Here's what I can offer so far on Credit Cards.
I’ve searched and searched some more for an exceptional credit card deal that provides gas rebates with no strings attached. My credit score is excellent, so nothing would eliminate me from getting the best possible rates with the best possible rewards. The only thing is, nothing exists out there to warrant an endorsement. It’s really quite sad that credit card companies are making these grand offers only to find out that there are strings attached.
Take for example AAA MBNA card. 5% cash rebate on gas purchases. That’s pretty darned good! But, if you read the small print, your rebates are capped at 2% of your total purchases…so, if you just use it for gas, you get 2%, not the 5% advertised.
Example #2: Blue Cash from American Express. This one is my favorite for scam of the year. You really have to be persistent to find this bit of information out. The offer is 5% cash back on gas purchases. Once again, that’s good, however, after much digging around I found out that in order to get the full 5% rebate your year to date purchases must total more than $6,500.00. You get only 1% cash back on purchases until you have reached $6,500.01. Cute huh?
Example #3: Chase Perfect Card. I was really close to closing the deal on this one. I told my wife, “I found it!! This is the one!” It really sounds great…6% rebates on all gas purchased at any gas station for the first 90 days, 3% after the first 90 days. Since I want this card for a 2-month trip it was perfect (so far). It also offers a 0% Introductory APR on purchases. But, when you read the fine print you found this bit of information out:
“The maximum rebate you can earn for gas purchases on a monthly statement is $15.”
I’m easily going to spend $500 in a month on gas during my trip, so that 6% savings is not going to apply to me because the most I can get back is $15 per month. That cuts 6% down to 3% rebate. (Honestly, 3% is about the best you can do unless you get a gas station specific card.)
I’ll only bore you with one more example: I’m leaning heavily on this one, but have still not made a decision. The Citi Driver’s Edge Platinum Select Card offers 6% rebate on supermarkets, drugstores, and gas purchases for 12 months. The rebate drops to 3% after the introductory period. The sweet part of this is you get 1 point for every 100 miles you drive. These points can be used to make purchases through their “Thank You Network”. I’ve looked through it, there are tons of things to get, and the most useful to me are gas station cash/gift cards. The cash rebates must be used for the purchase or lease of a new or used vehicle within 5 years, or you can use the rebates to have maintenance, service, or repairs performed on your current vehicle. Other than that, you can transfer your rebate dollars into rebate points and use those in conjunction with the points received from the miles driven to acquire gas station gift/cash cards or other items. Drawback is, unlike most of the other cards, this card does not offer an introductory 0% APR on purchases. As a matter of fact the APR is a rather steep 13.74%. Now, if you are extremely diligent and responsible, that 13.74% will never come into play, however, fail to pay your balance in full just one month and BAM! Kiss the 6% rebate and all the points you accumulated goodbye, you are now in the red with Citi’s Driver’s Edge card.
So in summary, I really don’t know which way I will go yet. We aren’t leaving until the 2nd week of June, so I still have time to do more research and hope something comes along that will fit what I want perfectly. Until that time though, I can’t recommend any of the cards above, nor anything that I left out, such as Discover. I promise not to give up, with the price of gasoline skyrocketing the way it is, any savings will help. Even 3% will make a difference of $.09/gallon if prices go up to $3.00/gallon. If anyone is interested I used the following links for most of my research:
http://www.creditcardguide.com/gascards.html
http://www.cheatatshopping.com/Splashgoogle/gas.html
http://www.hotdealz.com/CreditCardRewards.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/16/pf/d...ards/index.htm (This is an excellent article, the problem is it’s dated June 2004!)
