Another Year of 2% Cards
Sep. 21st, 2023 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt's been another year of 2%ers for me. No, not the 2% wealthiest people in the country; I wish! I'm talking about a pair of 2% cashback credit cards. I manage my credit card usage regularly through I spreadsheet I've built. I track not just my balance each statement and when it's due but also the rewards I'm earning. Once a year (per card) I run the numbers on rewards vs. costs to choose which cards stay and which go. Usually I share that here.
I've owned the CitiBank DoubleCash card for several years now. It comes with a fairly simple proposition: it pays 1% when you charge something plus another 1% when you pay it off. There's no annual fee. This makes it an easy card to recommend, BTW, for people who want to dip their toe in the waters of points-paying cards.
It turns out I haven't used this card much lately. I charged just under $350 total over the past 12 months. The main reason for that is that I was putting charges on other cards— including another 2% card detailed below. But for those ~$350 of charges I earned ~$7 cash back. I also earned another ~$7 in statement credits on periodic merchant offers that popped up on the card. Those offers pretty much doubled the value of the card. Without those offers I likely wouldn't have charged anything to this card.
At the time it had slightly better redemption terms; Fidelity would auto-deposit cashback to my Fidelity account every time the cashback balance passed $25. Citi made me wait 'til $50 for a check. Although Citi now offers more flexibility I continue to prefer the Fidelity card. I charged over $4,000 to this card in the past 12 months while hitting Citi for less than $350. Seriously, that's because it's a Visa so I can use it at Costco!
Citi DoubleCash
I've owned the CitiBank DoubleCash card for several years now. It comes with a fairly simple proposition: it pays 1% when you charge something plus another 1% when you pay it off. There's no annual fee. This makes it an easy card to recommend, BTW, for people who want to dip their toe in the waters of points-paying cards.It turns out I haven't used this card much lately. I charged just under $350 total over the past 12 months. The main reason for that is that I was putting charges on other cards— including another 2% card detailed below. But for those ~$350 of charges I earned ~$7 cash back. I also earned another ~$7 in statement credits on periodic merchant offers that popped up on the card. Those offers pretty much doubled the value of the card. Without those offers I likely wouldn't have charged anything to this card.
Fidelity Rewards Visa
My other 2% card is the Fidelity Rewards Visa. I added this card 4 years ago after I already had the Citi DoubleCash card.At the time it had slightly better redemption terms; Fidelity would auto-deposit cashback to my Fidelity account every time the cashback balance passed $25. Citi made me wait 'til $50 for a check. Although Citi now offers more flexibility I continue to prefer the Fidelity card. I charged over $4,000 to this card in the past 12 months while hitting Citi for less than $350. Seriously, that's because it's a Visa so I can use it at Costco!
