Understanding Rebate Credit Cards

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

You may notice that wherever you go today, you will see all kinds of advertisements for all kinds of credit cards from regular credit cards to cash back credit cards. With rebate credit cards, the cardholder is given back a portion of his purchase in the way of a percentage of the total amount spent in a billing period or annually. These rebates are normally somewhere between 1% and 5%.

There are so many credit card companies for you to choose from and each one of them really wants your business. Without consumers, the credit card companies cannot make profits to keep them up and running, therefore they are all battling over you. Yes, you! Every one of them desires to have you as a loyal cardholder especially if you have good or excellent credit. To make their credit cards more appealing they come up with many unique incentives to draw you in and use their credit cards. This is where rebate credit cards are so appealing. You can purchase all the items you normally purchase at your favorite stores and receive credit card rebates just for using these cards.

You can receive up to 5% cash back with many of these cash back card offers just for shopping at grocery stores, drug stores and gas stations. Many even give you 1% cash back for shopping at discount or department stores.

However, just because the rebate credit cards sound great they are not for every person that desires such a credit card. If you are the type of person that always carries a balance on your credit card the money you earn can be gobbled up rather quickly by interest rate charges. You can find some rebate credit cards that do offer 0% APR for an introductory period which could be a better way to go, if you pay off the balance quickly before the introductory offer expires. However, you must also remember if the 0% APR is only for balance transfers and not for new purchases then you may find yourself deeper in debt and not collecting any cash back. Any payments you make will be applied to the original balance transfer and then you will be paying interest on the new purchases. Some credit card companies are also offering $5 cash back for every balance transfer, so this is something else you should look at before applying for in a cash back card.

When you decide among rebate credit cards, you may really make a tidy little profit if you always are sure to pay off your card balance every month. Think about it. Use coupons at the grocery store, you can save up to 30% off your grocery bill just by remembering those coupons. Now, just use your rebate credit card and you will be receiving another 5% for shopping and using your cash back card.

What about all that money you spend on gasoline for you car? It would be nice to put some of that money back in your pocket. Many of these rebate credit cards give you up to 5% cash back at the pumps as well.