Check out this year’s favorite credit card winners
Start earning cash back, saving money on credit card interest, or raking in travel points and miles in no time with 2024’s cream of the crop.
Not many cash-back credit cards earn 2% back on all purchases, so when a card joins the club, it’s a cause for celebration. The $0-annual-fee Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card has a lot to offer: unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases, a sign-up bonus, and a no-interest promotion on new purchases and balance transfers. Taken together, that's a value proposition that's difficult if not impossible to find in other cards of its class.
True, other cards offer higher rewards rates in specific popular spending categories like grocery stores and restaurants. But if you’re willing to manage multiple cards at once, the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card pairs well with a variety of others.
If your recycling bin runneth over with takeout containers or grocery bags, the Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card is an excellent choice. It offers an unlimited 3% cash back on dining and at grocery stores, as well as on entertainment and eligible streaming services. You'll get 1% back on everything else.
The potential to earn such a rich rate on both eating out and eating in helps separate this card from many of its competitors, which tend to focus on only one of those categories or the other. It's possible to find similar or higher rates in either of those categories, but rarely on both with the same card unless you're willing to cough up an annual fee.
The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express sits among the elite in cash-back credit cards. It offers an eye-popping 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 in spending per year, 6% back on select U.S. streaming subscriptions, and a generous 3% back on transit including U.S. gas stations, plus 1% cash back on everything else. Terms apply. Cash back is received in the form of reward dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit or at Amazon.com checkout.
Those premier rewards come at an annual cost. There's a $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95. That's pricey for a cash-back credit card, especially since most of its competitors charge no annual fee. Still, for many cardholders — especially those with families — the card's high rewards rates will more than make up for the fee.
The American Express Blue Business Cash™ Card is one of the few small-business credit cards that offers up to 2% cash back without charging an annual fee. Terms apply. That makes it a great deal for entrepreneurs looking to earn a high flat rate on everyday spending without having to keep track of bonus categories. The card’s 0% intro APR offer on purchases is also useful for those looking to finance upfront expenses.
But this card’s rewards rate falls to 1% after you’ve used it to spend $50,000. If you're a bigger-spending business owner or you have predictable monthly expenses that fall neatly into specific categories, you can find more lucrative cards. And if it's travel rewards you want, you'll need to look elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
NerdWallet's award winners are chosen through a rigorous evaluation process involving 39 writers and editors. NerdWallet's ratings formulas for credit cards, for example, consider the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel, or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards, and other features. For mortgages, we evaluate loan average rates and fees, loan types and products, online rate information, ease of application and other factors. For more info, see our methodologies.
Our team of nerdy experts is composed of writers and editors — based all across the country — who have a combined 493 years of journalistic experience reviewing and writing about personal finance products for consumers.
Yes. Writers and editors use comprehensive scoring formulas that assess each financial product’s key features, weighting them according to their importance to consumers.
Nope. Editorial team members are solely responsible for creating all product reviews and ratings, and these assessments reflect their opinions alone. Only products that meet the editorial team’s standards appear in our Best-Of Awards lists, meaning no company can “buy” an award.
Our Best-Of Awards are given annually to the top financial products on the market. Our other “best” articles may:
• be longer than our Best-Of Awards list
• offer additional consumer choices
• get updated as products change or are discontinued and as new products emerge
This year's Best-Of-Awards list winners were chosen in mid-October 2023, with the exception of Best Airline Rewards Program, which was chosen in early November 2023.
Our 2023 Best-Of Award winners are still live. If you’d like to see who won last year, feel free to take a look and compare with this year’s winners.
