The best credit cards for commuters

Featured cards

All 24 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 AAA Travel Advantage Visa Signature — Best overall for commuting: 5% on gas, no annual fee — 5.0¢ back per dollar
2. 2 USAA Cashback Rewards Plus American Express — 5% on gas, no annual fee — 5.0¢ back per dollar
3. 3 PenFed Platinum Rewards — 5x on gas, no annual fee — 4.3¢ back per dollar
4. 4 Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi — 4% on gas, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
5. 5 U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card — 4x on gas, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
6. 6 Travel Rewards+ (Elan) — 4x on gas, $99 a year — 4.0¢ back per dollar
7. 7 Chase Sapphire Preferred — Best for transferable points: 3x on gas, $95 a year — 3.8¢ back per dollar
8. 8 AT&T Points Plus® Card from Citi — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.3¢ back per dollar
9. 9 Citi Strata℠ Card — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.3¢ back per dollar
10. 10 Citi Strata Premier® Card — 3x on gas, $95 a year — 3.3¢ back per dollar
11. 11 Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express — 3% on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
12. 12 Capital One Kohl's Rewards Visa — 3% on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
13. 13 My Best Buy® Visa® Card — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
14. 14 TSC® Visa® Card (Tractor Supply Co.) — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
15. 15 AAA Daily Advantage Visa Signature — 3% on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
16. 16 Wells Fargo Autograph — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
17. 17 Navy Federal More Rewards American Express — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
18. 18 Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express — 3% on transit, $95 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
19. 19 Choice Privileges Select Mastercard — 5x on gas, $95 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
20. 20 World of Hyatt Credit Card — 2x on transit, $95 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
21. 21 Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card — 6x on gas, $150 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
22. 22 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature (Atmos Rewards Ascent) — 2x on gas, $95 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
23. 23 Hawaiian Airlines Bank of Hawaii World Elite Mastercard — 2x on gas, $99 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
24. 24 Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® — 2x on gas, $99 a year — 2.7¢ back per dollar

The ranking

What these actually pay on a year of gas

A rate is a promise about one dollar. This is the same ranking run over 45 real gas charges totalling $2,351 — our sample year — scored one charge at a time by the same engine the app uses on your own statement. Caps, category rules and point values all apply; nothing is annualised or rounded up.

On this spending the gap between top and bottom is $24 a year — the effective rate, after caps and point values, runs from 4.00% to 5.00%. Your own charges are what matter, and the app scores those rather than a sample.

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. The best rate each card prints on gas, public transit, EV charging or rideshare — the four ways a commute gets paid for — and nothing else. A card whose strongest rate is on dining is ranked here on its commuting rate or not at all, which is the whole point of the page.
• Conservative point value. That rate is multiplied by our conservative mid-range value for the currency it pays, which is why a hotel card printing a large multiplier can finish below a plain cash-back card. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free card in this pool is AAA Travel Advantage Visa Signature at 5.0¢ per dollar. We never net the fee out of the rate for you — whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a card's headline rate stops after a spending cap, that cap is on the card's own page and in the relevant category guide. This ranking uses the printed rate, so a heavily capped bonus should be checked against the cap before you act on it.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 50 of them are personal cards that print a commuting rate and qualify. The page publishes the top 24 by real value — the cutoff is #24, so 26 qualifying cards did not make it and can be found on the full card list.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

Which of the four you actually spend on decides this: a monthly transit pass, a tank of fuel and a Friday-night rideshare are not the same purchase, and several of these bonuses are capped. The table names the category each card's best commuting rate is on — and the optimizer scores your own mix of them instead of assuming one.

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →