dhugh

All these negative comments worry me...but I've had nothing but good experiences with Amex. The "fine print" does matter, but you really should be reading this stuff before you sign your money away anyhow.

The deal is you get 1% on all gas, groceries, and drug store purchases and 0.5% on everything else until you spend $6,500 over a 12 month period. After that, you get the 5% on gas, etc and 1.5% on everything else. I think the numbers change depending on your annual expenditures, but if you have monthly costs anywhere near $1000, I can't find a higher cash back deal. They also have a flash program that lets you try out a budget to see how much you'd earn and compare your Amex rebate to other popular cards.

Amex seems to have outsourced their customer service to India, but they're not incompetent. I had issues with a failed payment from a bank several months back and they waived the fees because I've been paying in full and on time since I've owned the card.

"This offer is for lenders (i.e. people who want to lend money to others). Anybody can be a lender regardless of their credit score."

Not entirely true. I was looking through their paperwork and it turns out you need a fairly significant household income ($70K for non-California residents, $100K for residents) or a six-figure net worth.

I've heard rumors that having unused credit cards may hurt your credit score, but I haven't seen any evidence suggesting this is true. Does anyone have more information about old cards with no activity?

dropped again to 2.50%