Cynthetiq

Double check the fine print, and of course, if there is an annual fee after the first year you have to weigh that into the equation, especially if you are going for the cash back. You may wind up not getting as much cash back as you thought once you deduct fees.

EDIT: Capital One and Discover both are 25 day grace periods. A quick search didn't reveal any cash back rewards that did use a 30 day grace period.

One of the reasons we left Amex was due to them offering us a free business class ticket each year, but one had to buy a full fare business class ticket which we didn't read the fine print. We used up our mileage for Amex to go to a funeral in Pittsburgh, forgot to include that as part of my freebie trips.

Again, because of the way that miles works it's much more beneficial for me, the cost of me puchasing the ticket far exceeds the annual fee.

So look at all the loyalty programs, because maybe you'll be in the market to buy a TV/home theater in the future, a Sony card would be a better value than the cash back award. Maybe you will be in the market to purchase a new car, GM has a card offering. Tivo has a card if you've ever wanted one of those things. The idea is that you can get free things that you'd either pay for outright or never buy at all.

The best thing is that you don't have to be married to these cards for very long, you just have to plan your spending (paying it all back of course) to target the rewards before they either expire or change value.

Generally from what I've found the best value for dollar is airline miles, the least is cash back and hotel stays.

Actually sorry the LEAST value is POINTS. If they say you acrue point sfor your purchases, then you have to make that the X factor because miles = $ is easy. 1 for 1.

$ = points, points to be traded in for whatever, then that means that the points can be adjusted easier miles making it that much harder to redeem.

A good example of this are cards that allow you to accrue points that you can convert to miles. Generally you'll spend more $$ for the mile than if you were to outright accrue it via a direct airlines program.

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