Rewards options with credit cards....

 I'm shopping for a new credit card.  Keeping in mind I pay my balances every
2 weeks I am not concerned with grace periods or interest rates.  However I
do run a home based business so combined with my personal spending I can
take advantage of some of these rewards options.

Card 1:    is a "cashback" type card.  I get 1% cash back for every purchase
dollar.  It's paid into the credit card account every July.   I don't
qualify for the full 1% as it's tiered, unless you spend over 3000 a year
but let's say if I were to p[purchase 10000 then I would get about 85
dollars cashback next July.   It's a no fee card and the min credit limit is
$1000.  The max amount of purchases that can qualify is 30 000 a year, so
max reward would be 300 a year.  It's offered by Scotiabank

Card 2:   is offered by Citibank.  Citi are new to Canada and have about 15
different credit cards it seems.  The one I may be interested in is the
driver's edge card. It's no fee and 2500 credit limit min.   You earn 2% of
your purchase dollars up to a max of 1000 a year towards the purchase of a
new or used car, atv, motorcycle etc.  So for 10000 a year in purchases I
could earn 200 in used car bucks.  you have 5 years to use your points.  To
redeem you mail in a copy of your car's bill of sale with auto insurance
form and they pay you back within 60 days.  The cash is paid after you buy
the vehicle but that does not worry as I pay cash for used cars. or I try to
pay at least 50% cash for car and the rest in resale or possibly finance but
i am not worried about using the rward towards financing negotiations.

I would like the Citi card better but since Citi have a new history in
Canada I am curious about how often they change the terms of thier cards?
Scotia have been around for about 200+ years and only offer about 5 or 6
different cards.  I am curious as to how long these rewards types cards
stay?   how often do companies change the terms?  How often do banks drop
the rewards plans?  at first glance it seems that Citi is way more
aggressive in their credit card marketing and I wonder if they are more apt
to abruptly drop rewards plans or change terms?  But the fact that I can use
the rewards towards a used car of my choice from anybody who makes a bill of
sale is really interesting.  then again the cashback type card I can use the
money for anything even if it earns less then half the percentage.  And i
can redeem the rewards at any time, up to five years.  The cashback card
pays out once a year.

I've never had a rewards type card before .   Just seeking opinions on the
stability of these rewards schemes...  I will probably purchase 20 000
dollars of goods and services with this new card in a year and I have had no
prior relationship with either bank.

Which one seems to be the best bet?

 

Citi seems fine to me so far, but I wouldn't go for a card that
limited the reward to a car purchase.

 

I will be in the market for a new used car in the next couple of years but
I'm not locked into it yet.  But a different vechile is in my thinking these
days

 hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:


I replaced my AT&T Rewards card (which just died) with Citi's Dividend
Platinum Select card -- 5% on groceries/drugs/gas and 1% on everything
else.  Costco's Amex card gives 3% on restaurant meals.  Some other card
that I don't have gives 5% on computers or office supplies or
business-related stuff.

Seems like anybody ought to be able to haggle a car price down by $200
without even breathing hard.

--
Cheers, Bev
===================================================================
Giving advice likely to kill the stupid is called passive eugenics.

 

The Real Bev wrote:

Given that the Citibank Drivers Edge card rebates against
whatever you've spent on the car, how much you are or aren't
able to get off via haggling is unimportant.

And the OP said they were in Canada. Unless they are just
unfamiliar with the other options, I suspect that the 1/5% cards
may not be available there.

Bill