Blue Cash Everyday Credit Card Review

Full Blue Cash Everyday Credit Card Review

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The benefits explained

• Generous cash back at supermarkets, with no annual fee: This card offers a competitive rewards rate on grocery spending in supermarkets, with a 3% cashback on the first $6,000 in purchases each year. Upon reaching this cap, cardholders continue to earn 1% cash back without paying an annual fee.
• It’s an Amex card on which you can carry a balance: When American Express started, they only issued payment cards, on which the balance had to be paid in full each month, and some of their products remain so. The Blue Cash Everyday, however, is one of the Amex cards that now allow you to carry over a balance from month to month, with interest, as needed.
• Decent offer of 0% APR on purchases: This card is a respectable choice if you want to make several purchases without having to pay them off immediately to avoid interest charges. It offers an introductory APR of 0% on purchases and the interest-free period is 15 months, which is a bit more generous than the 12 or 14 month offers of some other cards. After the end of the promotional period, the regular variable APR range of 16.24% to 26.24% applies.

Disadvantages Explained

• Grocery rewards are capped and some store types are omitted: The 3% cash back rate at supermarkets is a solid reward, but its $6,000 annual spending cap is important to keep in mind. While this limit should be enough for a typical household, heavy grocery shoppers may prefer a card with unlimited cash back rewards or a card with a higher rewards rate on its capped purchases. All purchases over the limit only earn the default 1% cash back rate. Also, grocery purchases at supermarkets like Walmart and Target and wholesale clubs like Sam’s Club or Costco are not eligible for the 3% rate. Gas purchased from these retailers is also not eligible for the 2% rate on fuel purchases.
• Less suitable for overseas travel than many cards: In terms of card acceptance, American Express tends to lag behind Visa and Mastercard, mainly outside the United States. So it’s a good idea to check acceptance locally or carry another card that you know can be widely used if you’re planning international flights. travel. This additional card should be a card with no foreign transaction fees, since the Amex Blue Cash Everyday charges 2.7% on purchases abroad.

The American Express Blue Cash Everyday card is suitable for people who spend up to $6,000 a year on groceries, on which they can earn 3% cash back, a generous rate for a card with no annual fee. If you were to spend the average on groceries for a year, or $4,942, you would earn $148.26 in cash back. If you spend up to the maximum revenue cap, you’ll earn $180.

And those numbers don’t take into account what you’d earn from the card in other cash back. This card is also a decent choice in a no-fee card if you regularly spend on gas, as it offers 2% cash back on fuel purchases. While you can get better gas rewards with some other cards, including some no-fee, it’s still a decent rate for a card’s secondary category. If you spend the national household average on gas, $1,568 per year, you’ll earn about $31.36 per year with this card.

Finally, it is an ideal choice if you still enjoy shopping in traditional department stores. You’ll earn 2% cash back at eligible department stores including Bloomingdale’s, Century 21 Department Stores, JC Penney (JCP), Kohl’s, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. Assuming you spent the national average on clothes at these outlets, which is $1,434, you would earn about $28.68 more per year with this card.

You could then earn $208.30 per year in cash back in those premium categories alone by spending the average amounts. With a 1% cash back rate on everything else to top things off, this card could provide a decent amount of cash back each year.

Blue Cash Credit Card Daily Bonus

Get a $250 credit after spending $2,000 on purchases with your new card in the first 6 months.

Reward Earnings Details

The reward structure of this card is quite simple. You earn 3% cash back at US supermarkets, up to the first $6,000 in purchases each year. After that, you earn 1% rewards on those purchases.

Purchases made at US gas stations and select US department stores (including Bloomingdale’s, Century 21 Department Stores, JC Penney, Kohl’s, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom) earn 2% cash back. All other purchases earn 1% cash back.

The cashback you can earn at 1% and 2% is not capped each year. American Express clarifies that hypermarkets, supermarkets and warehouse clubs that sell gasoline are not considered gas stations. If you regularly buy gas from one of these places, it’s important to know this, as these purchases would only earn 1% cash back.

Reward Redemption Details

The welcome bonus is received in the form of statement credit. All other Cash Back earned with this card is received as reward dollars. These reward dollars can be redeemed at their full value for statement credit. The minimum amount of rewards required to redeem is $25.

How to maximize your rewards

There are several ways to ensure that you get the maximum possible cash back from this card. The first is to meet the minimum spend requirement in order to get the one-time introductory offer by earning a $250 credit after spending $2,000 on purchases on your new card in the first 6 months.

Next, try to maximize your spending at US supermarkets, where you’ll earn 3% cash back on all purchases, including non-food items sold at markets. Obviously, you won’t be ahead financially if you can buy items elsewhere with a saving of more than 3% in your local market, so you might want to follow the comparative prices of items you buy frequently.

You should also consider shopping at department stores to take advantage of the 2% cash back you’ll earn at Amex partner chains. You can benefit from the 2% rate when shopping at the stores’ online sites as well as in their physical locations. Again, though, it’s prudent to make comparisons to make sure you’re really saving money on a purchase at a department store, including its cash back, versus buying elsewhere.

You can continue to maximize your card by charging the card for all gas purchases, which also earn 2% cash back, as well as miscellaneous everyday purchases, which only earn 1% cash back, but whose rewards could nevertheless rise to a surprising amount over time. the course of a year. Keep in mind, however, that if you spend a lot on travel, a card that offers higher equivalent earnings in miles or points on those purchases may be more lucrative.

Exceptional advantages of the Blue Cash Everyday credit card

• Buy Now, Pay Later: Pay no plan fees when you use Plan It(R) to split large purchases into monthly installments for the first 15 months after account opening. Plans created after that incur plan fees.
• Global Assist Hotline offers 24/7 emergency assistance when you are over 100 miles from home
• Free two-day shipping on eligible items with ShopRunner

Standard Benefits

• Purchase and return protection*
• Extended Warranty*
• Roadside assistance and travel accident insurance
• Entertainment perks include exclusive access to tickets to select events
• Fraud Protection

*Level of eligibility and benefits vary by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for details. Underwritten by AMEX insurance company.

Cardholder Experience

JD Power’s 2021 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study ranks American Express #1 out of 11 national card issuers.

Cardholders can access and manage their accounts online, through the American Express app or over the phone. Customer service is available by phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Personal cardholders can call 1-800-528-4800 for assistance.

Chat support is also available. You can also connect with American Express on Meta or tweet questions and comments to @AskAmex.

Security functions

The Blue Cash Everyday card offers the typical range of measures to thwart fraud, including monitoring your account for suspicious transactions and contacting you if fraudulent activity is suspected. Some less common protections with American Express include:

• Using 128-bit encryption technology to protect user IDs and passwords online.
• Automatically logs you out of online account access after 10 minutes of inactivity.
• Allow members to establish a personal security key to authenticate account access.
• Using pre-purchase verification to verify your personal information before authorizing a transaction.

Our opinion

This card offers solid cash returns on everyday purchases, and especially groceries, without the hassle of earning point rewards or the anxiety of paying an annual fee that might not be justified over the course of the year. ‘year.

That said, cardholders who are comfortable with paying an annual fee have a choice of cards that offer a better cash back rate at supermarkets. The American Express Blue Cash Preferred card, for example, offers 6% cash back at these retailers, with the same $6,000 annual cap. A household with the typical average annual grocery spend would earn $296.52 more with this card compared to the Amex Blue Cash Everyday, more than enough difference to justify the $95 annual fee for the Amex Blue Cash Preferred .

The Amex Blue Cash Everyday Card’s decent 0% introductory APR on purchases is also a plus, as is the low minimum spend required to earn the introductory bonus, which is pretty decent, up to $250.

The card is however not ideal for use when traveling abroad. Amex cards are generally less well accepted outside the country than other major brands, and the foreign transaction fee of 2.7% contrasts with a number of competitors who do not impose such fees and are also free of annual fees, like the Quicksilver card from CapitalOne.