What card currently provides 2% cashback? Annual fee?

I'd agree that $500 would buy a chunk of airfare (or even an ipad) though these days I am routinely seeing transcons for $600-700 so ROR on 25k miles is much better than a few years ago when you could find transcons for $200-300. Of course if your leisure flights cost <$500 then you come out ahead plus you get the miles for flying