New Credit Card Suggestions

[Kungjo]

Hi,

I have excellent credit and am looking for a new credit card with rewards. Not necessarily intrested in airline miles, but would like something with cashback or gift cards. I currently have Gymboree Visa and Discover cards. I'm constantly using the points on the Discover to get movie tickets, steaks, and electronics (Sharper Image). I would like something with the following perks:

-flight insurance
-rewards that I can use to redeem for cash or merchandise
-zero balance on purchases and transfers
-low interest rate (Nice to Have)

Any good suggestions as to where I can start looking?

Thanks!!!

[kijip]

We just did this. It seems like the best rewards are on cards that have worse interest rates and not very good intro rates. We decided since we were going to use it for everything and pay in full each month come hell or high water that we would rather have the rewards than the interest rate since we would never benefit from a low interest rate because it would be paid in full religiously. We ended up with the Amazon Visa, which while not fabulous works out to be about $50 to spend on Amazon every 3 months based on our rate of spending (we charge all of our groceries, gas and utilities and phone to it now). The rate is lousy though...but I like free books :) www.bankrate.com has a compare feature...you can search for cards and evaluate them side by side.

[ThreeofUs]

We went with an airline card. DH travels a lot and, as you might know, airlines are getting rid of their "mileage debits" for customers who show no activity in the last year or so. Getting the card ensured our miles stayed high and didn't expire.

[kransden]

I have a Chase card because I bank with Chase. So it might not be the best deal, but it works for me. I get rewards as a check or gift cards. I like the checks the best. You just put them in the bank! I have no idea what the interest rate is though, besides high, because we pay it off every month.

If you pay off your card every month, you can get some great reward cards. If you don't, you are better off shopping for a low interest rate.

[Kungjo]

I do pay off my cards every month. I will look into all the suggestions and see

Thanks!!!

[belovedgandp]

I rotate four cards. My Gymboree Visa has been pretty inactive lately in favor of a Disney Visa - only a basic 1%, but we went to WDW in September and it was fun to use what had been collecting on there as our "fun money" during the week.

We primarily use our Discover. I'm a BBBY fan, so it supports that habit.

The 4th card we added most recently was a Costco American Express. We're big Costco shoppers anyway. You basically do an executive membership of $100. You'll get two different rewards - one from Costco on those purchases only and another from AE for everything. It does need to be used at Costco, but that's never been a problem for us. Plus you get 3 or 5 percent on certain types of purchases - specifically eating out.

So I use the AE for Costco purchases and eating out, while Discover is the primary, and the Disney Visa for any where I can't use the other two.

[Java]

I just went through a whole rewards search since my old card (Chase) completely screwed us over on mileage. In the beginning (some 10 years ago) they had a great program for air miles. Now it's 25,000 points for a ticket on Continental, max. value of $325. With our travels, that gets us practically nothing since Continental doesn't go where we want to go for cheap.

The best card I found for rewards in terms of mileage was the Merrill Lynch black card (Visa +). You get a point for every dollar spent, 30,000 points for a ticket on any non-preferred airline (25,000 points for preferred airlines), max. value of $500. If your ticket is over $500, they will take the last 6 months of your point accrual period, get the average and give you loaner points to make up the remaining value of the ticket. They also let you redeem points for both round-trip and one-way tickets, something Chase doesn't do.

She rattled off a bunch of other benefits like automatic buyers insurance, extended warranty, etc. but we're only interested in the mileage so we were sold.

Check it out: www.card.ml.com

[supercalifragilous]

We have the Delta SkyMiles AmEx, Alaska Airlines Visa, and Discover.

I've been tempted to switch to the Costco AmEx since we shop there so often and have heard nothing but good things about it, but we do use the Delta SkyMiles so it's hard to switch.

We primarily fly Alaska; it takes 20K AlaskaAir miles and 25K Delta miles (partner) for a free ticket. However, Delta SkyMiles has frequent double points periods at which time we switch to using that as my primary card so I think the extra 5K miles evens out in the end.

We vowed to only keep the cards as long as we get enough benefits equivalent to more than the annual fee and so far we've come out ahead every year. We pay the balance off every month, so I don't worry about interest charges. Basically at the end of the year we want to come out ahead so we didn't have to pay to have the card or at least broke even.

[icunurse]

We pay off every month, so I'm pretty sure the interest rate isn't great. But they will send transfer checks or offer transfer promotions for 0% or 1% (depending on amount and length before you have to pay them off).

We use Citibank Dividends for groceries, gas, drugstores and get cash credit. We've actually earned a fair amount that way (I think they have a cap of what you can get back every year, but we've never reached it).

We have a Chase TRU Visa for everything else. You get Geoffrey dollars as rewards via mail every month as you accrue (I think it is 4% for every purchase at TRU or BRU and 1% everywhere else). They add up fast! We use them to purchase diapers, formula, gifts, or when DH wanst a new video game.

We have no complaints about either card, honestly.

[bostonsmama]

We have a World Points Visa through our banking institution that gives one point per dollar, introductory low interest rates, no annual fee and either cash back or gift certificate rewards (for example, 12,000 points=$100 gift card to premium retailers like Gap, Banana Republic, Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Home Depot, chain restaurants). We haven’t cashed anything in yet, but at least it’s there.

Our primary card is a Delta Amex Options card, which is like the Gold card but fee-free forever. You just get 1pt per dollar instead of a few odd retailers offering 2pts per dollar. We have purchased 2 sets of roundtrip tickets through Delta. It cost 25K miles each for a multi-city trip from the east coast to California, then a week later from CA to TX and TX back home, as well as a 50K mile ticket for me to go to Europe this summer—on Air France no less—it was divine! Now, this coming week DH and I are flying to Japan for my brother’s wedding for 60K miles each (on Continental, a codeshare partner), and we actually got seats right next to my mother and stepfather who bought theirs outright with cash (and they linked our itineraries together, too). It’s going to be great. I cannot speak highly enough about the service we’ve received from both Delta and the Skymiles American Express card. They offer extended warranties on pretty much anything you buy, PLUS they go to bat for you if there are any fraudulent charges or fraudulent retailers—they’re helping me resolve an eBay dispute from last summer!