Best Credit Card for U.S. Mint Coin Purchases

We see an occasional coin deal from the U.S. Mint which is profitable for resell. These coin deals became popular in our little community by one specific coin buyer, though there are now multiple buyers out there that people are comfortable with. This post addresses which credit card to use on those purchases.

A few notes about payments to U.S. Mint:

• All U.S. Bank and Elan credit cards do not earn points on U.S. Mint purchases. Don’t use any card from those issuers such as the Altitude cards, the Fidelity 2% card, or any other. These purchases also do not count toward a spend requirement on U.S. Bank/Elan cards (1).
• Alliant (1) and H.M. Bradley (1, 2) have also been mentioned as not giving rewards on the purchase.
• The U.S. Mint typically does accept Paypal. I assume Paypal payments will have the same issues in terms of using AmEx or U.S. Bank/Elan cards as when paying directly. Note: When household-limited deals come up, such as the coin deals we often see, they might disallow Paypal payments to help enforce the household limit. (1, 2)
• (At one point, the official terms of American Express stated that coin purchases are considered a cash advance, though it was never enforced and points were always earned, in practice. Since October 1, 2021, American Express has reversed course and they now officially do not consider these purchases to be cash advances. As such, American Express cards should now earn points without question, even according to the official terms. And it should certainly count toward signup bonus spend requirement as well.)

Other than US Bank/Elan, all the other major card issuers work well for U.S. Mint purchases – they earn points and they are not considered cash advances. This includes Chase, Citi, Barclay, Capital One, American Express, etc, etc.

Purchases from the U.S. Mint code as 9399 ‘Government Services – DEFAULT’, according to reports (1, 2). These purchases won’t earn any sort of category bonus. They don’t even earn an online purchase category bonus (e.g. Bank of America Cash Rewards 1, 2) since they code as government, not online retail.

Either use a card that has a spend bonus on it or else just use a regular everyday credit card, see Best Credit Cards For Every Day Purchases. Some examples might be the Citi Double Cash, Chase Freedom Unlimited, AmEx Blue Business Plus, Capital One Venture, Barclay Arrival+, or Bank of America Premium Rewards card.

Please add any other notes and tips that we missed in the comments below.