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Ask HN: What's a good credit card to own?

5 points by mani005 ↗ HN
I am graduating in 20 days and starting a new job. I currently have a student credit card(Zolve) with a credit score of 680. Should I get a new primary credit card for daily expenses and groceries? If so, what card do you recommend for my situation? I don't travel much and will be living independently.

11 comments

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bitshiftfaced
I wish I would've learned to shop for cards with rewards earlier in life. You can easily get 2% cash back on groceries, higher on things like restaurants. If you already have Amazon Prime, their card is a no brainer.
dudul
Don't they all do that? I just got a CC at my bank, without shopping for it, and I get 3% back on everything.
creer
They don't. It's all over the map.
ChumpGPT
I like the following.

One is the Costco CC, you get a membership which gives you access to the warehouses, gasoline, and cash back on gas and purchases. It also has no foreign transaction fees if you choose to travel. The Apple CC is also really good locally and abroad if you travel. The last one is Citi Double cash, but be aware there are foreign transaction fees if you travel.

afn
Nerdwallet[1] is an excellent resource for comparing credit card options.

My recommendation would be to get only no-annual-fee cards, and to get one with purchase protection benefits and one with high cash-back. The former would be for purchases of products that might benefit from extended warranties, return protection (covers you when vendors don’t have a good return policy) and purchase protection (if you break your new toy in the first 90-120 days). American Express has a number of no-annual-fee cards that carry these benefits.

The other card would be for purchases that don’t benefit from these perks: groceries, cable bill, medical copays. Here the best perk is getting cash back on your purchases.

Good luck!

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com

creer
Travel insurance provided by a card, no fee on foreign currency charges are also valuable features.
kartik-sddb
I second amazon prime cards, they have discounts on variety of products
nosefurhairdo
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but the differences between cards are usually small enough that it's not worth the time worrying about it. Whatever has no fees and easily understood cash back (i.e. non-rotating categories) should be fine. If you have known upcoming expenses you might look for an intro offer with cash back after $x spent.

It's also extremely variable what card would be best based on your spending habits, so nobody here can answer whether you should get a new card or which card would be ideal.

TL;DR: don't worry about it, do your own research (timebox it for no more than an hour), and pick something you won't have to think about. Your time is more valuable than marginal credit card rewards.

creer
Credit card are very long-lived entities (and part of your credit rating depends on how old your oldest account is - so once you get a decent no-fee card basically never close that one). But sometimes fickle.

So I'd say you need more than one (decent one) and you can afford to spend much more than one hour on thinking about it. Just based on rebate rates and lower cognitive load later.

yuppie_scum
If you travel a lot, the Chase Sapphire Reserve is worth the membership fee, since you get back credits for travel and precheck. The lounge access is also a surprisingly good benefit.