Amazon Credit Card Review
I’m going to tell you why the Amazon credit card is actually a five percent cashback card.
Of course, that sounds crazy because most cashback cards are somewhere between one and two percent. We have a video that shows one at two and a half percent and how to hack it to get that. Essentially, if you can get a one, one and a half, or two percent cashback card, you’re doing really well. Now, Amazon is actually a points-based card, but I’m going to show you the hack so that you can turn it into cash.
Here’s what’s interesting in my perspective. Most people’s budgets include categories like housing, car insurance, and major spending categories like groceries and gas. If you look at these major categories, you’re looking at significant expenses. Why I like cashback cards is that typically they’ll say, “It’s two percent in all categories.” I like that because I don’t want to go to the gas station and then try to remember which of the cards that I have I need to use for gas to get the best value. That drives me crazy. That’s why I don’t like categories. However, I like what Amazon’s done. I use the card all the time, and I’ve used it for years because what they’ve done is they’re actually looking at the major categories.
Now, the first thing I’ll show you is five percent cashback. To give you an idea, if you’ve got a one percent cashback card and you spend five thousand dollars, you’re gonna get fifty dollars back. If you’ve got a five percent cashback card, you’re gonna get 250 dollars back. That’s a big difference. Now, I’m not a proponent of spending more money, but if I’m just shifting where I purchase, and I can get more value, that’s great. Let me give you an example. I used to go to multiple stores to buy various things, whatever it may be. I’d go run to this store, hop in the car, go to that store—100 here, 200 there, 300 there, 400 there. And I started using Amazon more and more. I’m not saying that’s the best place to go; there are lots of other stores. But with this card, you go to Amazon, and you’re getting five percent back. Well, I essentially just took these categories out of stores I was driving to, and now I just purchase them on Amazon. I’ve just shifted the money that I spent. I’m not spending more money; I’m just moving. Instead of buying it over there, I buy it over there. Christmas comes, birthdays come, business supplies, whatever it may be, I run to Amazon, and I looked at the end of the year and realized I spent a lot more money than I thought. I’m getting five percent back. When you go to redeem that money, I’ll show you how it works in a second, but first, look at their categories. It’s five percent back on everything you buy at Amazon. That means it doesn’t matter what you’re getting; it covers it all. Then they’ve got five percent back on groceries and two percent back on gas. It’s their groceries, Whole Foods, as well as their Amazon Fresh.
Why are they giving you five percent back on products at Amazon? Because they’re selling you the products; they’re making the profit, and therefore, they’ve got a margin they can give you that amount. And then, of course, they own Whole Foods, they own Amazon Fresh, so they can give you five percent back. And they’re giving you two in points, but it’s easy to remember. When you’re on Amazon, it’s going to default to your payment of your Amazon card. Pretty easy to remember. I’m at Amazon; I use my Amazon card; I’m going to get the value back. So now I don’t have to think. So I like it for that one very reason.
Now I’ll just show you when you go to checkout, it’s real simple. You can obviously click and pay or you can click to use the points that you’ve accrued, and it gives you a dollar value right there. So you might have thirty dollars and 22 cents in your cart. You click to use the points; if you have enough, it just wipes it out. It goes to zero, and you get what you’re looking for. That’s easy. But here’s how you turn it into cash. The Amazon card is provided by… it was a Visa card, but it’s provided by Chase. You go and log in to Chase, and you’ll see your card, and it actually gives you a breakdown of your spending by category, and of course, you see everything you spend, and you can pay it online just like any other credit card. But what’s really interesting is there’s an ability for you to redeem those points for cash.
You’ll see in this screenshot where you can quickly and easily do that. You just enter your bank information
The BJs Club Credit Card is also very popular.
