Originally Posted by
jalm1
From a numbers perspective, the most attractive seems to be the Citi DoubleCash - 2% cash or 2 TYP. But I'm struggling with that b/c its Citi and that means keeping the Premier. I (like a few of us here) have been burned by Citi's tinkering in the past. It's hard to trust them. The alternatives seem to be: CFU (lower cash redemption and relying on UR to hold value or keep pay yourself back going), AMEX BBP (only good to $50k and then?), or just 2% cash (or move to BoA which adds friction to other areas for the Platnium rewards). What am I missing?
What you're missing is that most people don't have >$50k (let alone >$60k) of non-category spend a year that they can charge to credit cards.
I'm not sure you mean by "tinkering" when referring to Citi. I've been using my Premier (never had and never wanted a Prestige) for several years, since I stay a lot at hotels for which I don't have a hotel program credit card, and so I don't see the problem with Citi TYP (and thus DoubleCash as the no-category solution) other than perhaps the choice of transfer partners being a less-familiar group than Amex MR's and Chase UR's partners. And the Premier is my one and only card from which I have successfully gotten spend-based promos each year I've called for retention due to the annual fee (I'm more interested in earning more points than in offsetting the $95 annual fee, but if the latter is what you want, they typically have an offer for that too).
So most people would say Citi DoubleCash and/or Amex BBP and your problem is solved. But I don't know what to say if $50k a year is a drop in the bucket for you.
A different concern that some people have is that both of these being 0 AF cards, they have foreign purchase fees, which make them not so great if you have non-category purchases overseas.