PNC Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card

Rewards by category

Our take

The PNC Cash Rewards Visa charges no annual fee and pays 4% back on gas, 3% on dining, 2% at grocery stores and 1% on everything else. Read those three bonus rates as one rate wearing three hats: they share a single $8,000 annual cap on combined spending. Gas, dining and groceries all draw from the same pot, and once the $8,000 is gone, every one of them drops to 1% for the rest of your card year.

That phrase — your card year — is the second thing to know, and it is unusual. The cap resets on your account anniversary, not on January 1 the way most caps do. If you were approved in September, your bonus spending runs September to September, so a heavy holiday season can burn through the allowance of a year that, on the calendar, has barely started. Nothing announces the reset to you, which makes the date worth writing down somewhere you will find it. One more caveat before you pack: this card carries a 3% foreign transaction fee, which is $60 on a $2,000 trip and reason enough to leave it at home.

The arithmetic puts a firm ceiling on all of it. $8,000 at the top 4% rate is $320 of cash back, and that is the best case; any realistic mix of gas, dining and groceries lands lower. A flat 2% card would have paid $160 on the same $8,000 without asking you to track anything, so the most this card can beat one by is $160 a year, and only if every one of those dollars was fuel. That makes it a reasonable card for a moderate spender who fills up regularly and eats out often, especially someone already banking with PNC. It does not lead our gas ranking — the AAA Travel Advantage and the rotating 5% cards beat 4% — and if your combined gas, dining and grocery spending runs well past $8,000, PNC's own Cash Unlimited pays a flat, uncapped 2% with no foreign transaction fee.

The math

Run $200 a month of gas through this card and you're earning about $96 a year at our conservative valuations. There's no annual fee to earn back — everything above the 1% base rate is pure upside.

Key benefits

• No annual fee

Common questions

Does PNC Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card have an annual fee?

No — PNC Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card has no annual fee.

What does PNC Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card earn on gas?

4% on gas (up to $8,000/yr (combined)).

What rewards does PNC Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card earn on everything else?

1% on all other purchases, in Cash Back.

When does the PNC Cash Rewards $8,000 cap reset?

On your account anniversary, not on January 1. The $8,000 is a cap on combined spending across gas, dining and groceries, and it starts over twelve months after your account was opened, so an approval in September gives you a September-to-September bonus year. Most competing caps are calendar-based, so this is easy to get wrong; note your own date, because the reset is not announced.

How much cash back can the 4% gas rate actually pay?

At most $320 a year, and only in the impossible case where all $8,000 of capped spending is gas. Because dining earns 3% and groceries 2%, a realistic mix pays less. Measured against a flat 2% card, which would earn $160 on that same $8,000, the maximum advantage is $160 a year — and every dollar past the cap earns 1%, half what the flat card pays.