@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@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.
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.
Not trying to start a fight, but the above is not what is on the JCB USA website for the Mitsuwa card. I see this:
Annual Spending Cash Back Points Earned Cash Back Rate
First $2,000 Every $100 = 1 Point, 1% cash back
$2,000 to $5,000 Every $100 = 2 Points, 2% cash back
Over $5,000* Every $100 = 3 Points, 3% cash back
So you have to spend at least $5,000 to start earning 3%. Someone who has the patience to do the arithmetic could comment with how much spend it will take to break even with a flat 2% cash back card with this structure (it must be at least several thousand). Even then you would never truly be getting 3% overall but more like 2.7 or 2.8% before the 3% back maxes out at 50K annual spend as noted in the fine print. In addition, you only get the points per $100. So if you spend $190 after getting $5000 annual spend, you are only earning 3 points. As I stated earlier, I have been intrigued by this card, but it would take a lot of spending and balance precision to even get 2.5% back.
Sorry, I was referring to the Marukai version, which seems a lot better if you are in the right state.. The table I gave above is for the CA version: https://www.jcbusa.com/for_consumers/marukai-premium-jcb-card/
This has a $15 AF after the first year, but you get a $15 bonus for spending more than $1000 a year anyway.
One issue with both cards is that they give points at $100 increments (per month), which can really reduces the value
ETA: breakeven over flat 2% card for Mitsuwa is $7000, where both cards earn 140, for the Marukai it would be 6000 (where both get $120), but the additional bonus at $5K spend puts the Marukai ahead at that point
