(1) Own atleast one Visa AND one Mastercard with a generous cashback bonus. (2) A Discover Card is good for getting cash advances at grocery stores (depending on where you live) instead of using an ATM. (3) If you're highly loyal to a specific retailer(s), get their card(s) because you can get more generous cashback bonuses on their merchandise, coupons, invitations to private sales and advance notice of special open sales. (4) Try to avoid airline and automobile cards. If your loyalty changes and/or bankruptcy happens, you could get stuck with points you don't want to redeem and/or lose all of your points and be left with nothing.