While having a family is a rewarding experience, it’s also an expensive one. To help ease the cost, the Nerds have targeted three great credit card offers for families. Here are our favorite family cards — one for grocery spending, one for traveling with your loved ones and one for high rewards on rotating categories.
Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express: Best for grocery spending
Feeding a family can be expensive. Get rewarded for your grocery spending with the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express. It offers 6% back on groceries (up to $6,000 in spending), 3% back at U.S. gas stations and select U.S. department stores, and 1% back on everything else. There’s also a signup bonus: Get $150 back after you spend $1,000 in purchases on your new Card in your first 3 months. You will receive $150 back in the form of a statement credit. Rewards are redeemable as a statement credit on your account.
The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express has an annual fee of $75, but you can earn that back in rewards with just $25 in grocery spending per week. The card has an introductory APR of 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers, and then the ongoing APR of 12.99% - 21.99% Variable , in case you need extra time to pay off an existing debt or a large purchase.
Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®: Best for family travel
Whether you’re taking the kids to Disney World or shipping them off to grandma’s, a travel rewards credit card can lessen the cost of traveling with your family. The Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® offers 2X miles on every dollar spent on anything, redeemable for a statement credit against travel purchases. As a bonus, you’ll receive 10% of your miles back when you redeem miles for travel. Plus, there’s a killer signup bonus: Earn 40,000 bonus miles when you spend $3,000 or more on purchases in the first 90 days from account opening.
The Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® has an annual fee of $89 - Waived first year and no foreign transaction fees. It has an EMV chip with PIN capability for safer transactions, and cardholders have access to their FICO score for free online.
Chase Freedom®: Best for 5% cash back on rotating categories
If a rewards rate of 1-2% just isn’t cutting it for you, you should check out a 5% rewards card like the Chase Freedom®. It offers 5% back on rotating quarterly categories — up to $1,500 in spending per quarter — and 1% back on all other purchases. Here are the rewards categories for 2015:
- Q1 (January – March): Grocery stores, movie theaters and Starbucks stores
- Q2 (April – June): Restaurants and more (in 2014, Lowe’s home improvement stores)
- Q3 (July – September): Gas stations and more (in 2014, Kohl’s)
- Q4 (October – December): Amazon.com and more (in 2014, Zappos.com and select department stores)
There’s also a signup bonus: Earn a $100 Bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. And if you add an authorized user and make a purchase within the first three months, you’ll get a $25 cash bonus. Rewards are redeemable for cash or gift cards, or you can use your points to pay for purchases at Amazon.com.
The Chase Freedom® has an annual fee of $0 and an introductory APR offer of 0% for 15 Months on purchases and 0% Intro APR for 15 months on balance transfers, and then the ongoing APR of 13.99%-22.99% (Variable).
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