Best credit card for everything else

Everything else covers purchases that do not fall into a bonus category, including many superstores and general retailers that code as general merchandise. The best card here is simply your strongest flat everyday rate, which is why one belongs in every wallet.

At checkout, every purchase carries a merchant category code that the payment network assigns to the seller, and that code, not the individual item you bought, is what tells a card whether a purchase qualifies for a bonus. The Everything Else bucket is not a code of its own; it is the residual, meaning any transaction whose merchant code does not match one of a card's defined bonus categories. This is why a large general retailer, a warehouse club, or a superstore that sells groceries, electronics, and household goods under one roof often lands here, since the whole location is typically coded as general merchandise or a discount store rather than as a supermarket or an electronics dealer. The practical consequence is that a purchase can quietly miss a bonus not because of what it is but because of how the store registered its business, and the same item bought at two different retailers can earn two different rates.

Cards reward this residual category in fundamentally different ways, and the differences matter more here than almost anywhere else. A flat everyday card pays one uncapped rate on all spending, which by definition means it pays that rate on Everything Else, while a tiered category card pays an elevated rate only in its named categories and drops to a lower base rate on everything outside them. Some cards add friction that erodes the value: a yearly or quarterly cap after which earning falls to the base rate, rotating or seasonal categories you must track and sometimes activate, a co-branded store card that only shines at its own brand, or a shopping portal that reroutes where the credit is actually earned. Redemption mechanics and acceptance also shape the real return, since a card on a less widely accepted network, one that charges an annual fee, or one that only pays full value through a specific redemption path can look better on paper than in your wallet.

Choosing well starts from an honest look at where your uncategorized spending actually goes, because the right card for this category is usually the one that pays a strong rate with no cap, no activation, and no category to track. If most of your general merchandise and superstore spending is genuinely uncategorized, a single dependable flat everyday card will beat a category card that leaves this bucket at its base rate, and it removes the mental overhead of guessing what will trigger. The most common mistake is assuming a store earns a bonus because of what it sells, then discovering it coded as general merchandise and paid only the base rate, so a shopper who leaned on a category card walked away with far less than expected. The fix is to let the residual category be handled by your strongest flat rate and reserve your category cards for the merchants that reliably match their bonus codes.