The Best Credit Cards for Every Type of Spender in 2025

In my last post (here), I broke down the principles of credit cards. We talked about what they are, the value they bring, and how to think about building a smart portfolio. If you haven’t seen it, that’s a great foundation. But today, let’s take the next step.

This time, I’ll show you some of the best credit cards available right now in 2025, organized by category. Whether you’re looking for a simple “everyday” card, a bonus-category booster, or a travel powerhouse, this guide will help you narrow the field and design a wallet that works for your lifestyle.

The best credit card setup isn’t about chasing every offer. It’s about building a lean, intentional portfolio that covers your needs. At a high level, the following cards are what you want to complete your portfolio. I have numbered it in the order I plan to build my portfolio.

1. (Optional/Situational) One Credit Builder

2. One flat-rate card for baseline earnings.

3. One category specialist for your biggest spending area.

4. One travel card (if you travel).

5. One no-fee safety net card to hold forever.

6. Optional Additions…

Everyone’s varied lifestyle and financial goals can be fit easily into this type of portfolio. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, there is always more cards, there are always more intricate strategies to utilize each card more effectively, but anything more than the above is simply unnecessary. We want to remove headaches by creating a lean and easy portfolio, not make more work for ourselves.

If you have more than a few years of credit or really any line open already, you can skip this step. Otherwise, starting here will be a great first step. I spent my first year out in the financial world struggling to get a card, rejected quite due to simply no history… but how are you supposed to build history when you have no history? The fact of the matter is that not everyone starts with a 750+ credit score. For those new to credit or looking to recover from past mistakes, there are cards specifically designed to help build history.

Top picks in 2025:

• (Editor Pick) Discover It® Secured →  The first Cash Back: 2% cash back rewards on top of secured credit to help improve your credit.

• Capital One Platinum Secured → Accessible option, with deposits starting as low as $49 for a $200 limit. Unfortunately, no cash back rewards.

• Chime Secured Visa® → Nice & Simple: No annual fees, no interest, and reports to all three bureaus.

Why it matters: These cards are about more than rewards, they’re about establishing trust with lenders. Paying on time and keeping balances low helps build the credit profile that unlocks better cards later.

Everyone needs a baseline card. This is a card you can use anywhere, anytime, without thinking about categories.

Top picks in 2025:

• Wells Fargo Active Cash® → 2% cashback on all purchases, no annual fee, and simple redemption options.

• (Editor Pick) Citi Double Cash® → Earns 1% when you buy and another 1% when you pay, encouraging good financial habits.

• Fidelity® Rewards Visa → Directly invests your 2% cashback into a Fidelity account, perfect for long-term wealth builders.

• Chase Freedom Unlimited → 1.5% back on everything.

Why it matters: These cards are our starting point in the credit card world. They are usable for everything, offer basic cash back ,and let us build credit history while still giving us ok rewards. They also guarantee you’re never stuck with a “low earn” purchase. Even if you forget your category card, you’ll still get decent rewards.

The category spender is where we start to supercharge our rewards on the biggest spending categories. Look at your monthly expenses, budget plan, or up and coming seasonal buys (like family vacations in summer) and deiced where is most of your money being spent. Personally, I use most of my money on groceries and gas, so I focus on this area.

Standouts:

• Amex Gold → 4x points on dining and groceries, making it ideal for foodies and families. Comes with a $325 annual fee.

• Citi Custom Cash® → 5% on your top category each month (up to $500) for regular adjustment to your needs. Everything else is a 1% cash back. You do get an additional 4% cash back on hotels and travel booked through Citi travel.

• (Editor Pick) Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards → Choose your 3% (+3% first year cash back bonus for a total of 6% cash back) category (gas, dining, online shopping, travel), with big boosts for Preferred Rewards clients. Allows up to $2500 use per quarter, with option for choosing changes in category every month.

Why it matters: Since we already have a generalized use 2% card, we can focus on optimizing savings in the specific categories that we spend more in. But, instead of chasing every deal, you align rewards with your lifestyle, making it easy to save more without much change in your thought process. The great part about customized cash options is that we can change our choice in category regularly, making it easy to keep up with life changes, expected or unexpected.

Travel cards only make sense if you actually travel but, if you do, they can transform your experience.

Beginner-friendly options:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® → Widely recommended starter travel card with flexible transfer partners. A smaller fee of $95/annual for a 5x point return when using Chase travel. They are partnered with some airlines and hotels so you know exactly who you can use those savings with.

• Capital One Venture Rewards → Straightforward 2x miles everywhere, easy for beginners. A small fee of $95/annual for a 5x return on hotels, rentals, and rental cars through Capital One Travel and an additional 2x returon every purchase.

• Wells Fargo Autograph® → No annual fee, 3x on travel, dining, and more—plus no foreign transaction fees.

These beginner-friendly options allow people who have no experience with travel cards a chance to get to know about the perks while not having to pay a ton. It’s also a cheaper option for those who want to reap the rewards without having to pay a hefty premium every year. These cards are best for people like students who are traveling between school and home often or for those who don’t get to take out-of-state/out-of-country vacations too often.

Premium cards for frequent flyers:

• Amex Platinum → Packed with luxury perks: lounges, hotel status, and big travel credits. This is a great card, offering benefits like $200 Airline credit, $200 Hotel Credit, and $199 CLEAR Plus credit, almost nullifying your $695 annual fee, as well as providing you access to various lounges that include food, coffee, and a much more comfortable and effective place to relax compared to the chairs at your flight gate. It hits a 5x point return on flights and hotels booked through the AMEX tools.

• Chase Sapphire Reserve® → Powerful travel protections, 8x on purchases in the travel app, 4x on flights, 4x on hotels, 3x on dining and access to similar benefits like the Amex Platinum. Of course, points are specific to purchases made through the Chase apps with their partners. Tacked on with a $795 annual fee, it quickly pays itself off with $500+ in airline credits and $250 in shop credits and other deals.

• Capital One Venture X® → Lounge access, strong credits, and a net-low annual fee compared to competitors. The Venture X is a bit different than the other cards mentioned, because it focuses clearly on building on credits for miles with a 10x miles on hotel and rental cars, 5x miles on flights and vacation rentals, and 2x miles on all other purchases. That means you are getting 5 miles per dollar you are spending on flights to use on more trips in the future. A cheaper card, sitting an an annual fee of $395, the Venture X is great for anyone who’s big focus is on travel. It’ll allow you to get the best bang for your buck if your goal is to get a few of your flights paid for. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have similar benefits to the other cards like premium partners and credits.

Why it matters: You can see the premium cards are truly a deal for frequent flyers who can pay the upfront annual fees. It’s a larger price, but taking cards like the Amex Platinum as an example, the card provides you $1500 of value out of the $695 fee, offering almost $1000 dollars of additional gain back to you. With sign-up bonuses and optimized usage of your perks and credits, this gain can actually come up to $2500 – $4000 back of net gain. An obviously very effective usage, but, keep in mind that these gains come back to you through usage of their card and their services. If you don’t expect to use their perks for travel, entertainment, hotels, transportation, and some store credits because it simply does not match your lifestyle, you will find yourself simply losing $695 for a set of luxury perks you will never use. Travel cards can offset their fees with perks if you use them strategically.

Not glamorous, but critical. These cards are the ones you hold forever with no annual fee, they anchor your credit history and provide backup flexibility.

Solid choices:

• Discover It® → Rotating 5% categories plus cash back match in year one, no fee.

• Chase Freedom Unlimited® → 1.5% baseline + bonus categories; a card you never have to close. One of the great parts about this is that the Chase network of rewards is large and this card never loses its points. It’s a great backup card, easy to use and hold.

Why it matters: Length of credit history makes up 15% of your credit score. These cards let you build that history without costing you anything long-term. The great thing about cards like the Discover It is that they give you a high return on certain categories every quarter, so you can rotate them in when needed, and let them sit to build up your credit history otherwise. A low effort win for everyone.

There are also some cards that are very situational. These are very specific cards per individual, which is why they don’t make it into the general credit card portfolio. Regardless, they are 100% worth the time to look into if you can take advantage of one of these special card types in your lifestyle.

• Balance Transfer Cards → Wells Fargo Reflect®, Citi Simplicity® (for consolidating debt, but only if you stop new spending). These buy you time to get debt under control, and in the world where credit card debt has reached over $1.2T in the USA alone, finding ways to help consolidate and reduce those debts (and matching interest payments) can go a long way toward your financial success.

• Student Cards → Chase Freedom Rise®, Discover It Student (starter-friendly, designed for building credit while studying). These cards are great for students who don’t have much history, not a large amount of cash-flow, but still want build their credit before school is over.

• Store/Ecosystem Cards → Amazon Prime Visa (5% back at Amazon/Whole Foods), Costco Visa (high rewards on gas/EV). These cards can be very powerful. They are great if you’re loyal to these ecosystems. Personally, I love Costco. I get gas there exclusively and do quite a bit of shopping there and the rewards end up paying back my membership fees and more back to me.

Why it matters: These cards aren’t for everyone, but in the right circumstances, they can deliver targeted value that general-use cards don’t. They are 100% worth the time to explore and see what you could potential get back from adding them to your credit card arsenal.

The best credit card setup isn’t about chasing every flashy sign-up bonus. It’s about building a lean, intentional portfolio:

• Start with a credit builder if you need to.

• Add a flat-rate workhorse for everything else.

• Layer in a category booster for your biggest expense.

• Add a travel card if you travel.

• Keep at least one no-fee card forever to protect your credit history.

Everything else? Optional.

When used strategically, your wallet stops being “plastic you swipe” and starts becoming a financial toolkit to help you earn rewards, protect purchases, and build long-term credit health. Building out the card portfolio effectively over time will end up saving you money and effort over time. Next thing, go back and find out where you are in your portfolio. What card are you missing? What cards do you need to go understand more and see how to maximize your returns?

If you want to explore the full market, be sure to check out a comprehensive excel sheet I’ve created with 40+ top credit cards in 2025, color-coded by category, so you can explore and design your portfolio. Download it here.

As always, I’d love to hear about your experiences and knowledge on credit cards and building the best portfolio. Come and comment in the forum topic and let me know what you think I may have missed. Thanks for reading!