Amex Blue Cash Everyday Review

Tl;dr: For non-travelers looking for a no-fee, all-around card, the Blue Cash Everyday is an excellent option. 

We love a good travel card here, as the best ones can offer hundreds of dollars in rewards for signing up (and spending a minimum amount), bonus points on upscale purchases like dining out and travel, and travel perks like hotel elite status and lounge access.  

But what if you want to keep it simple? What if you don’t fly a lot, travel internationally, or splurge at restaurants, and just want to manage a single card without dealing with points? In that case, a great cashback card like the Citi Double Cash, Citi Custom Cash, or the Amex Blue Cash Everyday might be the card for you. Today, we’re talking about the Blue Cash Everyday.

What’s so great about it?  

It earns 3% cash back on groceries, gas, and online retail, each category being capped at $6,000 in spend per year. The card earns 1% cash back on all other purchases, included on those categories after the cap is reached. 

This is a very good rate of return. If your monthly budget includes $400 in groceries, $200 in online retail spending, $150 in gas, and $500 in other expenses, the monthly cashback earned would be $27.50. For comparison, your cashback  would be $25 with the Double Cash (2% on all purchases) and $28.50 with the Custom Cash (5% on the highest category–groceries–and 1% on the rest). 

All three cards earn good returns, and the exact amount will vary depending on your particular spending habits, and the best card might vary by month. The Blue Cash ED will come out ahead if your spending is concentrated in the bonus categories. The Custom Cash is better if your spending is spread evenly with no one category having big spend, while the Custom Cash is best if you have one eligible spending category with major spend (but not more than the $500 monthly cap). 

I will quickly mention the Chase Freedom Unlimited here, a cashback card many people like. It only earns 1.5% cash back on base purchases, but also earns 3% at drugstores and restaurants and 5% through Chase Travel. It is obviously not competitive with our hypothetical non-traveler who eats at home (it would only earn about $20 cash back monthly), but might be  a good option for someone who eats out and travels a little more often. 

I do not have a Citi card yet, but I have been an Amex customer for decades and I’ve been very happy with their customer service. 

What are the drawbacks?

The obvious downside of having an Amex card is that they are not as widely accepted as their Visa and Mastercard counterparts (like the Citi cards). And, of course, if your spending does not end up concentrated in its three bonus categories, you may be missing out on rewards compared to its competitor cards.

Although the Blue Cash ED offers rental car insurance and purchase protection, it lacks higher-end protections like travel insurance, return protection, or extended warranty protection. This suite of protections is better than the Citi cards, which lack all those protections, but much worse than the Chase Freedom Unlimited, which offers the protections on the Blue Cash ED plus trip cancellation insurance and an extended warranty. 

The Blue Cash Everyday is also less flexible than its competitors, as its rewars are limited to cash back, while the cards from Citi and Chase earn in the form of points that can be redeemed for cashback or used as regular points if you also have a premium travel card from the issuer.

Is it lazy?

It can be. In this review I am assuming this is your only card, in which case there is essentially no work required. If you have multiple cards, you will need to remember to use this one primarily for gas, groceries, and online retail, while using others that have their own bonus categories (like 3% on dining out with the Freedom Unlimited) or better baseline returns (like 2% with the Double Cash).

How’s the sign-up bonus?

The card offers $200 cash back after spending $2,000 in the first six months. 

All four card mentioned in this article offer $200 cash back as an incentive, although the Citi cards require only $1,500 in spending, and the Chase card requires only $500. The Chase card currently supplements that with 5% cash back at gas and grocery stores for the first three months.

Overall, I don’t see any reason why these marginally different welcome offers should influence someone to choose one of these cards over the other, and $200 is a standard and solid offer for a cashback, no fee card. While it can’t compare to some of the more extravagant offers available with upscale travel cards, that is inevitable. 

Conclusion

The Blue Cash Everyday is a great card, and those who spend primarily on groceries, gas, and online retail might be better off with this card than its competitors. But the differences are fairly marginal, and you might want to choose the bank you’re most comfortable with. Although Amex’s slightly limited network might be frustrating on occasion, I would choose this card over the others if I could only have one card given my consistently excellent experience as an Amex customer. 

Key Card Details

Annual fee: $0

Credits/offsets:

You can receive $7 back per month in statement credits if you buy a $10+ subscription to the Disney+ bundle, and $15 in credits monthly for a Home Chef subscription (the minimum weekly cost is over $50). 

Earning rates: 
3% on gas, groceries, and online retail (up to $6,000 per category)
1% on all other purchases, and above the $6,000 limit

Protections
Rental car insurance (secondary) 
Purchase protection