Last Reviewed: 11/10/2010
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The Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Signature card (for short, let’s call it the Chase Marriott Visa card) is a regular top three finisher in the hotel reward cards category based on the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine. The Amex Starwood Card and the Hilton Honors Amex Card also routinely appear near the top of the list.
Last Updated: 11/7/2011
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The American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card (aka the “Starwood Card”) often occupies the top spot in our PlasticIQ Ranking Engine for cards offering bonus points for hotel spend.
Last Reviewed: 8/20/2010
The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer program. The lowest level of membership is Flying Club Red, then Silver, and finally, Gold. For those of you who are interested in an analysis of the monetary value of a Flying Club Point, check out PlasticIQ’s article, How Much Are Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles Worth?.
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Last Reviewed: 8/15/2010
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The American Express Blue Sky credit card is another one of those cards masquerading as a travel credit card, yet behaving more like a cash back card with some redemption restrictions. Thus, on PIQ’s Plastic Ranking Engine you will find the AMEX Blue Sky card in both the travel and cash back categories.
Last Reviewed: 8/14/2010
Many of Bank Of America’s credit cards allow you to earn World Points, which are redeemable for cash, travel, gift cards, merchandise, VIP events, and even charitable donations. PlasticIQ decided to take a deeper look at this program to get a handle on how much a WorldPoint might actually be worth.
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Last Reviewed: 8/5/2010
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The Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards credit card is a fairly straightforward cashback credit card. It’s not an all-star card, but neither is it a laggard–somewhat North of middle-of-the-pack. One callout is that Capital One tends to tailor their offers based on your credit worthiness.
Last Reviewed: 8/1/2010
While the Bank of America Accelerated Cash Rewards card currently ranks 5th out of 32 cashback cards, as the table below shows, this card will earn you significantly less than the top-ranked Discover Escape and American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card.
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Last Updated: 5/30/2011
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The Penfed Visa Platinum Gas card might be called a hidden gem. The value proposition of this card is very straightforward: its awesome for gas rewards (5% cashback)–but quite horrible on all other purchases (0.25%, recently reduced from 1%). Penfed is clearly de-emphasizing (and likely phasing out) this card in favor of the recently launched Penfed Platinum Rewards Card, which is pretty impressive all-around and worth a look.
Note: As of 4/30/2011, American Express replaced the Amex Blue Cash Card (which is no longer available), with 2 new credit cards: the Amex Blue Cash Everyday Card, and the Amex BlueCash Preferred Card. While the Everyday Card is slightly inferior to the old Blue Cash card at higher levels of spend (say, >$1,000 per month of spend on the card), it does outperform at lower levels of spend.
However, the real gem is the new American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card–which simply dominates it’s predecessor and consistently appears at or right near the top.
Follow this link to read PlasticIQ’s review of the American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card.
Last Reviewed: 7/23/2010 Read the rest of this entry »
The Amex Blue Cash Card (NO LONGER AVAILABLE) is a force to be reckoned with, ranking near the top of the pack if you spend enough on the card. If used skillfully, Blue Cash can earn an effective cashback rate of 3% or even more.
Last Reviewed: 7/17/2010
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The Discover Escape credit card (aka Escape by Discover) masquerades as a travel credit card, but is really falls into what I believe is a unique class of cards which I would dub “restricted cash-back credit cards”. Restrictions aside, this piece of plastic is a heavy hitter, and is frequently at the top of the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine. You can apply directly for Discover Escape, or continue reading this review for more insights into why even Clint Eastwood would have wanted this card in his back pocket when he popped out of the Bay soaking wet.
