I have a Nordstrom Bank debit card, that gives you $20 for every $2000 you spend (the $20 can only be spent at Nordstroms venues). If you spend any money at: Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Nordstrom Online, and Nordstrom Restaurant/Cafe, you get double points.
I also just signed up for Citibank Checking. You get 10k in Thank You points (for this sign up promo) and an additional bonus 10k for signing up for Direct Deposit and doing a Bill Pay (one per month of each). That's the equivalent of $200 in gift cards for their online shopping site, and they also have travel stuff too, that you can spend them on.
With Citibank, if you have the DD and Bill Pay, you get a certain amount of Thank You points per month, PLUS, you can shop via their online marketplace (they have a LOT of great stores). Most of them offer 4-6 points for each $1 spent. A few are as high as 12 points per $1. For redemption, there are some gift cards that you can redeem as low as 1,500 points for $10 gift card.
I know a lot of people frown on using their debit cards and prefer to use their credit cards, but since I filed BK in 2010 and am trying to get rid of the horrible cards I got post-BK filing, I prefer having the rewards debit cards for my peace of mind. Also, I have several bank accounts, so if someone hacked or obtained my information for one account, I still have other bank accounts. I've had an account compromised years ago and while it was under investigation, they refunded all of the monies that were spent. The people were a little stupid. They paid like $800 for verizon cell phone bills??? Needless to say, I just signed a form with the bank and they gave me the money. About 30 days later, they sent a letter regarding their investigation and that they found it was fraudulent activity by others, and I didn't have to worry about it - the case was closed. I never was out of my $ longer than a few hours once I found out about the fraudulent activity.
