f/u to CC post

JLPT830

DH and I were just talking about CC rewards last night (great topic of conversation on your anniversary dinner date!) and I saw that Melissa asked below.  So what kind of rewards do you get on your CC?  Are there monthly fees?  We have a Mastercard that is cash back but they keep lowering how much you earn on each dollar you spend.  It's ticking DH off!  We also have a Miles card that can be redeemed on any type of travel related expenses.  We've been pretty happy with it, but they have lowered how many miles you earn on each dollar spent too.  I'm sure this is common practice across the board, but I was just curious if there was anything better out there.

Meg41208

I have a citi card that earns cash rewards.  I think it's like 1% cash back?   

We have a SkyMiles AmEx that we pay an annual fee for that earns SkyMiles.  I think the fee is $99 a year, but it's worth it for us.  We've redeemed the miles for plane tickets. DH travels fairly often for work, 99% of the time on Delta or one of their partners and earns more miles that way, so paying the annual fee is worth it for us since we get more out of it than we have put into it.  We have a ton of miles even though we spent all of them last year.  This is the card that gets the most "action," so to speak.  It also has other benefits, like not having to pay for the first bag when you fly (so there's your annual fee), and you can also pay for part of a ticket with miles instead of buying a reward ticket (ie trade in 10,000 miles for $100 off a ticket).

DH also has a Cap One card that has some rewards program that earns prizes or something.  i don't know. he's never taken advantage of it.  He's had the card since before we were dating, and has a bazillion points but he won't let me trade them in.  I think he's saving up for a hovercraft or something. 

KYmama9286

We have a PenFed Visa Platinum Cashback Rewards Card. It has a 13.99% APR & you 

• Earn 5.00% cash back from gas purchases paid at the pump
• Earn 2.00% cash back on supermarket purchases
• Earn 1.00% cash back from all purchases you make with the card during each billing cycle
• Up to $50,000 limit
• No Annual Fee
• Cash Rewards credited each month (this is the best part--it gets straight credited to your account so essentially each month we get $50 cash)
• No special restrictions to earn your cash rewards

For us this was the best kind of rewards system--we dont really travel much and we knew if we had some other kind of reward system where you had to "cash" them in to get the rewards we would forget and never do it. The only trick w/ this card is you have to be a part of the Pentagon Federal Credit Union (which is for like military & family, government employees, etc.) but you can become a part of the credit union for a 1x fee of $25 which goes to the National Military Family Association and the donation is tax deductible. Overall this was the best deal we could find being as a large portion of our monthly expenditure is on gas & groceries.