Whether you’re interested in playing the AA Loyalty Point Pursuit game or you want to pay your mortgage with a credit card, it’s helpful to have at least one highly rewarding Mastercard in your wallet. For the former, you need a Mastercard in order to earn American Airlines miles through SimplyMiles. And for the latter, you can use a Mastercard, but not an Amex or Visa, to pay your mortgage through Plastiq. So, which Mastercard should you get?
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Welcome bonus vs ongoing rewards
Cards with the best initial signup bonuses are not always the best for ongoing rewards. For example, one of the best ongoing earning cards is the fee-free Citi Double Cash, which offers 2% cash back everywhere along with the ability to convert rewards to ThankYou points which can then be transferred to loyalty partners if you also have a Citi Premier or Prestige card. But the Double Cash card has no welcome bonus. That’s why I often recommend that people sign up for a personal credit card from Citibank that has a big welcome bonus and then later product change that card to the Double Cash. That way you can get the best of both worlds.
In the following sections, we’ll look at the best Mastercard signup bonuses, followed by the most rewarding Mastercards for everyday spend. We end with a discussion about best overall options.
Best Mastercard welcome bonuses
The following display shows the ten best current signup bonuses for Mastercard credit cards. Cards are sorted by our calculated “first year value”. This is the estimated value of first year rewards minus the “cost” to meet the minimum spend requirement (assuming that the alternative would be 3% cash back, as with the Discover It Miles first year).
If you’re interested in seeing more than the top 10 offers, simply click “Next” at the bottom of the page, or use the drop down selector at the top to show more than 10 items.
| Card Offer |
|---|
![](http://cdn.nextinsure.com/imaging/opt/534df778-fadf-4350-9e01-291110eaf2a9.png?w=300" alt="Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card" />){kind=small}
Most rewarding Mastercards for everyday spend
The following display shows the ten most rewarding Mastercard credit cards for everyday spend (meaning: spend not within a bonus category). Cards are limited to those that one can sign up for today and are sorted by the estimated value of each card’s base spend.
If you’re interested in seeing more than the top 10 offers, simply click “Next” at the bottom of the page, or use the drop down selector at the top to show more than 10 items.
| Card Info Name and Earning Rate (no offer) |
|---|
Cards shown above are sorted by the value of the “Base” rebate in descending order based on our Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs), or by their fixed redemption value with cash back cards. It’s worth noting that transferable points are assigned higher Reasonable Redemption Values since they make it possible to cherry pick the best value awards. In some cases this will be unintuitive: For example, the Double Cash card is advertised as a cash back card offering 2% cash back. However, if you have a Premier or Prestige card, you can convert Double Cash rewards to ThankYou points and then transfer those points to airline or hotel programs in order to get even better value.
Note that two excellent earners are not shown above because they require Bank of America’s “elite status:” Platinum Honors Preferred Rewards for Business. To get this status, you need to have $100,000 invested in business accounts with Bank of America and/or Merrill. With that status, these cards offer great return on everyday spend:
| Card Info Name and Earning Rate (no offer) |
|---|
Recommendations
If you simply want to earn as many rewards as possible while paying your mortgage, then I’d recommend simply starting at the top of the list of best welcome bonuses and pick the first one you can qualify for (and which you’d be able to meet minimum spend). Once the card comes, you can use Plastiq to pay your mortgage with the Mastercard for a 2.85% fee in order to meet the offer’s spend requirements. Once you’ve met the minimum spend requirements for a new card, sign up for another card and use that to pay your mortgage. It doesn’t usually make sense to keep paying your mortgage on a card after you earn the initial bonus because the rewards won’t outweigh Plastiq’s fee (2.85% as I write this). Once a card’s annual fee comes due for the second year, then either downgrade it to a fee-free card or cancel it.
If you want a Mastercard for playing the AA Loyalty Point Pursuit game (since SimplyMiles only works with Mastercards), then the Citi Double Cash is your best bet. It’s a great card to have for everyday spend, it has no annual fee, and it can qualify for Citi Merchant Offers which are similar to Amex Offers and Chase Offers. As I wrote earlier in the post, though, you may be better off starting with a Citi Mastercard that offers a nice welcome bonus. The best current Citi offer is for the Premier card, but you wouldn’t want to product change that one to the Double Cash because you would then lose any ThankYou points you’ve earned. A better bet is the AAdvantage Platinum Select card. Since rewards from that card are stored with American Airlines rather than Citibank, you can product change that card to the Double Cash without risking losing rewards. As an aside, I still think that the Premier card is a great option, in general, but don’t get it with the intent to change it to the Double Cash.
Another consideration for those playing the AA Loyalty Point Pursuit game is that various deals may stack with both SimplyMiles and card-linked offers from Chase, Citi, Bank of America, etc. and so it would be great to have at least one Mastercard from each. Chase currently has great welcome offers for a number of Mastercards: the Aeroplan card, IHG Premier card, and Freedom Flex. Bank of America has decent offers (but not spectacular) for Mastercards such as: Air France KLM, Free Spirit Travel More, Sonesta, as well as a few business cards.
What card do you recommend opening and then downgrading to the double cash back Citi card?
Does the Aadvantage Platinum Select Card itself come with access to Citi Merchant Offers?
Given comments here I gather the AA card cannot access Merchant Offers https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/l80heu/citi_merchant_offers/. In light of the issues others are reporting here with product changes to Double Cash, I will likely try to product change an existing card I have and, if the change is not possible, will apply directly for a new card.
Thanks for this – I was lamenting my complete lack of MasterCards. Ended up going with the CitiBusiness AAdvantage. Easy approval and keeps me under 5/24 for now. Let the games begin. (In 7-10 business days.)
Please, no more of the silly photos of Greg mugging and musing. It just cheapens the fine work you all do.
I like the photos, lol.
Is there a way to pay your ongoing mortgage thru Plastiq at a bonused credit card earnings rate > than the Plastiq fee? Alternatively, does Plastiq have any lower promotional rates that might be competitive with a non-bonused Citi 2% card?
Great article! One thing I would challenge (for some people) is the recommendation of the Citi Double Cash for people focused on playing the AA Loyalty Points game. I assume some/most of the stuff on SimplyMiles would code as online shopping in which case, those that have BofA’s Platinum Honors can get 5.25% back with their Customized Cash Rewards card if you select online shopping as your category. (It’s listed in your Best Offers section as a Visa Signature, but they also have a Mastercard version)
Great suggestion! I forget: is there a predictable way to sign up for the MasterCard version?
Not to my knowledge. I got it in 2017, and it was Visa.
JFYI I tried to PC from Premier to Double Cash last week and was told Citi has restricted that card from product changes until Q2 2022 as they “rethink certain benefits.”
Well that’s concerning. I hope this is one of those very common situations where a rep is mistaken.
I PC’d to the Rewards+ in the meantime but have a reminder on 4/1/2022 to try and PC from that to the Double Cash. Maybe we’ll have more info by then, but if not I’ll let you know how that goes!
I tried to PC an old Expedia card to the Double Cash earlier this week as well and they didn’t let me do that either… instead forcing me to get the Custom Cash for a year, then saying I could change that to the Double Cash after a year is up on the Custom (she made it sound like that was there were no direct PC’s from Expedia to Double Cash, but you had to have an intermediary year with the Custom Cash)