Everyone knows you can earn some solid cash back on groceries if you use the Blue cash cards from American Express.
But those max out at 3% or 6% cash back (for the preferred version), and they come with caps on how much you can earn.
Both versions only offer cash back on up to $6,000 in grocery purchases per calendar year.
An alternative is the original Blue Cash card, which doesn’t have any limits on the 5% cash back you can earn at grocery stores.
Still, 3-6% cash back pales in comparison to the 35%+ you can earn with the new SavingStar American Express Card issued by First Bankcard.
35% Cash Back on Groceries? No Way!
Way! You can actually earn 35% cash back on your groceries relatively effortlessly with this new credit card.
First, you need to sign up for SavingStar, which is a website and an app that allows you to sign up for money-saving coupons on groceries.
They also have an online mall that you can click through to earn certain levels of cash back, similar to ShopDiscover or Upromise.
With regard to the grocery portion, once you add a coupon, you simply need to go to any of the participating grocery stores (there are many) and buy the product.
Then you’ll earn the cash back. For example, if you buy $25 worth of Bayer products you can earn $5 cash back.
If you happen to have the SavingStar American Express® Card, you’ll also earn 10% cash back on the purchase amount.
So in the Bayer example, you’d be looking at $5 plus $2.50 for a total of $7.50 in cash back, or 30%.
During the first three months of opening the SavingStar Amex, you’ll actually earn 20% cash back on eligible grocery purchases. So you’d be looking at $5 plus $5 for a total of $10, or 40% cash back.
That’s right, if you want/need those Bayer products, you’d get 40% cash back. Not too bad, eh?
And the list of grocery stores is extensive as mentioned, with drugstores like CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and even Walmart included.
In other words, you don’t have to overpay for your groceries in order to get the awesome cash back afforded via this credit card or SavingStar itself.
Lastly, many of the offers allow you to meet the purchase requirement over multiple trips as long as it’s done before the coupon expires.
The Drawbacks of SavingStar
While this all sounds amazing, the major drawback is that there aren’t all that many coupons offered via SavingStar.
Aside from that Bayer one, which is pretty flexible, there isn’t much else that’s appealing. For example, they’re currently offering cash back on mustard, beans, apples, hot sauce, bagel bites, and some other random stuff.
Sure, it might totally appeal to you, but if it doesn’t, you won’t get that much value out of the SavingStar credit card itself. It could make sense to just use the SavingStar service alone.
However, there isn’t any annual fee to worry about with the card and you earn 1% cash back on all purchases, along with 5% cash back via the online shopping portal.
That is stackable with whatever each store offers, so you can easily earn 10-20% at a lot of popular stores like Macy’s or Staples.
In that sense, it reminds me of Upromise credit card, but with the added value of the grocery savings. So all in all, this could be quite lucrative, though not necessarily an everyday credit card.
Just a good card to have on hand when doing online shopping or to take advantage of the massive grocery store discounts.
I‘m curious if it’s possible to load a grocery coupon with SavingStar, then make the purchases at an eligible grocery store via the SavingStar online mall with the SavingStar Amex to earn triple cash back? That’d be huge.