looking for a 3% cashback card

[Anonymous]

already have discover. thx

[UpperNwGuy]

Alliant credit union has a card that is 3% the first year with the annual fee waived.  In the second and subsequent years it drops to 2.5% and has a $59 annual fee.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

already have discover. thx

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Other than the JCB Maraukai credit card which is limited to residents of Hawaii, California, Washington and Oregon and has other limitations, there are no straight 3% cashback cards, only ones that have 3% or higher for various categories or bonuses.  Just none that have 3% for everything.  2.5% is the highest you'll see for that and that is very limited as well.  Only the USAA Limitless card has 2.5% afaik but there might be another one or two.

Forgot about Alliant card but that is, as mentioned, only for a year.

[digitek]

Agree with Irish, the ones he mentioned are the only ones permanently above 2% for all categories as far as I know.  Actually, there is a BoA card that can get you 2.65% back when used as travel spend if you also park a bunch of money with them, but I don't really know the details.

[Anonymous]

I believe the JCB Mitsuwa card also is 3% once you spend a relatively high amount per year.  There are also some strange conditions regarding how JCB rounds your purchases down to award the points.  So achieving exactly 3% is not possible, but with enough spend and careful rounding of balances I suppose someone could get close to 3%.  I have considered JCB Mitsuwa as it is offerend in the state I live (which is more states than the other JCB card) but have never pulled the trigger since it seems to complicated to get enough over 2% to be worth it.

[Anonymous]

As the highest merchant fees on visa/master cards is less than 3 percent I doubt you will find a permament 3 percent card on everything with no annual fee. USAA 2.5 requires a checking account with USAA with direct deposits of a signifcant amount. 

[K-in-Boston]

Wish I could get any of the JCB cards!  The other downside is of course their small limits for personal lending (further research after we discussed the credit line cap recently shows that corporate cards can go much much higher).

Someone please correct me if I am wrong if the cash back for miles isn't $0.01=1 mile, but at least for the first year, the Discover it Miles card is 1.5% back on all purchases, but Discover will match all cash back for the first 12 statements - effectively 3% back on all purchases.

[happypill]

As mentioned above there is the BofA Travel Rewards that gives 2.625% if you have $100k in savings or brokerage with BofA/Merrill Lynch.  Brokerage or a 401k rollover or something is probably the only way that makes sense, since keeping $100k in savings is a waste of money.  This is probably the closest you can come to 3% on general spend.  The USAA, Alliant and JCB cards others have mentioned come close in their own ways, but don't really measure up to the BofA if you have the relationship.

Here's one that I've never seen mentioned on this board before, a true 3.3% cash back card with no fees - the Security Service FCU Power Business Travel Rewards WMC.  The regular Power Travel Rewards card gets mentioned around here from time to time because it gives 3.3% rewards on Travel, & Dining, which is class leading, but the business version of this card gives 3% on everything!  Like the regular card it also has no fees, and lots of perks like 120 day price protection (much longer than others), 2 year extended warranty (instead of the must more common 1 yr) and BT rates of 7.9%lower than purchase rates, which can be be as low as 10.74% currently.

There are 3 drawbacks to this card.  First, SSFCU is geographically limited.  Second, this is a business card so it might not be available to all people.  Third, and the reason why I don't have one yet, is that you actually have to apply in person.  They were happy to email me an application (no online apps for this), but I need to go in person to apply.  Unfortunately, I'm in CA now so I haven't had the chance, but the next time I travel to Denver for work I'm going to try to carve out some time to go apply.  BTW, this card has been around for at least a few years without any changes, so I don't expect them to pull back on the rewards.  3% on everything with a 10% bonus at the end of the year.  Here's a link:

https://www.ssfcu.org/en-us/business/credit-cards/Pages/travel-rewards.aspx

[longtimelurker]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Wish I could get any of the JCB cards!  The other downside is of course their small limits for personal lending (further research after we discussed the credit line cap recently shows that corporate cards can go much much higher).

Someone please correct me if I am wrong if the cash back for miles isn't $0.01=1 mile, but at least for the first year, the Discover it Miles card is 1.5% back on all purchases, but Discover will match all cash back for the first 12 statements - effectively 3% back on all purchases.

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That's right, the IT miles is ~ 3% for the first year   (the "~" because it's 1.5% + 1.5% with the second 1.5% coming at the end of the year)

[longtimelurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I believe the JCB Mitsuwa card also is 3% once you spend a relatively high amount per year.  There are also some strange conditions regarding how JCB rounds your purchases down to award the points.  So achieving exactly 3% is not possible, but with enough spend and careful rounding of balances I suppose someone could get close to 3%.  I have considered JCB Mitsuwa as it is offerend in the state I live (which is more states than the other JCB card) but have never pulled the trigger since it seems to complicated to get enough over 2% to be worth it.

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There are complications, but the spend isn't that high.

• Earn up to 1% Cash Back Points on first $1,000 spent yearly
• Earn up to 2% Cash Back Points on next $2,000 spent yearly
• Earn up to 3% Cash Back Points on over $3,000 spent yearly

So $3K per year is all that is needed to start earning 3%.   And for any card, if the amounts are low, then the difference between 1, 2 and 3% cards is small in actual amount.