I don't know what happens in the US, but in Australia we have credit card and debit cards. Credit Cards typically charge a 1%..2% fee, Debit Cards have a 0% fe

I don't know what happens in the US, but in Australia we have credit card and debit cards. Credit Cards typically charge a 1%..2% fee, Debit Cards have a 0% fee. Both are issued by Visa or Mastercard. 0% is much closer to what is costs for a computer to record the transaction that 1%..2%. That's 1%..2% of a huge chunk of consumer expenditure for something that evidently costs close to nothing to run (going by the Debit Card fees). If you earn $100,000 a year, spend 1/2 of it using credit cards, then at 1% that's $500 a year. How much are you earning in rewards?