How To Choose The Best Cash Back Credit Card For You?

By Guest | Jan 22, 2012

This is a guest post by Dan Cash. Are you being rewarded for your credit card usage? What was the criteria while choosing your card? Credit card interest? Rewards? Why not share your tips and advice in choosing the best credit card with our readers as a guest article? Read the guidelines.

Several credit card companies are currently offering cash back offers to entice people to use their credit and loan facilities with a variety of rewards and promotions. Some offer cash back for payment on time, some for making your everyday purchases, some offer you money just for using the card, but how do you go about choosing which card is best for you?

As the market gets more competitive, more cards are expected to create ever more appealing offers, rewards, and promotions in order to entice customers to pick up their cards over the competition, including signup bonuses and ever more generous reward programs.

But which is best for you? How can you compare the offers which are changing and seemingly improving all the time? Some offers might seem excellent but they could have small print exclusions which don’t fit in with your spending habits while others which, while on the surface don’t appear so generous could be far more suitable. How do you decide?

Simply ask yourself the following questions when you’re considering taking your business to another company’s card and you should find that you’re getting the best deal to suit your spending.

Does the card offer rewards for your normal purchasing habits?

You don’t want to buy things you don’t need just to take advantage of the cash back offers. Clearly you’ll make the most cash back if you get a deal which rewards you for purchases that you would make anyway. Some cards offer a blanket one percent return on all purchases while others offer 50% bonuses on all cash back earned over the year.

Other cards are more generous with their percent rewards, some offer as much as five or six percent but that is restricted to purchases which are limited to particular categories. Think carefully about which deal would suit you best before you sign up for any deals. If the card has an annual fee, the card should pay for itself but if the rate of return isn’t particularly high or you don’t spend enough on the right categories, there might not be any real advantage to be gained from choosing this type of deal.

Are there any barriers to collecting your cash?

While you want to collect your cash, there may be hurdles and clauses you have to meet before you can collect your money. You may have to collect a certain number of points or amount of cash before you’re allowed to redeem your credit, others require you to build up a certain amount of credit and only allow you to redeem your points when you reach certain increments, while others let you redeem any time you like for any cash credit you have in your account.

Is there a bonus for signing up?

There may be a variety of cards which suit your spending habits and you’re happy with the way you can redeem your points for cash, thinking about what introductory offers the cards provide should help you decide between them. It’s worth bearing in mind that, ultimately, you are going to foot the bill for the bonuses you receive: big signup offers often come with higher APRs than other offers, so it’s worth thinking about how much you’re going to pay back as well as how much you’re going to receive.

Before signing anything, make sure you’ve read and understood all of the terms and conditions attached to the offer, be sure that you’re happy with the interest rates and the redemption policies as well as balance transfer offers.

Byline: Dan Cash is a financial researcher and blogger living in the south of England. If you’ve had bad credit in the past, you may find that you’re barred from many of these offers but a bad-credit credit card might still be available to you, just make sure you pay off the balance on time every time!

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