The best way to deal with credit cards is to recognize the rules of the game and outplay everyone else. Specifically, use cards to pay only for things you'd buy anyway, that you could pay cash for, pay off in full when the statement comes, and collect the nice 2% cash reward. If you spend say $24,000 a year on stuff you can charge, and put that on a rewards card that gives you 2%, you'd get $480 rewards for doing nothing more than your already do. And that's without counting the fact that you get free short term financing.