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Courtesy of Jen Glantz
- After using the same credit card – the
JetBlue Card – for five years, it’s time for a change. - I want a credit card with higher earning rates, better perks, and more ways to redeem rewards.
- If my new card has no annual fee, that’s even better – but I’m willing to try an annual-fee card.
- Read Insider’s guide to the best rewards credit cards.
When it comes to credit cards, I pride myself on being loyal. I limit myself to only having one personal credit card in use at a time, which means when I pick a particular credit card, I stick with it for a very long time.
The first credit card I had (a Bank of America credit card) was my go-to card for most of my twenties. Even though the rewards weren’t great and there were better cards out there, I stuck with the credit card for far too long.
Read more: The best credit card offers right now: Earn points, miles, or cash back
I’m feeling the same way right now about my
To help choose my next credit card, I put together a list of the top five features I want a credit card to offer.
At least 2x rewards for every purchase
Since I only use one personal credit card at a time, I want to make sure that I’m getting as much back in rewards as possible for every single purchase. My current card offers 3x JetBlue points for eligible JetBlue purchases, 2x points at restaurants and eligible grocery stores, and 1x points on everything else.
Read more: The best cash-back credit cards
I’d like my next card to offer, at minimum, unlimited 2x rewards for every single kind of purchase, just like the
Big rewards for booking travel
As my year progresses, I expect to plan a handful of vacations and trips. To help earn more points for those travel purchases, I’d like a card that offers a bonus on travel spending, especially when booked through the card’s travel portal.
My current card offers 3x the rewards when booking a JetBlue airline ticket or getaway (pre-packaged vacations). When I did research, I found offers – like
Annual credits
My current
For example,
Flexible points redemptions
One of my biggest headaches with my current card is the lack of redemption options for my points. I can redeem the points for flights and vacation packages, but there aren’t any options to redeem points for purchases.
Read more: The 5 best credit card rewards programs for socially distant travel in 2021
For example, some loyalty programs let you redeem points for Amazon purchases, and others for travel excursions – like how the
No annual fee
While this last guideline might be harder to meet (there are credit cards with no annual fee, like the
Some credit cards will even offer promotions where they waive the annual fee for the first year – which is a good way to tempt me to apply for the card and decide if the benefits are worth it – or offer you an option after the first year to downgrade to a lower-tiered card with no annual fee (and different benefits) instead. I’d be open to signing up for a card that offered either of those choices after the first anniversary.
While no one card can meet all of these benefits that I’d like, it felt important to me that I sat down and wrote out what I wanted in my ideal credit card. My next step will be to take my list and compare a variety of cards to see what each offers and find the card that offers the majority of things on this list – or decide what I’m willing to compromise (most likely it will be that annual fee).
Jen Glantz is a personal finance writer, small-business owner, and the author of Amazon-bestselling books “All My Friends are Engaged” and “Always a Bridesmaid for Hire.”
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