Optimal credit cards for maximizing cash back

Pen Fed Cash Rewards. 5% cash back year round can't be beat.

Outstanding card, also will be using pen fed for an auto loan 3 years down the line.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred and Barclays have a card that gives $400 back after a certain amount spent.

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Those cards work a little differently, and from I recall that $400 isn't exactly going to be $400 if he doesn't use it on travel expenses.

For example, Capital One points are worth $100 if you have 10,000 points AND you redeem it on a travel expense. However, they are only worth $50 on non-travel expenses, so you have to be careful throwing those dollar amounts around.

Barclay only lets you reimburse for charges on the card FYI

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Barclay only lets you reimburse for charges on the card FYI

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Right (which I hope is obvious to everyone ), I don't have a Barclay's, so I don't know what their dollar redemption is for non-travel expenses. Hence, I compared it to what I do know, and that is Capital One gives you half the $ amount for non-travel reimbursement than they do for travel reimbursement.

Since the OP implied general "cash back" and not travel reimbursement, I wanted to make sure every one was aware that different values may exist for different cards, and the promotion may value the points for a certain type of reimbursement but not mention they aren't worth that on a different type.

Another example, for Capital One, a $100 airline flight can be reimbursed using 10,000 points. However, a $50 pair of shoes would take that same 10,000 points to cover. Hence, why you have to be careful.

Penfed 5% for gas
Amex BCP for 6% groceries
Citi Forward 5x points for restaurants and amazon



I don't travel much so these 3 cover my spending categories very well

Yeah, I try to shop the sales at albertsons but I still get a lot of stuff from Walmart or amazon if its too high at albertsons

It would be really nice if a credit card coded Walmart a different way to get points on it. Sicks that it's a 1x store for every card you'd even want to consider having.

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people were exploiting the hell out of this loophole

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Ya I've read that but as of right now I'm all in with Chase. I'm sure I'll abuse amex sometime.

The stores are also changing to cash only on gift cards too, making it harder to get them in bonus cats worth anything. You could get merchant specific cards but I find those hard to liquidate in practice for my uses. But there will probably always be a nice loophole.

Do the Neighborhood Wal-Mart's sell gift cards? Since there isn't one of those within 30 minutes of my house I could just put a few hundred bucks on a Wal-Mart gift card to use at the supercenter that is right down the street.