5 Months Use Review AAA Daily Advantage Visa

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Oddball cards and less known or less popular cards I wait 4 to 6 months real world use before giving a detailed review.

Below the review is a comparison with warehouse club cards and those card advantages and disadvantage and how I would pair them.

This is a long one!

AAA Daily Advantage Visa Is issued by Comenity, it’s 5% groceries and 3% warehouse clubs and 3% gas with a $10k total spend cap. There is also the AAA Travel Advantage Visa which is 5% on gas and EV charging and 3,% dining with a $7k total spend cap. I use the AAA Daily Advantage.

The Good

  • You don’t have to be a AAA member!!!

  • A generous CL (started $8k CL).

  • Transactions lists by category and how much cash back earned each transaction.

Example would be a $10 Kroger purchase and it will show $0.50 cash back for that transaction and show Kroger as grocery.

  • No category restrictions at warehouse clubs (see below).

  • It’s Visa so works at Costco.

  • Small welcome bonus ($100 on a $1,000 spend Fall 2022).

  • $10k total spend is higher than most 5% cash back grocery cards.

  • No having to go in club to redeem rewards.

  • Rewards are available immediately, no having to wait until the end of the year for a certificate.

  • No minimum to cash out.

The Bad

  • Can’t have both the AAA Daily Advantage and AAA Travel Advantage, It’s one or the other.

  • $10k total spend might not be enough if you shop a lot at warehouse clubs and grocery stores only on this card.

  • AAA TRAVEL ADVANTAGE ONLY warehouse club and Walmart supercenter (Murphy USA) gas is excluded for 5%.

  • AAA Daily Advantage, gas is 3% cash back.

  • Comenity does not have a unified user login for all accounts, must use individual logins for each Comenity card.

  • Comenity is not consistent with credit bureau reporting, they may not report for a few months and then they’ll report for a few months in a row and then they don’t again so it’s very inconsistent.

  • Walmart And Target are excluded for 5% cash back, even Walmart Neighborhood Markets!! Some have said they got 5% at Walmart Neighborhood Markets others have said they didn’t get anything. I made a $2 purchase and nope.

  • Small welcome bonus $100 on a $1,000 spend when I applied Fall.2022.

Comparison With Warehouse Club Cards

Next is comparing how this card works with various wholesale clubs and how I either use this card or pair it with another card or how I would use it if I had that club membership.

Costco

With the Gold Membership and Costco Visa you get 2% cash back non gas purchases, so AAA Daily Advantage is 1% more.

With the Costco Executive membership you get 2% cash back non gas purchases with the Executive Membership ($1,000 cap in rewards) + 2% cash back with the Costco Visa non-gas purchases OR you can use the Daily Advantage for 3% cash back + Executive Membership 2% non gas purchases for a total of 5%.

Pros of Costco Visa for my use:

  • 4% cash back on gas purchases.

  • Unlimited 2% on non-gas purchases with Costco Visa

Disadvantage of Costco Visa for my use:

  • If you earn under $300 in rewards you must redeem it in Costco.

  • Hard to track individual transaction earning for cash back

  • Gas cap is $7k annually

  • Executive Membership is limited to $1,000 in total earnings annually for non-gas purchases.

How I would pair these cards:

I currently pair my AAA Daily Advantage with Costco Gold Star membership for Costco in-club and Costco online purchases and I would use Costco Visa for 4% cash back on gas (note I don’t use Costco gas)

Sam’s Club

Regular Sam’s Club membership + Sam’s Club MasterCard Regular membership is 1% cash back.

Sam’s Club MasterCard has a huge list of category exclusions that get 0% cash back!

With Sam’s Club Plus membership its 2% cash back ($500 cap in rewards) + Sam’s Club Plus Mastercard 3% non gas purchases will give you 5%.

Sam’s Club Plus MasterCard has a $5,000 cap on non-gas purchases at Sam’s Club or Sam’s Club online !!

Sam’s Club Plus membership and Sam’s Club Plus MasterCard has a huge list of category exclusions that get 0% cash back!

Sam’s Club has Bonus Offers similar to credit card Merchant Offers. You can link most credit cards except for Discover and get cash back. Sam’s Club Mastercard gets 0% cash back on Bonus Offers!

With the Daily Advantage I’m guaranteed 3% cash back on Sam’s Club category exclusions. I have Sam’s Club Plus.

Pros of Sam’s Club Mastercard for my use:

  • 5% cash back on any gas purchases

  • In my area, premium gas is $0.09 less per gallon at Sam’s Club at $3.41, Costco is $3.50 and BJ’s Wholesale Club is $3.51 as of Feb 28 11:30 EST.

  • Cash back is paid out as Sam’s Cash monthly including Bonus Offers. You can use for in-club or Sam’s Club online purchases.

  • I have been able to stack Sam’s Club Bonus Offers. Example, I activated Argentinian Steakhouse for 9% cash back for Sam’s Club Plus members Sam’s Club Plus MC 0% I linked my US Bank Altitude Go and got 4% so 13% total cash back instead of 9% using the Sam’s Club Plus MasterCard.

Disadvantages of Sam’s Club MasterCard for my use:

  • A humongous list of category exclusions

  • $6k annual spend cap on gas

  • $500 total earnings max on non-gas non-excluded items with Sam’s Club Plus membership.

  • $5,000 cap for Sam’s Club MasterCard cash back at Sam’s Club and Sam’s Club online purchases.

  • No cash back on Bonus Offers

  • Sam’s Cash cannot be redeemed for some sale and clearance items as well as some categories.

How I pair these cards:

I use my AAA Daily Advantage for any categories that I do not get cash back with on my Sam’s Club Plus membership and Sam’s Club Plus MasterCard. I use Sam’s Club MasterCard for gas.

If I didn’t have Sam’s Club Plus membership, I would use this card for all Sam’s Club purchases except for gas.

BJ’s Wholesale Club

BJ’s Wholesale Club MasterCard is changing from Comenity to Capital One.

BJ’s Wholesale Club regular membership + BJ’s One MasterCard (3% cash back), the same as the AAA Daily Advantage BUT there is a long list of category exclusions that gets 0% cash back.

BJ’s Wholesale Club Perks membership + BJ’s One+ MasterCard (5% cash back) Is 2% more than the AAA Daily Advantage BUT there is a long list of category exclusions that get 0% cash back.

Pros of BJ’s MasterCard for my use:

  • No spend caps

  • $0.10 per gallon discount for BJ’s One MC and $0.15 per gallon discount for BJ’s One+ MC at BJ’s gas station, can get additional discounts with club promotions.

  • Easy to use Capital One app.

Disadvantage of BJ’s MasterCard for my use:

  • Gas discount is only available at BJ’s gas.

  • A very long list of category exclusions.

  • Not sure with Capital One but with Comenity was $25 to cash out.

How I would pair these cards:

I would only use the AAA Daily Advantage with categories that do not get any cash back. I would also pair the BJ’s MasterCard with a different 5% gas cash back card for non BJ’s gas purchases.

I currently do not have a BJ’s membership, I go with a friend of mine and use my AAA Daily Advantage for purchases.

Category Exclusions

Both BJ’s MasterCard and Sam’s Club MasterCard have a laundry list of exclusions. Sam’s Club is the worst. Here is an example of category exclusions that both cards have, these categories get 0% cash back with BJ’s MasterCard and Sam’s Club MasterCard!

  • Gift cards
  • Membership upgrades and renewals
  • Alcohol and tobacco
  • Optical
  • Third party vendors like AT&T
  • Cell phones
  • Pharmacy
  • Anything in the pharmacy department
  • Dairy and dairy alternatives (Sam’s Club)
  • Select clearance items
  • Select sale items
  • Cereal (Sam’s Club)
  • Select electronics (BJ’s)

That’s just SOME of the list that’s excluded!

In conclusion

This card does outperform some other warehouse club cards and does not have the restrictions that Sam’s Club and BJ’s have. I use this card for when I go over my Citibank Custom Cash $500 monthly spend, I also use this at Costco and anything that is category restricted at Sam’s Club and I use this when I go with a friend of mine to BJ’s or when I go to a couple of other places that code as Wholesale Club.

Even though this card is issued by Comenity, It is easy to track rewards and see how much cash back you got with each transaction and have it categorized by merchant and MCC so if you shop somewhere if the merchant coding is off you will see it.

Edit

As I was reminded in comments here’s two things that got forgotten

  • You have to wait your first full billing cycle before setting up auto pay

  • There have been a couple of hiccups with auto pay, when the auto pay was supposed to pay the statement balance not the current balance

Here’s an example Let’s say your statement balance is $100 and your current balance is $125, AutoPay paid $125

I notified Comenity And they apologize because of the system updates at the time It only happened once.

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Another “Good” of the AAA cards - Rewards are available immediately. I haven’t even had my first statement closing date and I have $18 of rewards available.

Another “Bad” - You can’t set up Autopay until after your first statement closes, so if you’re someone like me who is in the habit of IMMEDIATELY setting up Autopay right when you open a new card, you have to stay on top of things manually for the first month.

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I use this card for when I go over my Citibank Custom Cash $500 monthly spend

I’m curious why you do this. Couldn’t you put all grocery spend on the Daily Advantage and free up the Custom Cash for 5% on another category? Or do you have a Rewards+ or Premier so you prefer TY points?

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Thank you for this very comprehensive review! It is particularly helpful to know that you cannot have both the Travel Advantage and Daily Advantage cards. How did you find that out - did you try applying for the other and get denied, or did you call in to ask customer service whether you were eligible to apply for the Travel Advantage (after already getting the Daily Advantage)? (I only ask because, as we all know, customer service reps at any bank can and often do give incorrect advice…)

Also, for those who may prefer not to do business with Comenity, I wanted to re-flag our sub’s list of wholesale club cashback cards. The NIH FCU Visa Signature Cash Rewards and Synchrony Venmo Visa (if used with wholesale clubs as the 3% category) both earn unlimited 3% in wholesale clubs. Both are Visas, so this includes Costco.

Also, since the Citi Costco in particular was mentioned here, I wanted to flag the InFirst FCU Visa Rewards, which is basically a clone of the Citi Costco in terms of rewards structure except that it doesn’t require Costco membership (e.g., it can be used at Sam’s or BJ’s instead), it pays uncapped 4% cashback on gas, and it also pays uncapped 2% cashback at Supermarkets, Target, and Walmart in addition to Wholesale Clubs. And, of course, it doesn’t require taking the cashback in physical bills and coins in warehouse.

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Thank you for the write up. I’ve wanted this card for awhile, but every time I try to apply, it redirects me to the website for the AAA branch in my region (I’m a member) then there’s no way to apply, no info, nothing. Is there a way around this?

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Think you swapped the 10k and 7k limits? Thought the 10k was on the grocery version.

I feel like it’s too good to be sustainable - worse cards like the Uber 4% dining card haven’t survived.

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Thanks for the write-up, this card is really compelling based on the rates it offers. Couple questions, is automatic payment a (reliable) option and is there an app for easy access to my card account?

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This looks like an unbelievable card that probably won’t offer these benefits much longer. How would you recommend applying for this card when you don’t live in an area where the local AAA supports the Comenity card?

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Does the issuing bank do a soft pull? Saw in their application that only the last 4 of SS# is asked… ?

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How long did the $100 bonus take to post to your account? Was it right away on your balance or did it happen on a statement?

I’ve been using the Daily Advantage card for just over a month now. Cash back from purchases (for me grocery) posts very quickly to your account, sometimes even before the transaction is done processing.

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Tried a meal kit purchase such as Hello Fresh?

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Any experience with Walmart online orders? Grocery and general online Walmart marketplace orders.

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Got an email around pre approval to the daily AAA. I don’t see any cash back % for restaurants so I think I’ll keep my Travel. Unless anyone has seen otherwise? Thank you in advance.

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Just got this card and made a few grocery store purchases. Both local Wal-marts gave me the 5%.

Looks like I can only redeem for a statement credit? Says I have to “call in” to get the rewards sent to a checking account. Could this be because a statement hasn’t been cut yet?

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Nice write up, I just applied for this card for the 5% fuel cash back. I’ll be looking at possibly the Amex blue cash preferred for groceries later next year (don’t want to ding my credit too much) but right now this pairs well with my WF active cash which gets 2% on everything

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“Walmart And Target are excluded for 5% cash back”.

We tried both of our local Wal-Mart superstores, bought groceries, and got 5%. Not sure if something’s changed?

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Question on this - my wife got this card, all is well. I added myself as an “Authorized Buyer”. Will I get my own card in the mail too?

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Question for OP you mentioned if you earn less than $300 annually on Costcos own visa you have to redeem in store. Is it true if it’s more than $300 there’s another way to redeem? I hadn’t heard that. Thanks!!

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So you can’t just shop at wal mart with this one and get 5 percent back? Specifically looking for a card that will allow that and read this one does a lot of other places but this is first I’m seeing not.

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That I forgot about, I’ve had some even worse problems with banks, Wachovia wouldn’t even let me enter my checking account information until after my first bill generated. Usually when I get an account I immediately enter my checking account number and routing number and all of that stuff but Wachovia wouldn’t let me do it until the bill generated.