Originally Posted by
scottsd
Let me put in a vote for the AMEX Costco True Earnings credit card.
It pays 3% for meals, 3% for gas and 2% for travel (plane, car rental, etc).
You have to be a Costco member to get it ($50/year). Once a year (Feb for me), they send a check for your total rewards with your regular statement. The check is good for cash or merchandise at your Costco store.
In two years of using the card mostly for T&E, I've received approx $300.
Plus the AMEX CS team is always available, very responsvie and polite and
helpful.
Note that you can quit your Costco membership and get a full refund anytime, but if you do so, your accumulated reward disappear, and eventually AMEX will actually close that account. This did happen to me one year, but I got AMEX to reinstate the card and the points by rejoining Costco.
Scott
I've never looked closely at the Amex Costco True Earnings card but it does seem appealing for frequent Costco shoppers that charge a relatively small amount on their credit cards in general.
If you charge more than about $600/month on your card, you are WAY better off going with the Amex Citi Platinum unless you seek absolute simplicity in award redemption. In short, you get 5 TY points for gas, groceries, drug stores and 3 TY points for everything else. With a tiny bit of work, you can redeem for $0.01 per TY point. Only drawback is the $125/year fee after the first year. Hence the $600/month minimum to break even...although you also get 15,000 TY points for signing up which would offset the $125 fee the second year. See for a lengthy discussion of the card:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...-upgraded.html