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The Best Credit Cards For….

Posted on | November 17, 2009 |

This list is from Kiplinger’s personal finance magazine “Best Of” edition. I have my doubts on a couple of them, and one in particular is a simply irresponsible recommendation.

Best credit card for cash back.

American Express Blue Cash.

1% cash back on everyday purchases like groceries, gas and drugstore purchases. 0.5% cash back on everything else.Once your spend over $6,500 for the year, you get 5% cash back on everyday items and 1.25% on everything else.

My thoughts. This is obviously a winner if you spend more than $6,500 a year, which isn’t hard to do if you pay for groceries, gas, cable etc every month. Otherwise, I like the Citibank dividend card - 5% cash back at supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations & utilities for 6 months; 2% thereafter.

Best credit card for automatic savings.

Kiplinger’s pick in this category is the Discover Motiva.

The Motiva card offers an incentive to card holders who carry a balance. If you pay on time for 6 months in a row, you get a credit of one month’s interest. The card carries no annual fee, and offers 1% cash back on purchases over $3,000.

My thoughts. This has to be one of the worst ideas of the credit card industry in a long time. How can they say this promotes “automatic saving”? This card is built around one thing and one thing only: keeping the card holder in debt. Shame on Kiplinger for recommending this card. I only hope the kick back from discover is worth the blight on the Kiplinger name.

Best credit card for travel.

U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel rewards Visa Signature. You get 1 point for every dollar spent, and double points for gas, grocery and airline ticket purchases. If you charge over $18,000 in a year you earn enough points for a ticket.

My thoughts. I don’t travel, so I can’t comment on what the best travel card out there is.

Best credit card for a gas break.

BP Visa. This card gets you 10% off BP gas purchases, 4% off travel and dining, and 2% off everything else for the first 60 days. After that, the rebates drop to 5%, 2% and 1%, respectively.

My thoughts. This seems like a pretty good deal if your primary concern is getting some cash back on your gas purchases. I’ve seen similar cards for Mobil, but you pay a premium for Mobil gas and so you probably aren’t getting that far ahead on those purchases, but BP seems to be fairly competitive in their prices at the pump, so this looks good.

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