend more and more, it's marketing and business baby, nothing personal!
Y'all getting rewards?? I only get to pay more if I don't pay back in time. 😅
I use Amex blue cash preferred for groceries, Amazon card for amazon, Walmart card for walmart (still haven't gotten used to ordering groceries online, so only getting 2% for instore purchases after a year), and pnc cashback for 1.75% every day. I'm looking for a better catch all card with better cashback or benefits. I pay off my cards every week, just to make sure I don't carry any balance ever. I strictly use it as a cashback machine, and for security.
I don't anymore. The rewards are not only in exchange for the return business they hope for, but also partly for the data you allow them to collect on you. It is perfectly fine to make that trade, but it is good to factor that into any pro/con balance you make when deciding what programs to participate in. Seeing what was collected on me turned me off the idea, and I now use a standard credit card without benefits for my shopping.
.. how does that protect your privacy though? Unless you rolled your own credit card protocol and clearing house, then someone is getting that data.
Yes, that someone is the credit card issuer, in my case my bank. However, at least here, these bonus programs are typically affiliate programs where a substantial data exchange takes place between who knows how many parties. For example, one of the most used credit cards in the country I live (which I previously used) is issued by the largest grocery store owner in the country, that owns several of the largest grocery stores. All your purchases are then directly associated with your profile, and they personalize offers and ads. They are also affiliated with a large number of other retail stores, which also exchange data with each other as part of being a part of this benefits program.
As I said, there is nothing wrong with saying "OK, you can have my data in exchange for these benefits". My point is simply that these benefit programs are usually not a case of them just trying to get you to shop with them, but will usually involve data exchange that you may or may not know the extent of. This should be factored in when deciding whether to take part in the programs or not, as it is part of the real cost of using the credit card.
I could most likely find a program that does not as extensively hoard my personal data as the example above, but since the extent of data collection and sharing is often quite opaque, I prefer to limit the number of actors with which I share this data as I don't consider the benefits good enough to make such a compromise on my privacy.
I'm not disagreeing with your view that privacy should be a concern. It is. I'm wondering which credit card doesn't sell your data.
Supposedly the Apple Mastercard issued by Lehman Brothers doesn't sell your data.
I'm based in Europe, so banks are legally bound by GDPR. There does not seem to be any mention of third parties in the terms of service, and I have never explicitly agreed for them to share my data with anyone after that. So legally, they should not be able to sell my data. It seems to me you are US-based, and maybe finding a credit card that does not by default sell your data is difficult there?
Your comments have made me very curious about the extent of data collection by the bank, though, so I have just requested to see what data they have stored on me. If I can't find any direct mention of third parties in the data dump, I will also directly ask them whether they share my data with third parties, and if so, with which.
I've been pretty happy with my United Chase card. I travel a lot, for work, though, so it adds up.
I've done it before too but it really is sort of ridiculous to jump through hoops just to stretch your spending power by 1 or 2%, isn't it?
