I Spend $200 on Gas Each Month—Here’s Why The American Express Blue Cash Preferred Is My Favorite For Cash Back – Forbes Advisor – Technologist

The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express is a great card for my family and our spending habits.

Issued by American Express, the card has an annual fee of $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95. As a cash-back card, it earns 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per year in purchases (then 1%), 6% cash back on select U.S. streaming subscriptions, 3% cash back at U.S. gas stations and on transit (including taxis/rideshare, parking, tolls, trains, buses and more) and 1% cash back on other eligible purchases. Cash back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit or at Amazon.com checkout.

The rewards are easy to redeem—simply log in and redeem your cash as a statement credit; there’s no minimum balance requirement.

The card also comes with a few additional money-saving perks, like purchase protection¹, return protection¹ and extended warranty protection¹ and a $7 monthly credit when you spend at least $9.99 per month on an eligible auto-renewing subscription to the Disney streaming bundle (enrollment required). That $7 monthly credit comes to up to $84 per year, already covering the majority of the fee if you have the Disney Bundle.

As far as U.S. gas station purchases go, 3% cash back is solid, but it’s not the best on the market. For our $200 per month, it means we’ll earn $6 per month or $72 per year.

Other cards offer slightly better rates of rewards for gas. For example, the U.S. Bank Altitude® Connect Visa Signature® Card* earns 5 points per dollar on prepaid hotels and car rentals booked directly in the Altitude Rewards Center, 4 points per dollar on travel and at gas and EV charging stations on the first $1,000 each quarter, 2 points per dollar at grocery stores, dining and streaming services (excluding discount stores, supercenters and wholesale clubs) and 1 point per dollar on all other eligible purchases. And the Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card has no annual fee and earns 3 points per dollar at restaurants, travel, gas stations, transit, popular streaming services and phone plans, 1 point per dollar on other purchases. Business gas cards, like the American Express® Business Gold Card (Terms apply, see rates & fees), can also offer more than 3% cash back.

Though the rewards rate for gas purchases isn’t the highest available, the reason that my family loves the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express is that its categories support a number of our biggest spending categories.

Because we live in a city with great transit, we prefer to use the bus or subway when possible, especially when we’re trying to get downtown. The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express supports that with a cash-back rate just as good as what we earn on U.S. gas station purchases.

It also offers one of the best reward rates on U.S supermarket purchases of any card on the market. We cook and eat most of our meals at home, so that’s a huge boon for my family.

According to the most recent BLS Consumer Expenditures survey, the average household spent about $5,700 on food at home in 2022, and our family is on pace to hit that level of spending this year. Assuming all of that food is purchased at a U.S supermarket, that’s $342 in cash back that we can earn.

Add that to the money we earn at U.S. gas stations and we’re getting more than $400 in cash back from using our Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express. The additional rewards from U.S. streaming subscriptions and transit just add to the haul.