Open up your wallet for a moment and take a look at any credit cards that you have. If you have any credit cards, why did you choose that particular card? Is it because it’s from your favorite retailer? Is it because it has a low interest rate? Is it because it’s from your local bank? Is it just a credit card that you’ve always had? We sign up for credit cards for a number of different reasons. A lot of us keep them in our wallets long after we’re done using them to bolster our credit scores or just because we’re too lazy to cancel them.
Consider why you have the credit cards that you do have in your wallet. If the answer isn’t, “Because this is the best interest rate and best rewards program I can possibly get”, you should reconsider what piece of plastic you carry around with you. It turns out that a lot of the rewards programs that credit card offers have are absolute junk. Some end up offering you only a fraction of one percent cash back on your money, others are tied to specific companies and your points could be gone tomorrow if the company goes bankrupt.
If you have a card with a sub-par rewards program or have a rewards program that’s tied to a specific company’s financial well being, you should take a look at new options from Charles Schwab and Fidelity. They are major rivals in the financial services industry, and now they are both offering competing products that offer you 2% cash back on all of your purchases. This isn’t just purchases in grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants either. This is 2% back on every single purchase that you make.
Schwab’s offering, the “Schwab Bank Invest First Visa Credit Card” will give you 2% cash back on any purchases you make and deposit into your Schwab One brokerage account. You don’t need to use the money to invest if you don’t want to, you can just transfer it out of the account and spend it if you’d like. This card has no annual fee to speak of and there’s no monthly limit to the amount of cash back that you can earn.
Fidelity’s offering, the “Fidelity Retirement Rewards American Express Card” also has no limits on cash rewards and no annual fee. You’ll get 2 points for every one dollar that you spend. After you get 5,000 points by earning 2,500 points, you can convert that into $50 cash which will be deposited into your Fidelity IRA account or any other Fidelity account. You could put the money in a Fidelity IRA, then take the money out and spend it if you’d like.
Getting 2% cash back is the best available rewards option on the market today. Other cash back cards don’t even come close. Don’t be fooled by those that say they will give you 3% back on gas, groceries, and restaurants and 1% back on everything else. It’s likely that you’re getting much less than 2% back when all is said and done.
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