Best New Credit Card Of 2017 Goes To….

December 29, 2017
45 Comments
by William Charles

I thought it might be fun to hand out some awards for different things. The first award we’re giving out is for the best new credit card of 2017. The only requirements was that the card had to be released in 2017 and it has to be a credit card.

The Short List

This was fairly easy to put together as we already maintain a list of new credit cards with dates. The cards we’ve covered on this site that were released in 2017 are as follows (in order of newest to oldest)

The Finalists

Of those I narrowed it down to the following cards:

Quick note: I should have included the Blue Business Plus from American Express but I forgot.

The Medalists

Bronze – Barclaycard Uber

The sign up bonus of $100 is relatively weak, but 4% cash back on eateries is as good as it gets. One of the nice things about restaurant spend is for a lot of business people it’s a reimbursable expense and it can be easy to spend a lot monthly on this category. Obviously if you don’t spend much on eating out then a card that with a small sign up bonus like this is fairly useless. If Barclaycard adds airline partners as rumored, this card would be even stronger but I didn’t take that into consideration yet.

Silver – Alliant Cashback Visa

3% cash back on all purchases in the first year is the same value proposition as the Discover it Miles. The upside to this card is the fact you can earn 2.5% cash back on all purchases year two onwards. This makes it one of, if not the best card for every day spend. The lack of any sign up bonus does hurt it though and this card certainly isn’t for everybody.

Gold – U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve

This card is just insane value in the first year, you get a bonus worth $750 and then you also get another $325 in travel credits. It does have an annual fee of $400, but I’ll pay that when I’m getting $750 + $325 back and other benefits. I had even higher hopes for this card with the 3x mobile wallet category but saying they have been strict with this is an understatement. For me this is one of those cards that is a no brainer to apply for for the first year bonuses and then it’s equally a no brainer to cancel the card after the first year as the long term value proposition isn’t there.

Final Thoughts

I think that the Bank of America card was unlucky to have missed out on a medal and I could easily see some people replacing the Uber/Alliant card with the Premium Rewards. My reasoning behind not having it medal was the fact that it actually replaced the Merrill+ card and I think that was actually better value with the sign up bonus being worth up to $1,000. I’d love to hear readers feedback and thoughts on this list, feel free to share your top 3/5 in the comments below and also why you agree or disagree with my list. I’d also love feedback on what people think of these awards and what other categories you’d like to see. Here’s hoping to an even better selection for 2018!

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