TD Double Up® Credit Card

Unlimited 2% cash back on all eligible purchases with no rotating categories and no caps puts this level with Citi Double Cash, Wells Fargo Active Cash and PNC Cash Unlimited at the top of the flat-rate group here.

The difference is that rewards are delivered as a statement credit. That's a meaningful distinction from cash back paid to a bank account: a statement credit reduces what you owe on the card rather than giving you money, so the rewards can only ever offset card spending. For anyone who uses the card monthly it amounts to the same thing; for someone who might close the account or stop using it, it doesn't.

The earning rate is identical across all four, so the tiebreakers are elsewhere. Citi Double Cash adds 18 months at 0% on balance transfers. Wells Fargo Active Cash adds 12 months at 0% on purchases. TD Double Up and PNC Cash Unlimited have no verified intro period.

What TD adds instead is the branch relationship, and specifically the East Coast network — 1,052 branches, dense where they exist. The APR is 18.49%, 23.49% or 28.49%, published as three tiers, which makes the outcome more predictable than a range.

One thing to weigh: TD's app rates 4.1 on Google Play, the lowest of any bank in this catalog. On a card you'll manage almost entirely through an app, that's worth five minutes of recent reviews before applying.

TD Double Up pays its 2% as a credit against the balance rather than as cash you can move somewhere else. The other three 2% cards in this catalog give you cash back you can direct as you like; here the reward reduces what you owe TD.

Whether that matters depends entirely on what you would have done with the money. If cash back goes back onto the card anyway, the distinction is cosmetic. If you treat rewards as income - moving it to savings, or spending it elsewhere - a statement credit is a worse form of the same 2%, and one of the other three is a better fit.

There is nothing to activate, no quarterly enrolment and no combined spending cap. Set against the category cards in this catalog - Chase Freedom Flex at 5% on rotating categories up to $1,500 a quarter, PNC Cash Rewards at 4% on fuel up to a shared $8,000 a year - this asks nothing of you at all.

The published rate structure runs to three tiers afterwards: 18.49%, 23.49% or 28.49%. Middling for this catalog, and irrelevant if the balance never survives the month, which is the only way a 2% card is worth holding.

TD Double Up pays its 2% as a credit against the balance rather than as cash you can move somewhere else. The other three 2% cards in this catalog give you cash back you can direct as you like; here the reward reduces what you owe TD.

Whether that matters depends entirely on what you would have done with the money. If cash back goes back onto the card anyway, the distinction is cosmetic. If you treat rewards as income - moving it to savings, or spending it elsewhere - a statement credit is a worse form of the same 2%, and one of the other three is a better fit.

There is nothing to activate, no quarterly enrolment and no combined spending cap. Set against the category cards in this catalog - Chase Freedom Flex at 5% on rotating categories up to $1,500 a quarter, PNC Cash Rewards at 4% on fuel up to a shared $8,000 a year - this asks nothing of you at all.

The published rate structure runs to three tiers afterwards: 18.49%, 23.49% or 28.49%. Middling for this catalog, and irrelevant if the balance never survives the month, which is the only way a 2% card is worth holding.