Need advice on a good rewards credit card

I went today to talk to a loan officer about getting prepared to buy a house near the end of next year.  I was outlining my plans to her on paying off my student loans (pounding out $1500 a month towards them) and her big suggestion to me to bump up my credit score some more was to get a credit card.  I've always been anti-CC my whole life but it seems to be a necessary evil.

I'm not worried about the APR on the card because I'm going to pay it off every month.  She worked at Regions bank so of course she strongly recommended the Regions card but the rewards program on it didn't seem very good.  Currently, I am considering the Capital One Quicksilver, Chase Freedom or the Sony card.  Anyone have any suggestions? Also as a side note, I don't travel for work or pleasure so any airline mileage rewards wouldn't benefit me.

You took some bad advice about being CC free.  But I guess you know that now.  I've had some CAGs argue with me that somehow buying into credit cards is being a sucker.  It's not being a sucker if you don't carry a balance.

Quicksilver is the most flexible.  1.5% no matter what you buy.  Amex Blue (Free version) is pretty good too.  I think it's 1% everything. 3% supermarkets.  I have the preferred version where I pay $75 a year but get 6% back on groceries.  I buy a lot of groceries.  

If you want to deal with the whole 5% rotating categories by quarter, Discover is really good and you get a free FICO score every month.

For example, Q2 was home improvement.  Q3 is gas.   

I would say figure out what you would like the rewards in... If you travel and airline one is great. If you just want cash back then find one with good cash back, if you like gift cards and such one like that or the Sony card.

I work for a bank and have worked at a couple over the last several years, it's crazy with the economic meltdown how many people see CC as a bad word... Then find out what happens when they go to buy a car, house, etc.

Also as a word of advice, assuming this is your first CC, make sure you find one you like, the key to good credit is establishing a good credit line and keeping it open. Your first credit line will be the basis going forward, close it too soon and it can ding your credit.

I second Discover. One of the best things about it is that you can use your rewards on Amazon along with 90 day price protection, 90 day returns, extended warranty, and some other good stuff.

Discover IT and AMEX Blue are both good. We have those and a Chase card. What will work well for you will depend entirely on your spending profile. We've got two kids and burn through a lot of groceries. I'll use the Blue to buy gift cards at grocers for 6% cash back when there's nothing better available.

Discover's cash back store portal can also be very good, esp. around the holidays. Last year it was 5% back at BsstBuy.com + 5% back for online purchases as the quarterly promo. That killed.

Sallie Mae Mastercard. 5% back on Gas up to $250 a month (relatively low but it gets the job done for me) and 5% back on bookstores up to $750 a month (Amazon is considered a book store)

US Bank Cash+ if you have a good credit score. 

I have all the ones mentioned above as well and they are all great cards to be honest. My Quicksilver gets used the least though.

After dealing with Sallie Mae for my student loans all I have to say is stay away from them.  I was going to get a high interest savings with them till all the issues with my student loans started.  After talking to people most couldn't stand them.

I use Citi card however I'm not sure if they would be my choice if I was to pick a new one today.  I got them years ago and no of the point programs were all that good I thought.  Citi seemed to be the best.  With the thankyou program you can use them for a number of things and with in the past year or so they have started to let you use them on Amazon.com.  Two years ago they did give an extra warranty on electronics however I no longer get the emails about it.  Only electronics that I have bought with it have been my cell phones and now Sprint wants to just put it on your cellphone bill so it just looks like you're paying your phone bill.  I tried to explain to the guy how my card worked and he didn't car so all Citi saw was a large bill at Sprint.  Keep that in mind for anything that you purchase and think you might get a warranty on with your credit card.  It all depends on how it's billed.  For my EVO 4G they did bill it as a phone purchase and with in an hour I got an email from Citi telling me I had an extended warranty for it.  

Give Citi a look however you may or may not find better.  Also some cards come with a chip in them now and some don't.  Mine was just changed to have a chip in it and some places I go I have to use the chip to have it read and others are not setup for it.  It gets annoying at times, especially when the place has the equipment for the chip, but they don't have that part of it running.

The Sallie Mae Mastercard is powered by Barclay and not Sallie Mae themselves

Coming from a background of absolutely trashing my credit, CapitalOne was the only major player to offer me a credit card 4 years into nonpayment/delinquent account balances. They offered me a Journeys card which came with credit monitoring services, then 8 months later a Platinum card with 1% reward and 0.25% reward for on-time payments. Then a month after that, the Quicksilver which is 1.5% back available immediately after the transaction posts. So far no issues at all. I closed the first card and run everything I possibly can through the Quicksilver and pay the balance ASAP. If you have other reward interests check them out but for straight up cash back, the Quicksilver has been a nice surprise for me. 

After reading through the posts and doing some additional research I went with the Discover card.  I was approved instantly.  Thanks everyone for your input!

I gave up on Capital One once they doubled the amount of points everything cost when you want to cash out. That was before I got my Quicksilver card, which is now only used for vet bills and XBL.

I'm happy with Chase Freedom. I don't always pay attention to the categories for the bonus points, but it's nice to get them now and then.

Chase Freedom is awesome and can be linked to Amazon so you can use the points as money. 

So if you have 500 points it can be used as 5 dollars towards your Amazon purchase.

Out of the 3 you listed I would have said to pick Chase Freedom.

I have used the Sony card and it was good for me to get PlayStation products, PSN cards

I also use the Amazon card which is nice if you like to shop on there website.

Really it depends on what rewards you want and where you shop.  Maybe consider the local gas station you frequent for their credit card.  The BP Chase card gave me 5% cash back for using it at BP gas stations.

I'd go with Chase Freedom.

I've always wondered about this. Thanks for the tips.

Good thread to read, I'm about to get my first CC as well.