I use credit card every time I get the chance and I think it’s a good idea if you have some amount of self control. As long as you never ever carry a balance and always pay on time, I find credit cards can be excellent financial tool.

Besides getting the standard credit card protection, credit cards offer lots of other perks. For example, Visa and Mastercard protect most purchases from theft or damage for the first 90 days from purchase while your debit card barely protects you against fraud. Additionally, I’ve found credit card companies go out of their way to keep me as a customer — I just have to call to complain about something and it’s generally fixed. So, given that I use them all the time, I’ve been looking into good ways to maximize my money.

Cash back cards are a good way to get a little back from credit cards, but they are generally irritating to use. Either you have to wait to hit a threshold to get a check mailed or you have to make sure to buy at certain stores or you have to redeem points for gift cards or wait a year to get your cash back. All these are hassles I’d like to avoid, so I set out some requirements for a new credit card.

First, it has to be accepted everywhere (sorry Amex and Discover). Second, I want cash applied to my credit card statement automatically or at a minimum via phone. Third, it has to be free of annual fees.

With the help of metafilter and my über googling skills, I came up with these favorites.

• Bank of America‘s Cash Rewards and Financial Rewards offer 1% cash back the cash can be redeemed by phone every $2500.
• Capital One‘s No Hassle Cash has the same deal as the Bank of America, but will also give a 25% annual bonus on the rewards earned.
• Chase Bank’s PerfectCard requires 9 purchases/year to stay annual fee free, but rewards are credited to your account automatically. Rates are 3% on all gas purchases and 1% on everything else.

I already have one of the BoA cards, so I’ll be trying the Capital One in my wallet. If you have other cash back cards you like, please post in the comments.