With more than half a billion products at your fingertips, it’s no surprise that people spend a lot on Amazon. And that’s going to be even more true over the next few weeks with the holidays just around the corner. Whether you are a seasonal Amazon shopper or at the point where the online retail giant’s “Recommended for You” section knows you better than your best friend, you’ll want to make sure you’re using a card that maximizes your purchases from the site.
Determining which card is right for you requires looking beyond just earning rates and also considering other factors like rewards currencies and purchase protections. In some cases, you might even want to consider different cards for different types of purchases. Additionally, your best option may vary based on whether you’re a Prime member and what other cards you already carry. With all those things in mind, here’s a look at the top five cards to use when shopping on Amazon.
Best Credit Cards for Amazon Purchases
- Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature
- Chase Freedom Unlimited
- Discover it® Cash Back
- American Express® Gold Card
In This Post
Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature
At first glance, Amazon’s own Prime Rewards card appears to be the most exciting option — and for most people, it is. The Prime member-exclusive no-annual-fee card — which is not to be mistaken for the basic Amazon Rewards card — offers an impressive 5% cash back on all Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, as well as 2% back at restaurants, gas stations and drugstores and 1% back on all other purchases. Upon approval, you’ll get a $70 gift card automatically loaded into your Amazon.com account.
The biggest drawback is that is that the high return on spend is all the card really has to offer. While the card comes with purchase protection (it covers items up to $500 in value if they’re damaged or stolen within 120 days of purchase) and extended warranty protection, it doesn’t include important purchase benefits like price protection or return protection so it’s not ideal for large purchases. The other drawback is that you need a Prime membership ($119 per year) to qualify, though with so many U.S. households already subscribed, that’s probably not much of an issue. Aside from the Prime membership fee, the card charges no annual fee. The information for the Amazon Prime Rewards’ cards has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
APPLY HERE: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature
Chase Freedom Unlimited
If you’re not a Prime subscriber and still want a solid return on your spend, your best bet would be to go with the Chase Freedom Unlimited. The Freedom Unlimited provides 3% cash back on the first $20,000 you spend in your first year and 1.5% cash back thereafter on all purchases. While that’s a solid return on its own, you could potentially double the value of your rewards by pairing the Freedom Unlimited with a Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred Card or Ink Business Preferred Credit Card. By doing so, you’ll be able to redeem your cash-back as full-fledged transferable Ultimate Rewards points, worth 2 cents a piece based on TPG’s monthly points valuations.The card also offers 120-day purchase protection and extended warranty protection that extends eligible manufacturer’s warranties by an additional year. Also like the two Amazon cards, this one does not carry an annual fee.
APPLY HERE: Chase Freedom Unlimited
Discover it® Cash Back
Amazon’s Prime Rewards card isn’t the only one to offer 5% cash back on purchases — the no-annual-fee Discover it Cash Back does too (on rotating categories, up to $1,500 each quarter you activate), and doesn’t require you to be a Prime member. However, this earning rate is only available one quarter a year.
With the Discover it Cash Back, you can earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in purchases made in accordance with Discover’s cash-back calendar after enrollment. This year, as well as next year, Amazon is eligible for bonus cash back from October through December. Keep in mind that while this card is great for Amazon purchases during the holiday season, it isn’t the best card to use year-round. When Amazon is not a part of the quarterly cash-back bonus category, you’ll only receive 1% back.
What makes the card shine is that Discover will match your rewards at the end of your first card member year so you could get up to 10% back on Amazon.com purchases during that time. Unfortunately, the card discontinued other benefits, including extended product warranty, return guarantee, purchase protection and price protection.
American Express® Gold Card
The final card on this list is primarily for those who make a lot of high-value purchases on Amazon. With the Amex Gold Card, you’ll earn 1x Membership Rewards points on Amazon purchases, yielding a return of 2% based on TPG’s valuations — unless there’s an Amazon deal available through Amex Offers, which isn’t too uncommon, or you’re willing to take an extra step before making your Amazon purchases.
The biggest benefit of using the card is its generous purchase protection. While many cards carry this benefit, the Amex Gold Card provides an astounding $10,000 in protection per incident and up to $50,000 for all incidents in a calendar year. It also comes with other key shopping benefits such as return protection and extended warranty until January 2020. For tech purchases like Alexa devices, having return protection and extended warranty could be a wallet-saver.
However, if these protections aren’t important to you, you can increase your return on spending by purchasing Amazon gift cards from select U.S. supermarkets and earn 4x points (up to $25,000 a year; then 1x). Four points per dollar means an effective 8% return on spending, which beats any of the cards previously discussed. Alternatively, the Amex EveryDay® Preferred card could be a good option too since it earns 3x points on up to $6,000 a year in U.S. supermarkets; then 1x thereafter. The card also offers a 50% point bonus if you use it more than 30 times in one month so you could be walking away with as many as 4.5 points per dollar spent at grocery stores, or a 9% return.
Related: How to Get up to 5x Points on Amazon Purchases
The Amex Gold Card has a $250 annual fee (see rates and fees), but benefits including up to $120 in dining credits each year, 4x points on dining worldwide and up to a $100 annual airline fee credit make the card worthwhile.
APPLY HERE: American Express Gold Card
Bottom line
As you can see, picking a card to use for Amazon purchases isn’t as simple as going with the one at the top of this list. The best rewards credit card for you depends on personal habits and priorities. So, while the Amazon Prime Rewards card offers a high return on Amazon purchases, it’s not everyone’s best option as it’s only available to Prime members and lacks key shopping protections which you’ll want for larger purchases.
Card benefits like return protection have proved to be extremely valuable and may be worth sacrificing 2-3% in rewards. Additionally, if you’ve been saving up on transferable points for a specific redemption, it may make sense to earn rewards in that currency rather than cash back so that you can top off your account and book that award you’ve been dreaming about sooner.
Featured image by Thomas Trutschel / Getty Images.
For rates and fees of the Amex Gold Card, please click here.
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