Question Of The Week: Which Credit Card Should I Use For This?
“Which credit card should I use? I’m about to make a purchase at X store, and I want to earn the most points possible.” Sound familiar? It’s a common question. Our question of the week is about which credit card to use for any given purchase. Here’s a simple way to figure it out.
The Question
Our question of the week comes from Jim in our Facebook group:
Essentially, how do we figure out which credit card I should use for the business I’m buying from?
Which Credit Card Should I Use?
The answer to our question starts with an assumption:
Assume we aren’t working on a welcome offer or some other type of bonus, because you should obviously use that card.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, here are some good resources for knowing which card to use for your purchase:
- Our list of bonus categories, which is updated quarterly for best earning rates in a given category.
- Visa Supplier Locator, if you know the name of the business and its location–best for independent businesses.
- Merchant Category Lookup Tool, provided by Award Wallet and good for general information about a brand with many locations.
Something handy about the Award Wallet Merchant Category Lookup Tool is that it will recommend cards that you could use for best earning at the business in question. If the business sits in a special category, it will tell you which cards to use. If it doesn’t qualify for bonus earning with any cards, you’ll get recommendations on cards that have good “every day earning” rates.
Unfortunately, Tractor Supply Store won’t earn anything beyond the best every day cards.
Final Thoughts
Using the best card available helps multiply the amount of points and miles you can earn. Beyond welcome offers and bonus offers, you should use portals whenever shopping online to multiply earnings through a few simple clicks. Additionally, asking “Which credit card should I use?” and knowing how to find the answer can multiply your earnings.
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Kroger online sells Tractor Supply gift cards (don’t know if Kroger online gift cards code as grocery) but they might be available in store as well, which means 4X on the AMEX Gold for grocery or another card that gets above 2X at grocery stores.
That’s a great tip!