3% at grocery stores1 and 1% on all the purchases.
Many rewards bank cards offer cash back, and you’ll even find some debit cards that offer cash return on certain purchases.
Cash back isn’t free money, but rather a reward to make purchases on expenses like gas, groceries, restaurant meals or even streaming services.
These cards can be appealing as the limited-time bonus categories generally offer 5% cash back—a higher rate.
However, you’re often limited by earning bonus rewards on up to certain amount—usually $1,500 or $2,000—in purchases each quarter.
This way, if your credit card company rewards you for making everyday purchases, you can rack up rewards whether or not you’re spending money at the mall, the airport or the movies.
And spending money just to earn rewards could hurt you if you find yourself with debt that you can’t get rid of.
- You’ll need to manually activate your top two eligible categories each quarter to qualify.
- A flat-rate cash-back card will typically give you one rate on all your purchases.
- the same rewards no matter what you get or where you get it, even on your trash-pickup bill and doctor copayment.
- through the first year, meaning it doubles however much you earned by the end of the entire year.
To make the the majority of it, you’d have to keep track of which purchases will give you more cash back during certain months.
And with these types of cash back bank cards, you often have to opt in to take advantage of the new spending category with the bigger rewards rate.
If you’re searching for a simple rewards card, you might want to pick a flat-rate cash back card instead.
Sally Herigstad is really a personal finance writer, columnist, author and retired CPA.
She wrote a CreditCards.com column called “To Her Credit” for a decade, answering readers’ questions about credit, debt, finances and family relationships, and much more.
card,” Honig says.
Our Top Pick For Best Cash Return Credit Card
Some credit card issuers don’t allow their customers to redeem their cash return rewards for cash.
Instead, you may receive a statement credit which you can use to pay off the balances within your charge card account.
If you’re looking for top-notch perks like statement credits for TSA PreCheck® or usage of luxury lounges, check out our articles on the best travel bank cards and the very best airline bank cards.
Some cards likewise have a promotional period with a 0% introductory APR offer on purchases and, possibly, balance transfers — frequently, on both.
This period can be from nine months completely up to 21 months.
Best Credit Card For Cash Back In Rotating Categories
The Capital One Spark Cash Plus sticks out first and foremost due to its stellar earnings rate of 2% cash back on all purchases.
Although some other business cards offer 2% cash back, such cash return rates are often capped at a quantity every year.
credit cards let cardholders earn between 1% and 2% cash back.
The best cash return credit cards have higher earn rates for a minumum of one or two spending categories.
For points based rewards cards, you’ll generally receive points instead.
Note that bonus offers typically need you to spend a certain amount within a few months of opening the card.
The Capital One Quicksilver and QuicksilverOne cards are two examples of flat-rate cash return cards.
They both offer unlimited 1.5% cash return on every purchase, every day.
With a background in public areas accounting, she joined the personal finance team at Microsoft in 1998.
She has been attempting to help people take control of their finances ever since.