Clark Howard

A week at the beach for twelve people. Flights for three generations. A cruise where you rent a block of cabins and take over the pool deck. These trips run into the thousands or tens of thousands, and plenty of families can’t make the math work. The ability to fund a big family vacation is a privilege, and for many people, it stays out of reach no matter how carefully they save.

For the families who can afford it, the question changes. It’s no longer “Can we?” Instead, it’s”Should we?” Is a trip like this money well spent, or a splurge you feel in your gut once the statement lands?

Experiences Beat Stuff

Decades of research on spending and happiness point in the same direction. The money you spend on things tends to give you a quick lift that wears off. You get used to the new car, the bigger TV, the kitchen remodel, and before long, it’s just the backdrop of your life. The money you spend on experiences works differently. You look forward to the trip, you live it, and then you carry it around as a memory you replay for years.

Family trips are the strongest version of that. You’re not paying for a hotel room. You’re paying for the week your kids talk about at Thanksgiving twenty years later, the photo that ends up framed in the hallway, the inside joke nobody outside the family understands.

What a Happiness Expert Sees

Fiduciary financial advisor Wes Moss has spent years studying what actually makes retirees happy, and the same answer keeps surfacing.

“When I talk to happy retirees about the best money they’ve ever spent, big family trips come up again and again,” Moss says.

He can list the trips his clients bring up without thinking twice.

“Whether it’s an annual beach week in 30A chasing redfish, a golf trip with grandpa, dad, and the boys, a European adventure to Prague, London, and Spain with a 16-year-old granddaughter, Disney with the whole crew, or summer escapes to Michigan or Canada, those trips become the stories everyone tells for decades.”

Some of it is expensive, like Europe or Disney for a crowd. Some of it is a rental cabin and a fishing rod. The price tag isn’t what makes the memory. The people are.

The One Condition

Wes doesn’t hand out a blank check. His endorsement comes with a string attached.

“As long as your overall retirement plan has room for it, I think of these family vacations as money that’s not just well spent, but most well spent.”

A trip that fits inside a plan you’ve already built is one thing. A trip you finance on a credit card at 20-plus percent interest, or one that dips into money you’ll need for the mortgage or a medical bill, is something else.

So, the trip should be a line item you can cover from savings or cash flow without derailing your retirement or your emergency fund. If that’s true for you, the spending stops being a splurge and becomes one of the better uses of your money.

Ways To Do It Without Breaking the Bank

If you are considering a big family trip, here are some ideas to keep the costs down.

Travel off-peak when you can. The same beach house often costs far less the week after the crowds leave.

Use the points and miles you’ve been sitting on. A family trip is exactly what that stash is for.

Rent one big house instead of a row of hotel rooms. For a group, it’s often cheaper and everyone’s under one roof.

Lock in the big costs early. Flights and lodging for a large group get more expensive and harder to coordinate the longer you wait.

Final Thoughts

Big family trips are worth it when they fit comfortably within your finances — and when the return isn’t measured in dollars, but in the time you get with the people who matter most.
The post Is Paying for a Big Family Trip Worth It? appeared first on Clark Howard.

There’s an urgent warning from the federal government that every single person using payment apps needs to hear. If you store money inside a payment app, you need to know right now that there is no FDIC insurance protecting that cash.

Regular listeners and readers know I’ve been sounding the alarm about peer-to-peer payment apps for years, usually focusing on rampant fraud, theft, and a lack of consumer protections. But this is a completely different kind of danger.

The Hidden Danger of Peer-to-Peer Apps

If you use Cash App, Venmo, or PayPal, your money is at serious risk if one of those companies ever gets into financial trouble.

Lately, a lot of people have started using these apps not just to instantly pay a friend back for dinner, but as a place to actually store their money. People are leaving hundreds or even thousands of dollars just sitting in their app balances.

When you do that, your money is completely vulnerable.

Now, let me be very clear: Do I know anything about any of these specific apps being in financial trouble right now? No, absolutely not. But the point the federal government is making is that your money is completely exposed if an unknown problem arises and any of these app owners go insolvent. If they go under, your money could evaporate, and you have no safety net to get it back.

This is money you have worked incredibly hard to save. It’s not money you are specifically trying to risk in the stock market or invest; it’s your hard-earned, idle cash that you just want to keep safe. You can’t afford to take a risk that causes that money to disappear overnight.

Rule for Using Payment Apps Safely

If you want to keep a very small amount of “convenience money” sitting in one of these apps — an amount where, if you lost it tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the end of the world — that is fine.

But if you are storing significant amounts of money inside Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App, that is a habit I want you to break immediately.

My recommendation: Use the apps for quick, real-time transfers if you must, but never let your cash sit there. Sweep your balances back into your FDIC-insured bank account or NCUA-insured credit union immediately. Don’t let your hard-earned money become collateral damage if an app goes bust.
The post Why You Shouldn’t Leave Cash in Payment Apps appeared first on Clark Howard.

When it comes to college costs, we have entered the bad and the ugly. The cost of borrowing money for college used to be relatively friendly. Not anymore.

Recent changes to the federal student loan program have become incredibly tough on families. Interest rates on federal student loans are hovering above 6.5%. That is a massive carry cost for families. If you qualify for subsidized loans, you don’t have to worry about that interest building up until your child completes their studies. However, the vast majority of borrowing today is in unsubsidized federal loans, meaning interest starts accruing on day one.

It is a double whammy, very similar to what we are seeing in the housing market: Tuition costs have been going steadily upward for years, and now student loan rates are up, too.

The One Silver Lining in Higher Education

But there is some good news. It might sound counterintuitive, but I have been really happy that the federal government has capped the amount that parents and students can borrow through federal student loans and Parent PLUS loans.

It used to be that there was practically unlimited money available to borrow. Because of that open spigot of cash, schools would manipulate parents and students into just signing, signing, and signing for loans.

Now that the borrowing limits are capped, colleges can no longer pull that leverage. This cap is forcing a necessary change in higher education. For more than a generation, colleges have been raising tuition at three times the rate of inflation in the general economy. Those days are officially over.

The Danger of Parental Guilt

Even with those caps in place, you can still get into a lot of financial trouble if you have your heart set on sending your child to a school that costs a zillion dollars. If you don’t have the resources to pay for it, but you desperately want your kid to be able to go to their “dream school,” you are making a dangerous mistake.

By borrowing to the absolute max — and perhaps even dipping your toes or jumping fully into private student loans that carry volatile variable rates — you are creating a terrible financial hangover for your son or daughter later in life. Or, even worse, you, as a parent, end up sacrificing your own financial future to foot the bill.

Let me be blunt: Parental guilt can be a self-destructive motivator. There are so many college options available at so many different tuition levels. Yet, I see it all the time: Parents stop contributing to their own retirement accounts just so their kid can go to an “It” school.

Then, way down the road, when the parents are in retirement and don’t have enough money to live on, those exact same adult children look at them and say, “Gosh, Mom and Dad, you really should have done a better job saving for retirement.” They develop amnesia about the massive financial sacrifice that got them their degree in the first place.

It’s Okay to Say No

I am getting down to brass tacks here because of the heavy emotions involved in these decisions. But as a parent, you need to hear this: It is completely okay for you to look at your teenager and say, “We can’t afford that college. Period.”

If you want to find a compromise, here is the golden strategy: Have your child spend their freshman and sophomore years at a far more affordable institution, like a local community college.

The competition to get in as a junior transfer is generally much lower than it is for freshman applicants anyway. Furthermore, freshman year at expensive universities is often a factory experience. Your child will likely be sitting in massive, 100-level lecture halls just trying to knock out their basic prerequisites.

Why pay a premium for that? Take those identical prerequisite classes at a much more affordable place, and then let them go away to their dream school for their junior and senior years.

Here is a secret from the real world: Nobody cares where you attended; they only care where your diploma is from. And truthfully, once you have been out of school for a few years, nobody even asks where you went to college anymore — unless your alumni team happens to be winning a sporting event.

Final Thoughts

Every family has to make this decision on their own. I am getting into value judgments here, and it is not for me to decide what is right for your household. But I want to shift the conversation to a healthier place.

Be honest: Have open, transparent conversations with your teenager about what is financially realistic.

Watch the debt limits: Be incredibly careful about how much debt you are signing up for. If paying for a specific school requires you to go beyond the new federal borrowing limits and tap the private loan pool, it is time to pivot and pick a different school.

Start early with a 529 plan: If your children are still young and you can afford it, start funding a 529 college savings plan. The money grows tax-free and is spent tax-free for qualified education expenses.

The ultimate 529 backup plan: If your kid gets scholarships, decides not to go to college, or doesn’t use all the money, you can now roll up to $35,000 of lifetime 529 savings into a Roth IRA for them. That gives your child an incredible, tax-free head start on their retirement savings before they even hit their twenties.

Be honest with yourself, be honest with your kids, and don’t let a “dream school” turn into a financial nightmare.
The post Clark Howard: Avoid This Costly College Debt Mistake appeared first on Clark Howard.

Is “subscription creep” sneaking into your life?

More and more Americans are falling victim to the modern financial pitfall thanks to a combination of the requirement to “subscribe” to so many everyday services and the ease with which these services let you “set it and forget it” with automatic payments.

This is particularly easy to do with “small fee” services like video streaming services. A $10-15 per month commitment feels small at first, but it becomes a potential problem when you’ve committed to five or six different services at that price without really thinking about it.

Money expert Clark Howard has long warned against becoming complacent with these recurring fees.

He suggests reviewing the monthly statements on each of your credit cards EVERY month. This protects you against charges you may not have authorized, but it also helps you identify things you may be paying for that you don’t really need.

But it doesn’t have to stop there. A Clark listener recently reached out and shared a credit card tip to further help with “subscription creep,” which grabbed Clark’s attention. Let’s take a look.

Podcast Listener Delivers Subscription Advice That Clark ‘Loves’

Clark’s advice on monitoring your credit card statements for unauthorized, unnecessary or unwanted spending items should help people identify “subscription creep” in their lives, but a podcast listener took things to the next level with an idea that will make it crystal clear how much you’re spending on recurring subscriptions each month.

Susan in Georgia Writes:

“Another way to track subscriptions you haven’t mentioned: Put them ALL on the same credit card, preferably not your everyday card.  You’ll have a complete list of them on every monthly statement.”

Clark Responds:

“Susan, I love this. I love this so much! It helps with what I’ve talked about with the subscription creep on all the different things, and trying to figure out what you’ve got that you don’t really need.”

Clark went on to tell a story about how he recently found that live TV streaming service Fubo charged $109 for a monthly subscription to one of the cards his family has designated as an emergency card for his son at college. It reiterates the importance of monitoring your monthly credit card statement for transactions you may not have approved. Had he not caught it immediately, that would’ve been a recurring monthly charge on that card indefinitely.

You can hear his full discussion on this topic during the July 8, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Podcast.

Which Credit Card Should You Use To Put This Strategy Into Practice?

If you’re going to follow Susan’s tip to put all of your recurring subscription charges on an isolated credit card, you may be wondering which rewards credit card makes the most sense to keep in your wallet for this purpose.

First, I want to make sure you’re following Clark’s advice of having an “everyday spender” that gives you unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases with no categorical restrictions. This one will be the ideal card for swiping on one-time purchases.

But if you have that squared away, finding a credit card that will give you great rewards for subscriptions makes sense as the standalone spender for that category.

As Susan proposes, you could limit your transactions with this card to subscriptions so that you can have a real-time list of all the commitments you’ve made. That’s a GREAT way to keep “subscription creep” in check!

Though not every monthly subscription will have a rewards card that gives you more than 2% back for it, there are some that focus on streaming subscriptions for TV and music. Some even offer to cover the cost of selection subscriptions for you.

Here are two of my favorite suggestions for cards that may best reward subscription-based spending:

Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

card_name

Annual Fee:

$0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95. (See Rates & Fees)

Rewards Program Details:

Earn 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per year in eligible purchases (then 1%), 6% cash back on select U.S. streaming subscriptions, 3% cash back at eligible U.S. gas stations and on transit (including taxis/rideshare, parking, tolls, trains, buses and more) purchases and 1% cash back on other purchases. Cash Back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit and at Amazon.com checkout.

Terms apply.

Wells Fargo Autograph® Card

Learn More →

Annual Fee:

$0.00

Rewards Program Details:

Earn unlimited 3X points on the following:
Restaurants: dining in, take-out, catering, and delivery
Travel: airfare, hotels, car rentals, and cruises
Gas: gas stations and electric vehicle charging stations
Transit: subways, ride shares, parking, tolls and more
Popular Streaming Services
Phone Plans: cell phone and landline providers
Plus, earn 1X points on other purchases.

Do you have a credit card you use for subscriptions? Another idea that could help emphasize Clark’s strategy for subscription creep? We’d love to hear about it in the Clark.com community.

Not all available financial products and offers from all financial institutions have been reviewed by this website.

To see the rates and fees for the American Express cards featured, please visit the following links: Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express: See Rates and Fees.

All information about the Wells Fargo Autograph® Card has been collected independently by Clark Howard, Inc. and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service.

The post This Credit Card Tip Could Save You Big Money on Subscriptions appeared first on Clark Howard.

This week, T-Mobile customers on older cell phone plans began receiving alerts that they would soon be migrated to a new plan. T-Mobile has confirmed that older legacy plans are being retired, and affected customers may see a price increase on their next bill.

In this article, I’ll share how to know if your plan has been retired, what to expect with your new plan and how to prevent higher monthly prices on your cell phone bill.

T-Mobile Legacy Phone Plans

On June 29, T-Mobile sent out alerts to customers on its legacy plans that their plans were being retired. Instead of an optional upgrade, T-Mobile is automatically migrating these customers to new plans.

While T-Mobile isn’t sharing a list of the specific plans that will be retired, here’s what we do know about the changes taking place at T-Mobile: 

Many of T-Mobile’s older plans are being fully retired, with no option to keep them.

Once the plan is retired, customers will be transitioned to modern plans and will keep their current benefits.

Expect updated plan details and a possible price increase if you are impacted.

Affected customers will have been notified by the end of the day on June 29.

If you aren’t happy with the price of the plan you’ve been transitioned to, you can call T-Mobile’s customer care to explore other available plans. You can also avoid the price increase altogether by switching to a different service provider.

What To Expect if Your Plan Is Retired

Based on reports from customers who have received notifications, the expected price increase is ~$6/month per line. While the price difference will vary based on your plan and number of lines, this means a family of four could face a $288/year price increase.

Unfortunately, legacy phone plans may not be the only T-Mobile service subject to upcoming price hikes. Additional reports warn that watch and tablet lines will also increase by $3/line, and customers with 5G Home Internet can expect a $6 price increase.

If you do receive an alert from T-Mobile that your cell phone plan is changing, you have three options: 

Take no further action. Affected customers won’t need to take any action to complete the migration. You’ll be moved to a new plan automatically, and you’ll see the changes reflected on your next monthly bill.

Choose a different plan. Contact T-Mobile’s customer care team to discuss available plans. Migrating customers may have access to discounted versions of current T-Mobile plans with taxes and fees included, plus a five-year price guarantee.

Switch to a cheaper service provider. If you want to avoid the increased pricing altogether, you can shop for an affordable plan that provides access to the same network. With options beginning as low as $10/month, you may even find a deal better than your T-Mobile legacy plan. We’ll explore this option further in the next section.

Avoid the Price Increase: Cheap Access to T-Mobile’s Network

Staying loyal to your cell phone service provider is common for many customers with one of The Big Three. However, when your loyalty isn’t rewarded, it’s a good opportunity to see what else is available. 

If you’d prefer to stick with one of The Big Three, both AT&T and Verizon recently launched new, affordable plans that allow you to save money while keeping a familiar provider. AT&T’s Build-A-Plan begins at $15/month for one line, and unlimited data is available for as low as $35/month. Alternatively, Verizon Simplicity includes unlimited high-speed data for as low as $30/month for new customers.

If T-Mobile has the strongest service in your area, you can also access the same network for a fraction of the price by switching to an MVNO. These providers partner with T-Mobile for service, which means you’ll be able to keep the same coverage you’re used to:

Tello Mobile (Team Clark’s Review): Plans begin at $5/month. You can get unlimited talk, text and 2GB of high-speed data for $10/month. Additional options include 10GB for $15/month, 20GB for $20/month and unlimited data (50GB high-speed) for $25/month. 

US Mobile (Team Clark’s Review): US Mobile’s “Light Speed” network utilizes T-Mobile’s service towers. With US Mobile, plans begin as low as $10/month for 2GB of high-speed data ($8/month when prepaid annually). Unlimited plans begin at $25/month. New customers can get the same plan for $16.60/month for the first year when prepaid annually.

Mint Mobile (Team Clark’s Review): New customers can get 6GB of high-speed data for $15/month, 17GB for $20/month, 23GB for $25/month or unlimited for $30/month when prepaying three months in advance. After three months, prepay annually to keep the same monthly rate.

For more options, check out our full list of the best T-Mobile MVNOs.

Final Thoughts

Price increases from The Big Three are no longer uncommon, especially on legacy plans. However, you don’t have to accept the higher monthly bill. Switching to a different service provider may seem intimidating, but it’s actually an easy way to save money every month. 

If you’re thinking about leaving T-Mobile to avoid the upcoming price hikes, check out our full list of the best cell phone plans and providers to get started. When you switch, you’ll likely be eligible for new-customer deals and discounts. You can see a full list of the best current cell phone plan deals here.

You can also directly compare plans that will meet your needs using our free Phone Plan Finder.

Once you’ve decided on a new provider, follow these steps to switch. 

Is your T-Mobile plan being retired? Tell us about your experience in our Clark.com Community.
The post T-Mobile Retires Legacy Plans: Expect a Price Increase appeared first on Clark Howard.

Does it feel like the cash back credit card market is changing in 2026?

There are definitely changes to the credit card menus from major banks this summer.

Wells Fargo, Citi and U.S. Bank have recently stopped taking applications for select cash back credit cards that pay 4-5% back on popular spending categories.

Is this the signal of the beginning of the end for credit cards that offer that type of categorical cash back? Or simply a part of the business cycle for rewards cards?

In this article, we’ll look at which cards are affected, discuss why this may be happening, and go over alternative cards that can still help you maximize cash back on your spending.

These 3 Cash Back Cards Are No Longer Taking Applications

As of June 2026, these three credit cards are still active for existing cardholders but are no longer taking new applications:

Citi Custom Cash® Card

Annual Fee:

$0 (See Rates & Fees)

Rewards Program Details:

Earn 5% cash back on your top eligible spend category each billing cycle up to $500 spent.
Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases.
Special Travel Offer: Earn an additional 4% cash back on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on Citi TravelSM portal through 6/30/2026.

Applications closed in May 2026. Existing cardholders are not impacted.

U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card

Annual Fee:

$95.00

Rewards Program Details:

6% cash back: On your first $1,500 in combined eligible purchases each quarter with two retailers you choose.
5.5% cash back: On prepaid hotel and car reservations booked directly in U.S. Bank’s Rewards Travel Center.
3% cash back: On your first $1,500 in eligible purchases on your choice of one everyday category.
1.5% cash back: On all other eligible purchases.

Applications closed in June 2026. Existing cardholders are not impacted.

Wells Fargo Attune World Elite Mastercard

Annual Fee:

$0

Rewards Program Details:

Earn 4% cash rewards (1% base plus 3% bonus) at retailers whose merchant category codes include:
Select Sports, Recreation, and Entertainment: gardening and floral stores, campgrounds, sports supplies, movie theaters, live shows and sporting events, amusement parks, tourist attractions, and pet supplies, boarding, and grooming
Self-care: gym memberships, massages, hair and nail salons
Planet-Friendly purchases: public transportation, electric vehicle charging stations and secondhand stores
Other purchases: 1% cash rewards.

Applications closed in June 2026. Existing cardholders are not impacted.

Why Are Banks Closing These Cash Back Credit Cards?

While each of these banks has acknowledged halting applications on these cards with corporate buzz phrases like “managing evolving credit card product portfolios,” you may be wondering if there is more at play here.

I have a few ideas on what may be driving these decisions:

These cards may not have been very profitable. Credit card rewards typically are “bait” to get you to run up high-interest debt. But if enough customers are paying the bill in full each month and claiming the high-percent rewards, the math on these cards may not be as pretty as the issuers want it to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Citi’s issue with the Custom Cash. The 5% on a category of your choice each month was an easy one to manipulate in your favor by using it as a “gas only” option or “dining only” card.

Issuers want to funnel customers to more profitable cards. Cards marketed on TV that offer fewer rewards are often the profit drivers. They may also have annual fee-driven cards, which are very profitable, being negatively impacted by offering solid rewards on no and low annual fee cards.

These concepts may simply not be popular with customers. I think the Wells Fargo Attune card may be an example of this. While it can be really nice for the right customer, the general public may not see “recreation” and “self-care” as the most useful bonus categories.

We may see some similar cards still on the market retired in the coming months, but I think most no annual fee cash back cards are likely to remain functional with their existing rewards programs.

How Does This Impact Credit Card Strategy?

Team Clark has long been a proponent of taking advantage of cash back opportunities available with no annual fee credit cards (when paying the bill in full each month before any interest is due).

We recommend starting with an everyday credit card that awards unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases. That way, you can assure yourself of what amounts to a 2% discount on all of your purchases.

That advice remains unchanged in the face of these card closures.

Those of you who are willing to commit a bit more time and resources to shuffling cash back cards in your wallet can STILL supplement that 2% everyday card with cards that will reward certain types of purchases with even more cash back.

You can earn upwards of 5% cash back in select spending categories by swiping the right card for the right purchase. And while the cards above that did so may be inaccessible for new applicants, there are still plenty on the market to leverage.

Let’s take a look at some of our favorites that are still standing.

Remaining Cards That Still Offer 5% Cash Back

While the trend may be moving away from offering high-end cash back opportunities on low or no annual fee credit cards, there are still some cards accepting new applicants that offer a good rate of return.

Let’s walk through a few of them in three distinct categories.

Category-Specific Cards

For people looking for a credit card that awards 5% or more cash back on purchases in popular categories like gas or groceries, there are still a few options on the market.

Those include:

card_name →

Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

Annual Fee: $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95. (See Rates & Fees)

Rewards Program: Earn 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per year in eligible purchases (then 1%), 6% cash back on select U.S. streaming subscriptions, 3% cash back at eligible U.S. gas stations and on transit (including taxis/rideshare, parking, tolls, trains, buses and more) purchases and 1% cash back on other purchases. Cash Back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit and at Amazon.com checkout.

Terms apply.

Learn More →

Sam’s Club® Mastercard®

Annual Fee: $0.00

Rewards Program:

5% back in Sam’s Cash on gas anywhere Mastercard is accepted (on first $6,000 per year, then 1%)
3% back in Sam’s Cash on Sam’s Club purchases for Plus members. (Club members earn 1% cash back)
3% back in Sam’s Cash on dining and takeout
1% back in Sam’s Cash on other purchases

Learn More →

Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi

Annual Fee: $0 (See Rates & Fees)

Rewards Program:
Earn 5% cash back rewards on gas at Costco and earn 4% cash back on other eligible gas and electric vehicle (EV) charging purchases for the first $7,000 combined spend per year, and then 1% thereafter.
3% cash back on restaurants and eligible travel purchases and eligible travel, including Costco Travel.
2% cash back on all other purchases from Costco and Costco.com
1% cash back on all other purchases

Retailer-Specific Cards

If you are a brand-loyal shopper, you may find that your favorite retailer has a co-branded credit card that offers a good cash back rate.

In particular, major retailers Amazon, Walmart and Target each have a no-annual-fee card that offers members of their subscription products a chance to earn 5% cash back.

Team Clark recommends considering one of these as a supplemental card to your everyday 2% cash back card.

Learn More →

Prime Visa

Annual Fee: $0.00

Rewards Program:
Earn unlimited 5% back at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market and on Chase Travel purchases with an eligible Prime membership
Prime Card Bonus: Earn 10% back or more on a rotating selection of products and categories at Amazon.com
Earn unlimited 2% back at restaurants, gas stations and on local transit and commuting, including rideshare.
Earn unlimited 1% back on all other purchases.

Learn More →

Walmart OnePay CashRewards Card

Annual Fee: $0

Rewards Program:
Walmart+ members earn unlimited 5% cash back on all Walmart purchases (in-store and online).
Non-members earn 3% cash back on all Walmart purchases (in-store and online).
All cardholders earn 1.5% cash back on non-Walmart purchases.

Learn More →

Target Circle Card

Annual Fee: $0

Rewards Program: 5% off every day at Target, in store and online. Free 2-day shipping on hundreds of thousands of items at Target.com. Save $50 on a Target Circle 360 subscription each year.

Rotating Category Cards

If you’re willing to play the “rotating rewards” game, you can assure yourself 3-4 different spending categories in which you can earn a capped 5% cash back for a three-month period.

This is probably only for the most dedicated rewards chasers, because it requires consistent (and maybe even constant) monitoring to ensure you’re swiping the right card at the right time.

Learn More →

Discover it® Cash Back

Annual Fee: $0.00

Rewards Program:
5% Cash Back: Earn 5% cash back on everyday purchases at different places each quarter like Amazon.com, grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations, up to the quarterly maximum when you activate. The eligible purchase categories rotate every three months.

1% Cash Back: Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases – automatically.

Learn More →

Chase Freedom Flex®

Annual Fee: $0.00

Rewards Program: Earn 5% cash back on different categories like gas stations, grocery stores (excluding Target® and Walmart®) and select online merchants on up to $1,500 in total combined purchases each quarter you activate.
Earn 5% on travel purchased through Chase TravelSM.
Earn 3% on dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery services.
Earn 3% on drugstore purchases.
Earn 1% on all other purchases.

Learn More →

U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa Signature® Card

Annual Fee: $0.00

Rewards Program: You earn 5% cash back on your first $2,000 in eligible net purchases each quarter on the combined two categories you choose.
You earn 2% cash back on your choice of one everyday category, and 1% cash back on all other eligible net purchases.

Do you have a cash back card that has stopped taking new applications? Will you be hanging on to it? We’d love to hear about it in the Clark.com community.

Not all available financial products and offers from all financial institutions have been reviewed by this website.

To see the rates and fees for the American Express cards featured, please visit the following links: Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express: See Rates and Fees.

All information about the Citi Custom Cash® Card, U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card, Wells Fargo Attune World Elite Mastercard, Sam’s Club® Mastercard®, Prime Visa, Walmart OnePay CashRewards Card and Target Circle Card, Discover it® Cash Back, Chase Freedom Flex® and U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa Signature® Card has been collected independently by Clark Howard, Inc. and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service. Prime Visa and Chase Freedom Flex® are no longer available through CardRatings.

The post 3 Major Banks Stop Issuing These Cash Back Credit Cards appeared first on Clark Howard.