Cash Back Credit Card II: rebate category madness

(Update 07-28-2010) I found Citi® Platinum Select® AAdvantage® World MasterCard® to be interesting. AA actually offers 3 cards: Master Card, American Express or Visa. They has a 30,000 miles promotion as of now. Another card, which is more useful in our daily lives, is the Upromise® World MasterCard® credit card with Dining & Grocery Rewards, offered by BoA. But I think I will go for the Subaru card, for the 3% cash back (Subaru dollars, good at Subaru dealers for purchase or service).

(Original)Costco American Express Card
3% gasoline
3% Restaurant
2% Travel
1% everything else (including Costco purchase)

Discover card
5% gasoline, hotels, movie and theme parks (July 1st to Sept 30). Discover rotates the 5% cash back category every quarter.
1% for everything else (after meeting those $2,000, $3,000 spending requirements, as I said in earlier post)

Citi Dividend Card
Citi Dividend changed its policy from July 1. It no longer offers 2% (3%?) cash back on groceries etc. Instead it’s taking a page from Discover Cash Bonus Card, doing the rotating category thing. For instance, for this quarter (July 1 to Sept 30) it offers 5% for restaurant (needs enrollment).

It offers 1% for everything else.

Citi Professional
3% cash back on gas station, restaurant, office supplies and car rental;
1% on everything else

Summary

Cashback Credit Card is Sweet

But not all of them are equal. I am using the Citibank Dividend and the Discover Cashback card. The Citi card used to give 5% (now 2%) cash back for gas, grocery and 1% for everything else, with an annual limit of $300.

The Discover card is more complicated. It has a “ladder” rate and does 5% promotion every three months. Each year (start from the day card being activated), it gives 0.25% for first $1000, 0.5% for the second $2000, 1% for anything afterwards. Every three months or so, e.g., Jan 1 to March 31, it gives 5% cashback for airlines, trains and buses; and the 5% category could change to restaurant from April to June. Also Discover has more redeem options, in addition to cash, it can be converted to gift cards from various vendors.