Grocery card with no FTF

[longtimelurker]

Asking for a daughter who might be living abroad for a while.    Looking for a card with no FTF that gives rewards on foreign grocery stores and earns more than 2%  (She has the paypal 2% card).   I have the Penfed Plat Rewards which gives around 2.54%, just wondering what is better....

[wasCB14]

I can't think of much that is both simple and flexible. Amazon/WF, and Target are easy but inflexible. BofA Travel/Premium are flexible but require significant deposits to come out ahead.

Maybe just get a nice bonus like Savor? How much foreign grocery spend are we talking about?

*Forgot Savor has reportedly been cut to $300. Maybe something with $500+.

[longtimelurker]

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@wasCB14 wrote:
I can't think of much that is both simple and flexible. Amazon/WF, and Target are easy but inflexible. BofA Travel/Premium are flexible but require significant deposits to come out ahead.

Maybe just get a nice bonus like Savor? How much foreign grocery spend are we talking about?

*Forgot Savor has reportedly been cut to $300. Maybe something with $500+.

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Potentially a lot of spend over a few years.   Just checking UK sites, 0.5% seems to be the norm!   So, paypal will at least give 2% (unless they complain about too much spend being foreign).   Yes, BoA with a large deposit would work, but the large deposit bit isn't going to happen (at least not from my funds!).   Just half hoping someone would point on the obvious card that I had forgotten.

[wasCB14]

NFCU More? 3x but not sure what the points are worth. Lower acceptance, too.

[NRB525]

What is the grocery store where DD will be purchasing? My experience in the Netherlands, with Albert Heijne, they don't take credit cards. You have to have a chip+PIN debit card or Euros (Pounds) cash to purchase. Irritated me when I have a fancy Diners Premier with Chip_PIN. I don't know if that is common across all stores, but if it is, then a high-rewards credit card isn't going to work too well.

[coreysw12]

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@NRB525 wrote:

What is the grocery store where DD will be purchasing? My experience in the Netherlands, with Albert Heijne, they don't take credit cards. You have to have a chip+PIN debit card or Euros (Pounds) cash to purchase. Irritated me when I have a fancy Diners Premier with Chip_PIN. I don't know if that is common across all stores, but if it is, then a high-rewards credit card isn't going to work too well.

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I was going to make a similar comment.

Grocery stores abroad are usually not at all like grocery stores in the US. Many don't even take credit cards, and those that do, you have no idea how they are going to be categorized. Most "grocery stores" I've been to abroad are more like a 7-11 than anything else. And just get categorized as a general merchandise sort of category. Most countries outside the US don't really have "Safeway" type grocery stores like we have.

I would just find a card that has a good non-category-based reward, and stick with that. The Alliant Signature Visa gives 2.5% cash back on all purchases, and has no FTF. The Discover It card *sometimes* has a Grocery category, and no FTF. The Uber card, the Amazon Visa, and the Chase Sapphires all have decent rewards and no FTF.

[SBR249]

I have never walked into a UK grocery store that didn't take credit card. Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Co-op all took CCs. Even Chip & Pin transactions though is pretty uncommon these days. Most of the time, it's contactless so maybe have you daughter test out whether she could use a foreign card on Apple Pay or something. Otherwise, ordering groceries to be delivered is also very common, when you can pay £1 to have someone bring all your groceries right to your door in a 2hr time slot, why wouldn't you? Might also be easier to use foreign cards that way. And if all else fails, manned cash registers almost always take foreign cards, even the ones you sign. 

In any case, the whole rewards CC thing isn't very big there because the EU has effectively capped interchange fees at very low levels (think debit card levels). I have a 1% AmEx cashback card from the UK and that was about as good as it got, I think it's bumped up to 1.25% after the first £10,000 in annual spending. Problem was that there was a minimum yearly spend that you had to hit to get any cashback (£1000 I think? Maybe £2000) and so many places just didn't take AmEx. 

But back on topic, it might be easier to just stick with a flat CB card like the Paypal MC for simplicity sake. 

[coreysw12]

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@SBR249 wrote:

I have never walked into a UK grocery store that didn't take credit card. Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Co-op all took CCs. Even Chip & Pin transactions though is pretty uncommon these days. Most of the time, it's contactless so maybe have you daughter test out whether she could use a foreign card on Apple Pay or something. Otherwise, ordering groceries to be delivered is also very common, when you can pay £1 to have someone bring all your groceries right to your door in a 2hr time slot, why wouldn't you? Might also be easier to use foreign cards that way. And if all else fails, manned cash registers almost always take foreign cards, even the ones you sign. 

...

But back on topic, it might be easier to just stick with a flat CB card like the Paypal MC for simplicity sake. 

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My experiences in the UK mirror yours - their grocery stores are fairly similar to the US's. But outside the UK, the game changes entirely, and grocery shopping is a LOT different.

Totally agree that a flat CB card is probably the best choice here.

[NRB525]

Capital One Quicksilver, if one does not want an AF.

[coreysw12]

O

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@NRB525 wrote:

Capital One Quicksilver, if one does not want an AF.

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In fact, all CapitalOne cards have no FTF, which is pretty cool. Discover is the same way. FTF varies from card to card with other banks.