ryantms

First post, hopefully this is the right place.

I am finally down to my last student loan (of about $100K) after years of snowballing smaller/higher interest loans. I have been paying the minimum of this final loan every month for years with my cash back Discover card, but now that I am about to snowball a larger payment (around $2300/month) I would like to start getting better rewards than just 1% cash back.

Before you ask, as soon as the student loan charge clears I pay the balance in full, not looking to rack up more debt here than I already have.

This student loan provider accepts credit cards as payment for no additional charge, but does not accept Visa. My wife and I currently have the following credit cards:

• Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards Visa ($99/year) - Used for everyday spending
• Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Visa ($95/year) - Used mainly for my business travel expenses
• Discover Card (No annual fee) - Used for this student loan

I would like to see if there is another card out there that I can get more value from. My wife and I love to travel. We live in OKC so Southwest is probably the easiest airline for us, but overall we have few direct routes no matter the airline. I travel about 10 times a year for work. Normally fly Southwest or Delta for work and I always try to stay at Hilton properties.

I don't want a card with a huge yearly fee, but am fine paying a fee if it is easily justifiable.

The following non Visa cards so far are at the top of my list, but I am curious if anyone else has any advice.

1. Citi® Double Cash Card (No annual fee)
2. Hilton HHonors™ Surpass® Card from American Express (100K bonus offer) (75$/year)
3. Hilton HHonors™ Card from American Express (75K bonus offer) (no annual fee)
4. Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard (50K bonus miles) ($89/year - waived 1st year)
5. Platinum Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card (70K bonus miles, 10K MQMs) ($195 annual fee)
6. Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard® (30K bonus miles) ($95 fee, waived 1st year)

My wife and I enjoy having Hilton gold status so we would keep our Hilton Visa unless perhaps we got the HHonors Surpass card. The Citi Double Cash card seems to obviously beat out the Discover card since you get 2% cash back on everything. As for the other cards, we are close enough to Dallas to use AA for vacations, and we wouldn't be opposed to saving up some points for a Euro vacation in the next few years. The Delta card looks appealing despite the high yearly fee due to the large sign up bonus and the yearly domestic companion pass it offers.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated!

thinkorswim

To be honest, I would just put it on the Citi Double Cash card. I don't know what your overall financial situation looks like and I am often reluctant to recommend cash back as an option, but your student loan is big and likely has a high interest rate. Why not earn an extra 2% back from each payment to pay down the loan even more?

garykung

But do you know if the issuer code this transaction as purchase or cash advance?

ryantms

Thanks for the response. I've thought about that as well and when I crunched the numbers that additional monthly payment of $46 (2% of $2300) would save me $600 in interest and pay the balance off one month earlier. That is probably the smart decision, but I suppose I'm tempted to get a big sign up bonus elsewhere.

As far as financial situation, only debt we have is this student loan and a mortgage for around the same amount. We live comfortably below our means in order to pay the student loans aggressively, but also to be able to travel some.

Should be a purchase. I've used the discover card for years and it never charged any sort of cash advance fee.

Redhead

But not every issuer is the same. I would call the issuer to check - an try a test payment before committing

garykung

Discover is absolutely a different kind of credit card. IIRC, you can get cash back as purchase.

If you want to use other non-Discover card, it will be best to test it out before.

If Cash Advance, you will not only be charged for interest beginning the transaction time, you will have to pay the Cash Advance fee as well.

Billpay

I have a good way, PM.