Best Credit Card Welcome Bonuses for March 2022 – CNET [CNET]

One of our top cash-back credit cards, the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, offers a sign-up bonus in the form of additional cash back, unlike most other sign-on bonuses, for up to a value of $300. You earn an additional 1.5% cash back on all purchases for your first year, on up to $20,000 of spending. Most credit cards have a minimum spending threshold to earn a welcome bonus, so this card offers more flexibility. The Chase Freedom Unlimited also features top-notch rewards with 5% cash back on travel booked through Chase, 3% on dining at restaurants and drugstores, and 1.5% on other purchases.

The Discover it® Cash Back* card offers a unique proposition: The sign-on bonus is an unlimited cash-back match for the first year the account is open. Not only do you earn 5% cash back on rotating quarterly categories upon activation (on up to $1,500 in quarterly purchases, then 1%) and 1% on all other purchases, but at the end of your first year Discover will match — dollar for dollar — all the cash you’ve earned back in the previous 12 months. Effectively, this means you can earn 10% cash back on the rotating quarterly categories, and 2% on all other purchases for the first year. The student version of this credit card, featured among our best student credit cards, offers the same sign-on bonus.

The Citi Premier® Card offers the best sign-on bonus value with respect to annual fee, points value and spending threshold. The sign-on bonus nets you 60,000 ThankYou® points when you spend $4,000 within the first three months of opening the account — this can be redeemed for travel rewards or $600 in gift cards at Thankyou.com. Alternatively, these points are also valued at $0.01 per point for statement credits, and so are worth the same amount in the form of “cash back.” This card is also a strong contender for our best gas credit cards, as well, and has a $95 annual fee. See our full review of the Citi Premier Card for more details and benefits.

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A sign-on bonus, or welcome bonus, is a one-time reward offered to card holders after signing up for a new card. Bonuses always require users to spend a certain amount within a set time period, like $500 in purchases in the first three months, in order to “unlock” the bonus. 

This is a risky and time-consuming gambit that could adversely affect your credit. Though a welcome bonus is worth considering, we recommend taking a comprehensive look at the overall value of a credit card and choosing one that fits your spending habits and financial situation.

In our view, a good welcome bonus is one that doesn’t require you to contort your existing spending habits and offers a return that’s higher than the card’s annual fee. Many rewards credit cards offer a welcome bonus of $200, so anything higher than that is noteworthy.

We also prefer cards with bonuses that feature other perks or multiple rewards tiers, increasing the usefulness of the card beyond the bonus. 

The x means “times” — a way of referring to the multiple rewards points or miles you’ll get for every dollar spent. For example, a 2x mile card gives you 2 miles for every dollar spent. A 10x point card gives you 10 points for every dollar spent.