I enjoy discussing credit cards that other people aren’t talking about, hence yesterday’s look at offerings from Comenity Bank. One card that ought to receive attention but does not is the Amex SimplyCash card (scroll down the list a bit). Why is it worth a look right now?
- $250 statement credit after $3,000 in spending. For all of you complaining about airline and hotel devaluations, nobody’s devaluing cash. (Well, maybe except for these guys.)
- 5% cash back on office supplies–with no annual fee. Note that the 5% is on the first $25,000 of spending per year, which is up from $12,000 per year less than a year ago when I last wrote about this card.
- 3% back in the category of your choosing. The card formerly boasted 3% back on gas, but perhaps taking a cue from Huntington Bank Amex has changed up this aspect as well. Now you can choose from these seven categories:
- Airfare purchased from airlines
- Hotel rooms purchased from hotels
- Car rentals purchased from select car rental companies
- U.S gas stations
- U.S. restaurants
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
- U.S. purchases for shipping
- Amex OPEN discounts. Admittedly not quite as good since it lost OfficeMax, Amex’s OPEN discount program nevertheless has some value. Take a look and see for yourself, but one prominent value is Hyatt: you can get 5% back on Hyatt bookings, so ironically you get more rewards booking with this card than with the Hyatt card. And if you select hotels as your 3% category, you bring that to 8% off all Hyatt bookings.
If you want to apply for this card, you can find it via this site (it’s #9 on that list, go down a bit). I will receive compensation if you’re approved for any cards via that link, but please note I have a strict policy of only pushing good deals, not lousy ones. Please also note the great stuff I told you about the first two days of this week. Thanks, and I really do appreciate the support!
You can also boost your savings past 8%. If you’re a member of MilePoint and bought their premium package, you can order Hyatt Gift cards for 10% off. Now you’re at 10% + 5% + 3% = 18%. Well really something less than that but you get the idea. Or you can go through ebates to reach Hyatt and get 2% cash back from them. Or if you’re are very very lucky you wait until Hyatt runs one of their occaisional 10% off Gift Cards promos, you go through ebates to Hyatt, buy the Gift Cards that way and get 2% + 10% + 5% + 3% for something less than 20% off…
There is a similar product from Chase the Ink Cash. I think it has a $200 sign up but of course it can also be seen as 20k Chase UR (I got it a long time ago with a 50k targeted offer). 5% up to $25k at office stores, 2% at gas and restaurants, 1% elsewhere. Shockingly you never (or at best rarely) hear it mentioned anywhere in blogland. But this is a solid card from Amex too. Competition is good!
The Ink Cash is a pretty good one, the issue there is that you can already get two other Chase biz cards with spectacular sign-up bonuses so that one gets lost in the shuffle.