PayperWIZ

Best credit cards in United States, by what they actually pay

Every card in the United States catalogue, ranked by what it genuinely returns on each kind of spending — after the monthly cap, and after the minimum spend some cards require before any bonus rate applies.

36 cards · catalogue v101 · 14 of 36 read from the issuer's own terms

The best rate here with nothing attached to it

Capital One Savor pays 3.00% on dining with no monthly cap and no minimum spend to unlock it — which is rarer, and worth more over a year, than most of the larger numbers in the table below.

The 14 United States cards read off the issuer

Every rate on this page came from somewhere. These ones came from the bank's own published terms, read by a person on the date shown, with the cap and the minimum spend that the comparison tables leave out. Each has its own page.

Every category in United States

In the order people spend, not biggest number first. The highest rate on a card is routinely the one that means least, so what limits it is shown beside it.

Best published return per category in United States, from 36 cards. The headline rate is one that covers the whole category; where a bigger rate covers only part of it, that is shown underneath with what it covers.
Spending onBest returnCard
groceries6.00%Blue Cash PreferredcheckedAmerican Express · USD 95 a yearat most USD 30 back a month
dining3.00%or 5.00% (U.S. restaurants), with Hilton Honors AmexCapital One SavorCapital One · USD 0 a year
fuel3.00%or 5.00% (U.S. gas stations), with Hilton Honors AmexBlue Cash EverydaycheckedAmerican Express · USD 0 a yearat most USD 15 back a month
supermarkets1.50%Capital One QuicksilvercheckedCapital One · USD 0 a year
online and delivery3.00%Blue Cash EverydaycheckedAmerican Express · USD 0 a yearat most USD 15 back a month
travel3.00%or 10.00% (hotels and cars via Capital One Travel), with Capital One Venture XBlue Cash PreferredcheckedAmerican Express · USD 95 a year
phone and internet3.00%Wells Fargo AutographWells Fargo
entertainment6.00%Blue Cash PreferredcheckedAmerican Express · USD 95 a year
pharmacy3.00%Chase Freedom FlexChase
education1.50%Capital One QuicksilvercheckedCapital One · USD 0 a year
government1.50%Capital One QuicksilvercheckedCapital One · USD 0 a year
rent and property1.50%Capital One QuicksilvercheckedCapital One · USD 0 a year
everything else3.00%or 5.00% (quarterly bonus categories), with Chase Freedom FlexHilton Honors AmexAmerican Express
How these were worked out. 14 of the 36 cards here have been read against the issuer's own terms line by line and are marked checked in the tables below. The rest come from each issuer's published material and have not been checked that way. Every rate is converted to what the card actually returns — points and miles are valued at the redemption rate the programme publishes, using the rate anyone can take rather than the best one available after a transfer. Where a card's programme publishes no redemption value, the card is left off this page rather than listed at a number that would be a guess. Caps and minimum monthly spends are shown because they are usually what decides whether a headline rate is real.

This is a table. Your wallet is a decision.

PayperWIZ holds the cards you actually own and names the right one at the till — after the cap you have already used this month, and after the foreign-currency fee. It works offline and needs no bank connection.

Download on the App Store See how it works

Other markets

The same working, for the other countries in the catalogue.