Alliant Credit Card Review: The Best Cashback Credit Card?

One of the most important aspects of improving your finances is knowing how to spend your money. By this, we don’t mean to know what to buy and what not to. Sure, this is important but spending money is a necessity.

In today’s world, we are no longer limited to using cash. With a wide number of payment methods to choose from, spending money can actually provide you with a lot of benefits. This is especially true when it comes to credit cards, as most of them will reward them for using them.

In this Alliant credit card review, we will be talking about one of the most popular credit cards out there. This is a credit card that has many benefits and rewards. However, a credit card’s usefulness will really depend on your particular needs. Let’s take a look at the Alliant credit card in order for you to find out if it’s the right choice for you.

What is the Alliant Credit Card?

The Alliant Credit Card (also known as Alliant Cashback Visa Signature Credit Card) is a Credit Card that you will get a lot out of. This is because the cashback percentages you can get from it are among the highest in the market.

Offered by Alliant, this credit card offers multiple benefits to its users that make it a favorite among many. With unlimited cash back, no annual fees, no foreign transactions fees, and full support for popular digital payment apps, it is easy to see why.

In fact, the Alliant credit card has been chosen as one of the best credit cards by CNBC, Wallethub, and Money. Personally, we completely agree that this is a credit card you need to take a look at and consider. With this in mind, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this Alliant credit card review!

How Does Alliant Credit Card’s Cashback Work?

One of the most important aspects when choosing a new credit card is to identify if its benefits adjust to your needs. This is not limited to liking its benefits and rewards but also includes if you actually are using them.

For example, you might like the idea of accumulating miles… However, if you never actually get to use them and just let them expire, you actually wasted those benefits. This may not be the card’s fault, but rather your own for choosing incorrectly.

Well… The good news is that the Alliant credit card is good for everyone. As there are no limitations to which purchases apply for cashback, you will always be saving money. When using this credit card, there is just no way for you to lose your rewards. No miles to feel forced to use, no limiting your spending to specific brands, and no looking at the fine print. If you pay using the card, you will receive cashback rewards… Plain and simple.

The Alliant credit card has two different tiers that will determine this cashback. Let’s take a look at them:

Tier 1

To qualify for this category you must keep an average of $1000 in your checking account and meet the requirements for an Alliant High-Rate Checking account. This average will be calculated on a daily basis during the months of the previous quarters.

If you are able to gain access to Tier 1 benefits, you should! You get 2.5% in cashback which is one of the highest returns you will receive with any credit card. This benefit is however limited to the first $10,000 of spending in each billing cycle. 

Let’s take a look at an example. If you had tier 1 benefits and were to spend $10,000 in a month, you would be receiving $250 back. If you were to spend $20,000, you would receive $400 back. With this tier, 2.5% would only apply to the first $10,000 with the remaining $10,000 resulting in a 1.5% cashback.

Tier 2

While no requirement needs to be met for this tier, the benefits will be limited. This means you will only be able to access 1.5% cashback on all your purchases at the end of the month. This might not sound like much, but 1.5% is still competitive enough to make this tier great.

Does The Alliant Credit Card Offer Other Benefits?

Let’s be honest. While the cashback rewards we have mentioned in this Alliant credit card are already great, you might be unconvinced. After all, most credit cards offer several benefits to their users.

Well, the truth is that the benefits don’t end with the cashback. As the Alliant credit card is the result of a partnership with Visa, you will have many benefits typical of the users of this service. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits:

Cashback Method Flexibility

Choosing how you want to receive your cashback can be a useful feature to have. If you are interested in having flexibility in this regard, the Alliant credit card has got you covered. There are two fairly straightforward ways to withdraw your cashback:

1. The first method is to have it applied as a refund to your credit card account. This will take up to one billing cycle depending on when the reward is requested and when your statement closes.
2. The second is much simpler and consists of receiving your reward as a deposit into your savings account at Alliant Credit Union. This way it will just be deposited into your account and you can withdraw it at any time once the 5 business days needed have passed.

That being said, when withdrawing your rewards you must take into account that the minimum amount of money you can withdraw is $50. These rewards will be available for up to 4 years, which makes it unlikely for you to lose them.

Debt Protection

The Alliant Cashback Credit Card offers an option where you can pay a small monthly fee to protect yourself in the future. If you ever die, become unable to work, or become involuntarily unemployed, Alliant will take care of up to $100,000 in debt. This is a great way to ensure that even if disaster hits, your debt won’t become a problem for you or your loved ones.

Identity Theft Protection

Identity Theft is an increasingly common issue in the United States. In the event that this happens to you, Alliant will provide you with a $5,000 assistance bond. This can be used to pay for the costs of restoring your identity and cover any expenses resulting from the theft.

Purchase Protection

This is a feature that most credit card users have come to expect. If you have paid for something in full with the Alliant Credit Card, you will have a 90-day warranty. This will protect your purchases from unintentional and unavoidable damage resulting from fire, vandalism, tornado, earthquake, etc.

Travel Accident Protection

With countries starting to open their borders again after the COVID19 pandemic, this is a great benefit to have. There is no worse experience than experiencing an accident while traveling and your vacations turning into a financial catastrophe.

Well, if you find yourself having an accident while traveling you will get $250,000 to cover expenses if you own this card!

Rental Car Protection

If you are using a rental car and have a car accident, you will have 24/7 roadside assistance. You will also get enough money to be able to pay for the entire repair or value of the car. All this without any additional cost to you!

No Extra Fees Abroad

Another great benefit for those who enjoy traveling. If you are abroad and decide to use your Alliant Credit Card you won’t be charged extra fees for making purchases in another country. Not only that but you’ll still get your regular cashback rewards!

Extend Warranties

There are some products whose warranties are very short, usually breaking just when the warranty expires. The Alliant credit card allows you to extend to a large number of products.

Generally, the extension works by doubling the original warranty period. But products whose warranty exceeds 3 years will only add 1 more year. There are products that have exceptions, for example, cars or specific computer items. Despite the limitations, a free extended warranty is always a great thing to have!

What Fees Does the Alliant Credit Card Have?

As with all credit cards, there are some fees you will need to consider when using the Alliant Credit Card. That being said, this credit card has some incredible benefits in terms of fees.

Let’s start by talking about the annual fee. It is non-existent. When using the Alliant credit card, you will not be paying a single dime as an annual fee. If you have ever had a credit card, you know how uncommon this is!

In addition to this benefit, there are no over-limit fees and no foreign transaction fees.

Now, this doesn’t mean you will not be paying fees for using this card. In the case of being late with a payment or a return payment, a fee of up to $27 will be charged. If you choose to use the cash advance feature, a fee of $10 or 3% of the total will be charged depending on which one is greater.

Finally, we have balance transfers, an incredibly useful tool in the world of personal finances. If you were to transfer your balance, you would incur a 3% fee on the total amount for each transfer.

As you can see, the fee structure can easily be added to the long list of benefits we have already mentioned in this Alliant credit card review.

Conclusion

We love the Alliant Credit Card. There, we said it. The reason for this is simple: It is a credit card that offers competitive rewards and benefits without too much fine print. After all, if you have to strategize, plan, and calculate to earn rewards… They stop feeling like rewards.

The Alliant credit card makes it easy for its user to earn rewards, is easily accessible, and offers a lot of benefits. While there may be cards that offer you higher cashback rates, they will be limited to certain brands and/or categories. This means that unless you have really high consumption in a specific category, they will be likely to be less beneficial.

With no Annual fees, the Alliant credit card makes a great addition to any wallet. This allows you to combine it with other cards to maximize your earnings. If no card provides you with a better reward for a specific purchase… Just use your Alliant credit card and get that sweet cashback.

If you are interested in getting to know other credit cards to use in addition to the Alliant credit card, we got a suggestion. Make sure to check our credit section. You might find a credit card that better suits you!