The Fidelity Investment Rewards MBNA card is a FLAT 1.5% cashback on everything.

(You must be a Fidelity account holder, but it doesn't cost anything to open an account there)

see: http://personal.fidelity.com/product...platplus.shtml

Here is some interesting math:

- Charge $20,000 on Starwood card, and that is enough for a free trip in the USA. Or charge $40,000 on the card and that is enough for a free trip to Europe. (This is based on the fact that 20k SPG points translates to 25k miles with most airlines. And, most airlines are 25k for a free trip in USA or 50k for a free trip to Europe).

- Charge $20,000 on the Fidelity card, and you will get $300 (or charge $40k and you will get $600).

Since I can usually get tickets for travel in the USA for under $300, and my travel to Europe is usually around $600 to $700, I opt for the cash option. This way, when I buy tickets, I earn more miles by actually flying. I also don't have problems trying to get extremely hard to find award tickets. For those destinations which regularly cost more than $300 to fly to (say Boston to Anchorage), I just use my miles I earned from flying (rather than miles earned from charging on my credit card) to get an award ticket.