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You are 100% correct that most credit unions have terrible credit cards. Unfortunately most of them also have terrible online banking. They also have terrible fraud detection. The balance that I have found works good for me is that I keep liquid assets at credit unions and I will get a debit card from them, but try to avoid using it if at all possible. I also hold credit cards with the major banks (except Wells Fargo, which I refuse to bank with in any capacity). I make all purchases throughout the month on credit cards with the exception of things like mortgage, car payment, etc.. Obviously also paying those cards off each month. There are numerous advantages to using credit cards over debit cards that I won't get into here. I have a variety of credit cards that use Chase, BofA, AMEX, and Capital One. I also have at least one of each of the three major card brands (Visa, Mastercard, Amex). Then of course I have a couple investment accounts I use for holding long term assets. I find that this balance is the best that you can come up with. My liquid assets (money I make from work for example) goes into my primary credit union account. I try to hold mortgage and car loans through the same credit union and those get paid directly from the checking account. I try to avoid any other line items on that account other than payments to pay off credit cards. Then day-to-day expenses (food, amazon, stuff from Target, etc) get paid with credit cards. This way no one has direct access to my liquid assets if a card number gets compromised. I also don't have to deal with the bad online banking experience of the credit unions because I don't really use them for much other than a selected number of major payments each month. Instead my general purchases are on well known credit cards that have really good apps (Like Chase for example) and online experiences and reward programs. This balance is great. You build a good relationship with a credit union and you keep your primary liquid assets with them instead of the major banks. Credit Unions are particularly good when you want things like Mortgages, construction loans, lines of credit, or car loans. So you can use credit unions for these things and maintain a good relationship with them. But where the credit union is weak, you leverage the strength of the major banks for good credit cards, good rewards programs, good fraud detection, good apps, and so forth. But at the end of the day they don't actually hold any of your money. |