The Best Credit Cards Of 2020

Rewards:  Earn 1% cash back when you buy; earn another 1% cash back when you pay (totaling 2% cash back on everything).

Current Welcome Offer: None

Annual Fee: $0

The Citi® Double Cash Card is the best card for amassing cash rewards that you can use however you wish. You get the same reward for just about everything you buy. (Sorry, no rewards on lottery tickets.) You don’t have to worry about activating special categories each month and you can spend the reward money however you wish. You can buy something now, or put the cash to work for your future by saving and investing it.

This card has one of (if not the highest) available standard cash back rate of any credit card. It has no annual fee. Since the actual reward dollars can be deposited dollar-for-dollar into the cardholder’s bank account, you can easily move the money into a retirement, brokerage, or other investment account. (It’s actually more advantageous to ask for the reward as a check than to use it to pay off your Citi Double Cash Back bill. Why? Because any part of your bill you reduce with a cash back credit won’t qualify for that second 1% earned when you pay.)

Admittedly, this card lacks an enticing bonus welcome offer. It also charges a 3% foreign transaction fee if you use it to spend abroad.  It more than makes up for those drawbacks, however, with its $0 annual  fee, simplicity, and excellent cash rewards.

You can read our full review of the Citi® Double Cash Card here.

Rewards: Earn 2x points on travel and dining at restaurants. Earn 1x points on all other purchases.

Current Welcome Offer: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®

Annual Fee: $95

Earlier this year, Forbes named the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card the All-Around Best Travel Rewards Card. With this list,  we renew that accolade and offer an additional reason for our choice: Chase’s family of cards.  The Chase Ultimate Rewards program and the attractive selection of cards Chase offers in every category combine to make it the best family of cards for someone intent on maximizing travel rewards, protection, and travel coverage. Chase Sapphire Preferred points redeemed for travel through Ultimate Rewards are awarded a 25% bonus. (If you’re a frequent flyer, you might opt instead for the Chase Sapphire Reserve,  listed above as our choice for the Best Premium Rewards Credit Card; if offers a 50% bonus when points are redeemed for travel and carries a $550 annual fee. Read our head-to-head comparison of the Preferred vs the Reserve here.)

If you have multiple Chase cards and the patience for figuring out how to maximize your bonuses, you can afford some nice extra travel (or reduce your overall travel costs) by booking through Ultimate Rewards. (And unlike with Bank of America, you don’t have to have a bank account at Chase to maximize your rewards.) Even in the cash back category, Chase has competitive offerings. For example, Chase Freedom Unlimited® * is a cash back card which carries no fee and offers 1.5% back on all spending, compared to 2% from Citi Double Cash back.  Moreover, as a sign-up bonus for Chase Freedom Unlimited, at the end of the first year, Chase doubles your cash back on the first $20,000 of spending.

Here’s the key. If you have a Chase cash back card, instead of taking cash back, you have the option of redeeming your reward through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards program. And when you do this, you’ll be entitled to get the highest bonus applicable to any Chase card you hold.  So for a Sapphire Preferred cardholder, the cash card points increase 25% in value when redeemed for travel. And for a Sapphire Reserve cardholder, the points increase 50% in value when redeemed for travel. Complicated? Yep. But there’s a payoff here in that you have both flexibility and access to enhanced travel rewards. You can take your cash or put that cash towards a trip you want–and claim a 25% or 50% bonus.

You can read our full review of the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card here.

Rewards:  2x points on Southwest Airlines purchases or Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partners; 1x points on all other purchases.  Four upgraded boardings annually–when available. 7,500 points each year on the cardholder’s anniversary. $75 annual Southwest Airlines travel credit.

Current Welcome Offer: Earn 40,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.

Annual Fee: $149

The Southwest Airlines Priority Card is the airline’s premier–and newest–credit card.  The card has two older siblings (Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card and Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card) that were refreshed with the release of the Priority card.

The Priority card offers all the benefits as its siblings, but with some valuable increases and extras.  For example, each of the three Southwest cards offers an annual anniversary bonus. Priority has the largest at 7,500 points (the equivalent of what you’d get from spending $625 – $1,250 depending on fare class).  This card is the only of the three to offer the upgraded boarding options (you are able to make requests to get into the A group, depending on availability, without paying the $15 fee). The annual travel credit essentially reduces the annual fee from $149 to $74 – making it less expensive than the Plus card.

As with all Southwest Airlines credit cards, you can spend your way to earn the unique Companion Pass status.  To earn Southwest Airlines’s Companion Pass status, a Rapid Rewards Member needs to earn either 110,000 points or fly at least 100 segments in a calendar year.  Points earned either from either everyday spending or bonuses are eligible towards earnings Companion Pass status each year. This unique elite status can be earned entirely without actually flying a single flight on Southwest Airlines but only from spending.

At $149 annually for the credit card, the 7,500 anniversary points are a nice bargain, as mentioned before.  For the common Wanna Get Away (6x points per dollar) fares, 7,500 points would cost over $1,200. For the most elite fare class, Business Select (12x points per dollar), those points would cost over $600.  A cardholder gets those points for effectively $74; because, the cardholder also gets a $75 annual Southwest Airlines travel credit applied to their first qualifying travel purchase, too. Therefore, these points cost effectively less than $0.01 each!

When selecting the best credit card for this category, I wrestled with either selecting this Southwest credit card or the JetBlue Plus Card.  Mathematically, these cards get exceptionally close when looking at the ROI of the annual fee to the anniversary points (JetBlue offers 5,000 points for $99).  The JetBlue Plus Card even offers a $100 statement credit annually for any JetBlue Vacations purchase – essentially making the annual fee $0. However, therein lies the conflict.

The Vacations purchase is in addition to the actual air travel – a choice and not a given fact.  The Southwest Priority Plus Card statement credit is given when you fly Southwest Airlines – no other purchase necessary.

Rewards: 2X points per $1 on travel purchases and dining purchases, 1.5X points per $1 on all other purchases

Current Welcome Offer: Receive 50,000 bonus points – a $500 value – after you make at least $3,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening

Annual Fee: $95

The Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card* is a generous rewards card with a low annual fee. The card’s main rewards categories are travel and dining, making it a good option for people who are frequently out and about. There are no limits to the number of points you can earn and they never expire.

What’s most interesting about this card, though, is its rewards redemption options. Points can be redeemed as cash back directly into a Bank of America checking or savings account. Additionally, points can be used as credit to Merrill accounts, including 529 accounts. This is a unique rewards redemption not offered on most cards, and it can be helpful for those who need a boost with their savings for the future.

This card is also eligible for the Members of Bank of America’s Preferred Rewards program, a three-tier program aimed at BofA customers with banking and investment accounts. This program can increase rewards by 25% to 75%, depending on the amount of money customers have in other BofA accounts.

You can read our full review of the Bank of America Premium Rewards card here.

Rewards:  $300 annual travel credit. 3x points on travel (after the travel credit is redeemed) and on restaurants/dining; 1x points on all other purchases.  Points redeemed for travel within the Chase Ultimate Rewards program receive a 50% bonus.

Current Welcome Offer: Earn 50,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®

Annual Fee: $550

When the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card was released in 2016, you might have thought it was a new iPhone, based on the excitement.  My friends were rushing to apply as the welcome offer was 100,000 points–worth $1,500 when redeemed for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Even though the welcome offer is only half that today, the card still offers a collection of rich benefits that can make the $550 annual fee worth it for folks who spend heavily on travel and going out. While the triple rewards for travel and dining are a nice bonus, some of the best rewards come from the extra benefits users get.  Premium airport lounge access through Priority Pass, TSA Pre ✓/Global Entry application credit, and the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection are essentials of a premium credit card. Naturally, there’s no foreign transaction fee.

The trip coverage benefits are outstanding. The card provides primary rental car insurance coverage in both the U.S. and abroad and up to $20,000 of coverage for non-refundable expenses when a trip is cancelled/interrupted for a covered reason, including sickness or severe weather.  The high values continue in coverage for lost luggage ($3,000 per passenger) and trip delay ($500 per ticket).

Other premium elite credit cards, such as the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, offer similar travel credits and high reward rates.  What sets the Chase card apart is the exceptional benefits of Chase Ultimate Rewards for travel purchases. When a cardholder redeems points through Chase Ultimate Rewards, the points increase 50% in value.  For example, 50,000 points equates to $750 toward travel.

You can read our full review of the Chase Sapphire Reserve here.

Rewards: 1% cash back on all purchases; 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in purchases each quarter in a special category (such as restaurants or gas stations) that changes each quarter.

The Discover it® Cash Back * offers both a standard and student credit card with similar benefits. (Any full-time student at a two-year or four-year college is eligible to apply for the student card. The available credit line will be at least $500.) Therefore, a student, without a long credit history, can become a cardholder and not only build their credit record, but earn money back doing it.  (Note that Discover does pull a student’s credit report, meaning it may not give you a card if there is negative information in that report.) After graduation, the cardholder can transition to the standard card, with a higher credit limit, while still enjoying the same benefits. Other credit cards may offer that type of transition, but this card’s welcome offer gives it a clear edge.

Getting your first credit card is a big milestone. The Discover it® Student Cash Back credit card helps you ease the transition when you graduate and rewards you handsomely along the way.

Rewards:  Earn 1.5% cash back on all purchases with no maximum.

Current Welcome Offer: One-time $150 cash bonus after you spend $500 on purchases within 3 months from account opening

Annual Fee: $0

The Capital One® Quicksilver® Cash Rewards Credit Card* provides a family with the ability to amass a large cache of cash back to divvy up as needed.  The 1.5% cash back rate is higher than the baseline 1% cash back rate available for many other cards. And–this is key–the card comes with the unique benefit of no foreign transaction fees.  The same benefit is currently not available on comparable cards that offer 1.5% cash back with no annual fee, namely the American Express Cash Magnet® Card  card and the Chase Freedom Unlimited® card.

Even the card chosen as Best Overall, Citi Double Cash Back, has a foreign transaction fee. Therefore, the best credit card for a family who is solely using the card within the United States is the Citi Double Cash Back card.  However, the Capital One Quicksilver Rewards card can be the single best card for you overall, if you travel abroad. Or, if you have multiple no fee cash-back cards, this is the best one to use for foreign travel.

Even considering that the Chase Freedom Unlimited allows the cardholder to participate in Chase Ultimate Rewards, that 3% fee on foreign purchases can add up for a family on an international vacation. The Capital One Quicksilver Rewards card solves that problem.

There’s another, very different reason that the Capital One Quicksilver Rewards card might be better for your family than the Citi Double Cash Back card. As a Visa card, this Capital One card can be used at a family shopping staple: Costco. The Citi Double Cash Back is a Mastercard and Costco does not accept Mastercard.

A  word of caution about the Quicksilver card: Capital One offers two versions.  Make sure not to confuse the Quicksilver Rewards card with the Capital One® QuicksilverOne® Cash Rewards Credit Card* option.  The latter offers similar benefits but requires a $39 annual fee as a security for riskier cardholders (meaning those with lower credit scores). The Quicksilver Rewards card—the one without an annual fee— requires an excellent credit score.

Rewards:  Earn 1.5% United TravelBank cash for all purchases: earn 2% United TravelBank cash for United purchases

Current Welcome Offer: $150 in United TravelBank cash after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

Annual Fee: $0

The United TravelBank Card * is the only airline rewards card that logs your rewards in cash–not points or miles.  As with all United Airlines co-branded credit cards, Chase issues this unique credit card. This is the only no annual fee option among those available through the United and Chase alliance.

The best way to understand the rewards of this card is that it’s a travel card that delivers rewards similar to a cash back card.  If you spend $150 on groceries, you earn $2.25 towards a future United Airlines flight.  On other airline rewards cards, you would earn at least 150 miles or points for that same purchase.  For example, if a $250 round-trip flight required 25,000 miles, you would have to spend $25,000 in everyday spending on the other United MileagePlus credit cards (excluding the higher earnings for specific categories).  To get $250 on your United TravelBank card, you would need to spend 33% less ($16,667) to redeem for the same flight.

This card also provides the same 25% discount on in-flight purchases as the premium United MileagePlus Card*. In fact, cardholders are able to enjoy other benefits of the premium cardholders including Visa Signature benefits and a bonus 25% earnings rate on miles earned on purchases in the United MileagePlus X app.  As a Chase United cardholder, you also are able to activate special offers for bonus miles for purchases made via the United MileagePlus X app.

Notably, the TravelBank Card does not offer the free checked bag benefit.  Still, you retain some other travel benefits and get, for no annual fees, the combination of a Visa Signature card and a generous cash back credit card.

Rewards: 5% off all qualifying purchases in-store and online. Free shipping on all online orders – no minimum purchase required. (This includes free 2-day shipping on most items.). Any items purchased with the card can be returned for an additional 30 days past the normal return period for that item.

Current Welcome Offer: None, although sometimes Target offers seasonal promotions.

Annual Fee: $0

The Target REDcard saves cardholders money every time they spend at Target – plain and simple. That’s valuable for any consumer, but particularly for a family of four or more that might (depending on their shopping habits), be spending hundreds of dollars a month at Target. No matter how much you spend, if you’re a regular Target customer, it makes no sense to use any other credit card at the store.

Cardholders receive additional benefits online such as free shipping. Therefore, on the shipping front, this card is akin to Amazon Prime. But it has no annual fee (Amazon Prime now costs $119 per year or $12.99 per month) and gives you access to brick-and-mortar stores.  You do not have to live near a Target, however, to enjoy the benefits as Target treats in-store and online purchases essentially the same for REDcard benefits.

Additionally, pairing this card with universal Target savings options such as Cartwheel allows cardholders to increase their savings even more when shopping in-store.  All of these savings options are also stored in the Target app, so you can shop at your local Target with only your phone.

Rewards:  1.5% cash back reward dollars on all purchases

Current Welcome Offer: Earn a $150 statement credit after you spend $1,000 or more in purchases with your new Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership

Annual Fee: $0

The American Express Cash Magnet® Card is the American Express version of the Chase Freedom Unlimited card, but with one nasty surprise.  For American Express cash back cards (not just Cash Magnet), the cash back is not actual cash. The cash back refers to reward dollars that can only be redeemed for statement credit, gift cards, or merchandise. In other words, the cash back can be applied to reduce your bill, but cannot be invested or redeemed outside of the American Express ecosystem.

However, American Express credit cards offer some of the most valuable benefits for simply being a cardholder and this particular American Express card has no annual fee.  Any cardholder can enroll in Amex Offers – a program that allows you to receive cash savings (or bonus points for cards with Membership Rewards) for purchases of specific brands. For example, spend $150 at Levi’s and receive a $30 statement credit. Many popular brands–including Marriott, Hilton, Crate and Barrel, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bed Bath & Beyond–have participated in Amex Offers.

Additionally, all American Express members can enroll in ShopRunner (free 2-day shipping from popular online retailers) and have the option of getting robust premium car rental insurance for only $20 to $30 per rental. Bottom line: this credit card requires you to make a compromise. You give up some freedom to decide what to do with your rewards, and in return get a laundry list of additional benefits. (Keep in mind that one way you can use your rewards is as a credit against your Amex balance so you may not find the limits on redemption a big deal.)