How often do you use a credit card over a debit card? why?

10 comments

1. If you pay your bills on time, you don’t pay interest on credit cards. Many credit cards also give some kind of rewards or benefits. Mine give points that I can use for travel or shopping. They’re small but they add up. Debit cards don’t do that. So if I pay my bills on time, I get a benefit from using a credit card, but none from using a debit card.

2. Whenever I can, I would be stupid not to. Anyone with access to credit cards with good rewards that is not using it instead of their debit card for daily purchases is literally just throwing money away.

3. Almost always. My reasoning is if the card gets stolen/skimmed/hacked it’s the banks money their stealing and not my money. Plus we have pretty good consumer protection laws for credit cards.

4. I never use a debit card if I can avoid it.

   Credit cards have rewards points and better fraud protection (because the transaction never reaches your bank account, even temporarily). There are no downsides to using a credit card as long as you pay the balance every month.

5. I use a credit card 99% of the time. I might use my debit card a handful of times a year.

   I get reward points for using my credit card so I can stay at hotels and get flights for free whenever I need to travel.

6. I just got my first credit card this year, since my parents always warned against them and they don’t have one. Now I just use it for everything. I like the feeling of getting cashback and the better protections.

7. I use a credit card for everything and pay it off every week or two so I don’t pay any interest.

   I do it because I get miles to use on plane tickets. I havnt paid for a flight in a very long time

8. Almost always, my credit card is more secure and earns me points. I pay it off every month, so I pay no interest.

9. We get this question a lot, and I think its because the credit card product is fundamentally different between the US and EU.

   CC companies make most of their money from interchange, which is the fee charged to merchants for accepting cards. Interchange fees in the US are around 3%. They are capped in the EU at 0.3%.

   Most of that 3% is refunded to customers in the form of various rewards, like cash back (2% cash back is easily attainable), points, miles, etc. EU cards cannot do this, and have to be profitable in other ways — fees, interest revenue, a loss leader for other products, etc.

   If you can get a credit card in the US, it always makes sense to use it because you are literally paid to do so.

10. All the time. Credit cards are safer, and I get cash back when I use it. Used to be wary of them but then I realized they are a great tool if you pay off immediately.