Review: Blue Cash Everyday Card From American Express

This post comes from Jason Bushey, who reviews credit cards daily on Creditnet.com.

American Express knows what consumers spend a good chunk of their paychecks on each month: gas and groceries. The Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express is one such card that rewards members with bonus cash back for those common purchases.

This card is sort of like the cousin (or heck, maybe even the little brother) of AmEx’s popular Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express, the big differences between the two being the amount of bonus cash back offered and the fact that there’s no annual fee to carry this card.

Here are the advantages – and the disadvantages – of this cash-back card for excellent-credit consumers:

Advantages

• Bonus cash back on gas, groceries and select U.S. department stores. Cardholders earn 3 percent cash back at U.S. supermarkets (up to $6,000 per year in purchases). Even though this is half the bonus cash back offered by the Blue Cash Preferred option, that’s still a great deal for members.
• No annual fee. Who says every American Express card charges an annual fee? This is the key advantage of the Blue Cash Everyday offer compared with the Preferred card, which requires a $75 annual fee.
• 12-month 0 percent introductory APR for purchases. This is the same solid introductory period offered by the Blue Cash Preferred Card.
• 100 reward dollars. Spend $1,000 within the first three months of card membership and American Express will reward you with 100 reward dollars.

Disadvantages

• Fewer bonus reward dollars offered. Just about any bonus cash is good in our book. That said, for consumers comparing the Everyday offer with the Preferred offer, it’s worth noting that this offer is 50 fewer reward dollars than that with the Preferred card, despite the fact that you’re required to spend the same amount on purchases over the same period of time. This almost cancels out the $75 annual fee required by the Blue Cash Preferred Card (for the first year, anyway).
• 0 percent offer doesn’t include balance transfers. If you’re hoping to transfer an existing balance to a new card with a 0 interest offer applied to balance transfers, this is not the card for you.
• Bonus cash back on supermarket purchases capped at $6,000. Finally, like the Blue Cash Preferred Card, the amount of bonus cash back you can earn at U.S. supermarkets is capped at $6,000 per year. If you’re scoring at home, that’s a maximum of $180 in bonus cash back earned at supermarkets. Nothing to scoff at by any means, but that’s of course half of what you could earn with the Blue Cash Preferred Card.

Bottom line

• Get it if: Your credit is excellent and you hate paying annual fees.
• Forget it if: You’re hoping to make a 0 percent balance transfer, or you value long-term cash back opportunities over paying an annual fee.

This content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuer. This site may be compensated through the credit card issuer Affiliate Program. Also note that any terms, rates or other features described in this article can change without notice. Always double-check everything with the issuer before applying for any credit card.