The best cash back cards are:
Chase Freedom Card: Good starting bonus, category bonus (5% upto $1500 quarterly and 1% overall) and overall versatile card with good ads on TV.
American Express Blue: The old blue cash card is nice enough but so are the new ones and the Blue Cash Preferred. The Blue cash preferred has an annual fee of $75 but gives you 6% cash back on groceries up to $6500.
Discover IT card: Similar to Chase Freedom Card
Barclay’s Arrival Card/Fidelity Amex and Visa card/Capital One Spark Card/Wells Fargo card/USAA card: Has 2% across the board though many such as USAA or Wells Fargo are restricted for few months.
Local credit unions and regional banks offer many cards which offer category bonuses and decent cash back. PNC/Pentagon Federal Credit Union/Navy Federal Credit Union/NASA Federal Credit Union/Niagara bank/Suntrust bank all offer few category rewards. A decent player is the US Bank. They have multiple cards with good cash back feature. The Cash+ card can be opened only in bank branches but offers decent category rewards. The best way is to open up maps or any online tool and search for banks nearby, visit their website and check out their credit card page.
Sometimes it is much easier and better to get your points in cash back. Leading bloggers/portals all try to value your points in cash back. The simplicity of cash back is that you are free to do whatever you want as per your own convenience. Nothing infuriating than going to an airline redemption page and keying in your dates and finding that you are falling short or that the flight timings are not as per your need. Much much better to have the cash handy. In fact, in my earlier days, I used to look at only cash back or gift cards as the main redemption options. Airlines redemptions were highly targeted based on upcoming travels and ROI in terms of the minimum spend vs the points gained. I would go on a limp and say that even if you were to get a few points more while redeeming for airlines vs have an option for cash back, go for cash back option. The airline redeeming option pretty much locks the routes, airline choice and many other things, most importantly your thoughts and touring strategy before you start.
For instance, I found that I used to look at bus, train, ultra low-cost airlines such as Spirit or Frontier (which typically flies to abandoned airports where no one else flies :D) or just plain old driving. Calculating the cost difference, sometimes I found that I would have been much better off paying cash with a smaller airline and utilize a different mode of transport on the way forward. Or really want to take that road trip to another town nearby from where I could get a much better one way deal.
Credit Cards Earning Points on Steroids 