Best Credit Card rewards program???

[amberley7890]

Which credit card has the best rewards? I am planning on starting a home daycare and would like to keep all my purchases seperate from my personal ones. I have a PC Mastercard, CT Mastercard, Air Miles Amex and an HBC card for personal purchases. I probably like the PC card the best, Amex and CT close after. It would be paid in full every month, so I'm not worried about interest and do not want to pay a fee. Thanks for your input

[Zonny]

You don't pay a fee on ANY of those? Wow. Why do you have so many?

We only use one credit card, and that's the RBC Avion Infinite. There is an annual fee, but we more than make up for that in gift cards and insurance on rental cars. Anything we can put on it, we do (and pay it off in full each month).

I wonder what's going to happen with reward cards like this. Right now the credit card company doesn't make a cent off us, it actually costs them money to have us as customers since we don't carry a balance, but they get extra from retailers when we use the card. There have been news articles recently about how retailers can't charge YOU more to use them. But if someday they can charge more, that will probably be the end of my using them.

[amberley7890]

You don't pay a fee on ANY of those? Wow. Why do you have so many?

There's no fee on any of those. We pay in full every month, too, so they don't make anything on us either! We use the HBC and CT cards only at those stores, and my husband seems to use the Amex and I use the PC more.

[abbasgirl]

Of the cards you have, PC gives you the best return (1%). The HBC is only worth using at an HBC store when there are bonus points for using it. On a regular day they don't even give you 1% back in points. I figure out the return from the Amex card by figuring out the value of the rewards that I use airmiles for. I use mine for gift cards, but maybe your return will be higher if you use them for something else.
There's a new card from MBNA that gives you 3% for groceries and gas at any grocery store or gas station (5% for the first 6 months). They sent me one without me having to apply for it because my old reward card had been discontinued. There's no fee on it either. So I think it will end up being my new favourite card.

[amberley7890]

There's a new card from MBNA that gives you 3% for groceries and gas at any grocery store or gas station (5% for the first 6 months). They sent me one without me having to apply for it because my old reward card had been discontinued. There's no fee on it either. So I think it will end up being my new favourite card.

I will look into that, thanks! It would mostly be for groceries anyway.

[p4eli4ka]

Me, I use the PC credit card I calculated before that the PC give to me the best rewards.

[mulock]

Different credit cards give different things. Best to determine what kind of shopper you are, and where/what you buy. I use the MBNA SmartCash card....have had it for 2 years now. I like it when those $50 checks keep rolling in from them to me Last year I earned $300 I always pay my balance, so they are not earning anything off me.

[CTarantino]

Thanks for the input - we're shopping for new cards. I think I like the PC card - if we put all our expenses on the card monthly - we could earn $300 in groceries/ month - that's insane. Of course, paying off the balance monthly. Thanks again.

[sweet sparrow]

Thanks for the input - we're shopping for new cards. I think I like the PC card - if we put all our expenses on the card monthly - we could earn $300 in groceries/ month - that's insane. Of course, paying off the balance monthly. Thanks again.

Are you using the calculator on their website? If you spend $5000 a month, it says you can get 300,000 points (= $300) in six months. That only works out to $50/month. The PC MC typically returns 1%, with bonus points for having a bank account with them or above a certain balance in their account.

If you got $300/month in groceries, you'd have to spend $30,000/month (at 10 points for each $1 spent) and then I think there would be better cards out there for numbers like that.