Interview with Nerd Wallet

What are some need-to-know things about yourself?

I am a hedge fund analyst in New York City, and have spent my career organizing heaps of disorganized information to come up with actionable investment recommendations. Organizing credit card offers is really no different – finding the best rewards card or best low APR card depends on a few salient questions about how a consumer plans to use the card.

How does Nerd Wallet have a different spin on finances than the other financial blogs out there?

NerdWallet is all about the numbers. We present ALL the numbers and facts, and trust that the user is smart enough to handle some analysis on their own. Other credit card blogs tend to only compare the 10% of cards out there that pay referral fees, and omit other cards. This is a shame because the consumer loses out on many potentially better deals.

To illustrate our breadth, our Gas Credit Card review lists 26 credit cards that pay more than 1% back on gas station purchases, then walks through the exceptions to the advertised rewards rate. We let users know that some cards don’t get the advertised gas rebate at Costco, some cards don’t get it for diesel, and some cards have a monthly maximum rebate.

What influences your blogs?

The genesis of our blog posts usually come from either (i) our constant monitoring of credit card deals, or (ii) from real life experience with credit cards.

I was ecstatic when the Subaru Card with 3% rewards towards Subaru service & purchases came back, which influenced a post about GM and Subaru 3% cards being the best deal out there for people who want to buy those cars.

In terms of posts from life experience, I recently mauled a rental car and learned a lot from the experience, influencing this post about whether people should buy rental car insurance. The answer is usually no, but not for the reasons I originally thought.

What is your favorite financial topic to write about and why?
Credit card rewards. It’s a niche that lacks good analysis, and the reason is obvious. Less than 10% of credit cards promote themselves on the internet, so there is no incentive for credit card sites to index them. Meanwhile, personal finance bloggers are well meaning, but don’t have the time to index 500+ credit cards like we do.

We are the only place where you can sort the entire universe of credit cards, by rewards or APRs, and that allows us to generate great proprietary blog content.

What topic is popular among your readers?
Our readers are constantly pinging us with suggestions about great credit cards they have that we haven’t indexed yet, which we promptly add to the site. To give an example, we didn’t know about the wonderful BP credit card, with 5% back at BP and 2% back on travel and dining, until a user told us about it after our gas credit card blog post.

Do you have some financial advice for readers?
There are great ways to use a combination of different credit cards to your advantage.

If you carry a balance, get a great balance transfer credit card, but spend your money on a great rewards card (usually with high APRs) which you pay off first.

Also, combining two or more rewards cards can really juice your rewards, especially when they often offer 5% back “teaser categories” in different areas. For example, there are cards that pay 5% back on dining, and different cards that pay 5% back on gas & groceries.

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