The best credit cards for retirees

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 Daily Advantage Visa Signature — Best overall for a retiree cardholder: 5% on groceries, no annual fee — 5.0¢ back per dollar
2. 2 AAA Travel Advantage Visa Signature — 5% on gas, no annual fee — 5.0¢ back per dollar
3. 3 USAA Cashback Rewards Plus American Express — 5% on gas, no annual fee — 5.0¢ back per dollar
4. 4 PenFed Platinum Rewards — 5x on gas, no annual fee — 4.3¢ back per dollar
5. 5 Capital One Key Rewards Visa — 4% on groceries, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
6. 6 Capital One Pottery Barn Key Rewards Visa — 4% on groceries, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
7. 7 Capital One West Elm Key Rewards Visa — 4% on groceries, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
8. 8 Capital One Williams Sonoma Key Rewards Visa — 4% on groceries, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
9. 9 Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi — 4% on gas, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
10. 10 U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card — 4x on travel, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
11. 11 AT&T Points Plus® Card from Citi — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.3¢ back per dollar
12. 12 Norwegian Cruise Line World Mastercard — 3x on travel, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
13. 13 Royal ONE Visa Signature — 3x on travel, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
14. 14 Capital One Kohl's Rewards Visa — 3% on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
15. 15 Capital One Savor — 3% on groceries, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
16. 16 DoorDash Rewards Mastercard — 3% on dining, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
17. 17 Macy's American Express® Card — 3x on dining, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
18. 18 My Best Buy® Visa® Card — 3x on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
19. 19 Wells Fargo Autograph — 3x on dining, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
20. 20 Navy Federal More Rewards American Express — 3x on groceries, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
21. 21 Navy Federal GO REWARDS — 3x on dining, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
22. 22 JetBlue Card — 2x on dining, no annual fee — 2.6¢ back per dollar
23. 23 Hilton Honors American Express Card — 5x on dining, no annual fee — 2.5¢ back per dollar
24. 24 United Gateway Card — 2x on gas, no annual fee — 2.5¢ 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 $40 a year — the effective rate, after caps and point values, runs from 3.30% 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. Each card's strongest printed earn rate — the highest flat rate it actually publishes, base rate included — taken from our maintained database. That is what places a card here, so a card leads on the category it is genuinely built for.
• 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 Daily 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; 63 of them are credit cards for retirees and qualify. The page publishes the top 24 by real value — the cutoff is #24, so 39 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

The best card here for you depends on where you actually spend and on approval odds, which we don't model — caps bite, and a high headline rate only pays if your spending lands in that category. The optimizer re-scores your real charges against every card here.

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 →