Congratulations! You’ve decided to pop the question to your significant other. Maybe you’re planning a wedding, or some kind of commitment ceremony that suits your values. Either way, engagement rings cost a lot. According to The Knot, a leading online source for information related to weddings, the average wedding ring costs upwards of $5K, and you haven’t even planned the honeymoon!
The right credit card will help you buy the ring you’ve always wanted, and the perfect representation of your love and commitment. Furthermore, with the best cash back rewards, points earned on the purchase can go toward gas, travel, and dining during or after the ceremony — or even perhaps cut the cost of building or renovating your forever home.
In this guide, we present the three best credit cards to buy the ring that best represents your love. You’ve found the one. Let the best credit cards for buying an engagement ring help make the wedding of your dreams come true.
What is the Credit Card for Buying an Engagement Ring
There are many great reasons to purchase something as important as an engagement ring with a credit card: from 0% APR to points on the purchase that can be used to furnish your new home or to pay for travel after the ceremony,
Or maybe instead, you just want the freedom and flexibility to pay off the ring over time.
Never put a purchase you can’t afford on credit, but to finance the perfect diamond ring with plastic, here are three cards to consider:
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement Ring with 0% intro APR: American Express Cash Magnet Card
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement with Ring with an Intro Spending Bonus: The Platinum Card from American Express
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement Ring and Pay for the Honeymoon: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Stick around because we’re about to tell you why these cards topped our list for tying the knot. Before getting into any of that, though, let’s discuss whether or not paying for something like a diamond ring with a credit card is a good idea in the first place.
Here are the pros and cons of financing your purchase with credit over some other method of payment.
Should I buy an engagement ring with a credit card?
Again, it’s never a good idea to charge any purchase — including an engagement ring — that you can’t afford and without a solid plan in place to pay back the debt.
With some careful budgeting, though, and strategic selection of the right credit card offering the best perks, there are many sensible reasons to put the ring on plastic.
Here are a few things to consider before making your decision:
Should I get a credit card from a jewelry store? Like many retailers, jewelers offer credit cards of their own. Although this option lets you defer payment, merchant-specific credit cards like these are less likely to offer 0% intro APR financing, or the flexibility to redeem points earned on the purchase on travel or dining. Also, the minimum credit score requirements are likely much stricter than the major credit card companies.
Should I take out a personal loan? Another way to pay for the ring is a personal loan. The interest rate will likely be much lower than those offered through a credit card (but then again, much higher than a 0% APR intro offer, so there are tradeoffs). For example, personal interest rates right now are hovering around 10%, according to the Federal Reserve, while average credit card interest rates are more like 16% on the low end!
A personal loan also offers the flexibility to pay back the money over a much longer timeframe, sometimes years. And the minimum credit score requirements on a personal loan are sometimes much more forgiving than those required from the major credit card companies.
When it comes to personal loans, there are a lot of application fees to worry about, which are both a hassle and a way to burn some extra cash. And like any other kind of debt, it’s important to read the fine print, make sure you understand the repayment plan, and never borrow more than you can afford.
Should I use point-of-sale financing? Increasingly offered across a broad-range of retailers, point-of-sale financing is appealing for many reasons, including the freedom to pay back the money in installments. Plus, many point-of-sale financing services also boast 0% interest intro periods, just like a credit card company.
But just like with a credit card, it’s important to have a plan to repay the debt within the introductory period so as not to incur any additional debt, and to otherwise be clear about the regular APR because the average interest rates on point-of-sale financing can be quite high. What’s missing from the point-of-sale financing approach are the points.
Pay with a credit card from our ranking, and there’s no better way to get cash back rewards on travel, dining, and shopping — padding the budget, possibly, in other areas of the wedding planning process.
Should I pay cash? Look, the best way to pay for anything is to save up your hard-earned cash and buy the ring free and clear. Spend the cash (or save up the money) and use a credit card and enjoy the best of both worlds:
- Make a responsible financial decision and enjoy the benefits of repayment.
- Enjoy a no interest introductory period.
- Put some cash back in your pocket.
For this reason, we suggest a combination of money in the bank and a strategic credit card purchase with a solid plan in place to repay the debt is the best way to buy an engagement ring.
Which brings us now to what we’re all here for. We’ve covered a bit about the pros and cons of different engagement ring financing options. In our next section, we’ll tell what made the cards in our ranking the best.
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement Ring with 0% intro APR: American Express Cash Magnet Card
Perhaps the best reason to buy the diamond ring that best represents your commitment is to take advantage of the 0% APR introductory period. Or in other words, a no-interest loan on the purchase. The best American Express Cash Magnet Card for the 0% intro APR is without a doubt the Cash Magnet card from Amex.
Use the Cash Magnet card and get no interest for the first 15 months after opening the account, turning a roughly $5K engagement ring purchase into something like $400 monthly installments. Once the intro period is over, though, interest rates jump to a variable 13.99% to 23.99%. There are cards offering longer 0% APR periods, but those cards tend to get you with higher variable interest rates once the introductory period has elapsed.
As well as the generous introductory period, we like how the Cash Magnet card shows up strong with 1.5% cash back on all purchases, with no categories to track. After all, you have enough to worry about when it comes to planning a wedding, don’t you?
Make other purchases with the card related to the wedding ceremony and these points could go a long way toward funding the honeymoon. For example, how else could you get as much as $80 in cash back rewards on the average $5K engagement ring?
Other points to be aware of concerning the Cash Magnet card include the $150 statement bonus after the first $1K spent on the card within the first three months after opening the account, and no annual fee.
And when making a purchase as large as an engagement ring, you want purchase protection. With AMEX, enjoy $1K in incident protection if the ring should happen to be damaged, lost, or stolen within 90 days of making the purchase. There’s also zero fraud liability, so your security is never in doubt.
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement with Ring with an Intro Spending Bonus: The Platinum Card from American Express
To get the most bang for your buck in terms of an introductory spending bonus, consider the next card in our ranking: The Platinum Card from American Express.
With the Amex Platinum, earn an impressive 75K points after spending $5K in the first six months after opening the account, and 1x on all purchases. Buy the average engagement ring, and you’re already well on your way.
What’s more, using the Amex CardMatch for more targeted spending means getting offers as high as 125,000 Membership Rewards (some exclusions apply). Either way, Amex membership rewards points are among the most valuable in the game, and especially useful for those planning a wedding or a honeymoon.
For example, these points transfer to 16 hotel and airline partners, ideal for planning your honeymoon, with loads of opportunities to upgrade the experience.
Those bennies include airline fee credits, elite status at all sorts of hotels, and even airport lounge access.
The Platinum Card is also the best choice for purchase protection, reimbursing up to $10K with a maximum of $50K annually on purchases within the first 90 days should the ring be lost or damaged.
Annual fees on the Platinum card will run you upwards of $550, though. But don’t miss the $200 annual airline fee credit, covering additional luggage costs and other incidentals making your honeymoon flight as comfortable as possible.
And if, heaven forbid, your flight is delayed for more than six hours, Amex Platinum covers up to $500 related to the delay, and even offers $200 in Uber credits once you arrive.
If you dream of paying for your honeymoon on points, Amex Platinum is the card for you. But for a whole host of other reasons, just a few of which we’ve mentioned here, the card is without a doubt one of the credit cards to buy an engagement ring, and pay for the ceremony of your dreams.
Best Credit Card for Buying an Engagement Ring and Pay for the Honeymoon: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
You bought the ring and popped the question. What’s next? Turns out, that’s just the beginning of the wedding planning process. When it comes time to plan the honeymoon, specifically, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card can help.
Leading off the list of things making Venture Rewards the best card to buy the ring and pay for the honeymoon (or other parts of the ceremony) on points is the very generous 100K in bonus miles offered on the first $20K spent on the card in the first year after opening the account. If a wedding price tag like that isn’t your style, the card still offers 50K miles on the first $3K spent in the first 3 months, so there’s something for everyone.
Other things we liked about the card include an unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day, and best of all there’s no pressure to redeem them because the miles won’t expire for the life of the account. Meaning a long engagement is in store, or if you just have a big wedding to plan, there’s even more reason this card is right for you.
There is also no 0% intro APR period, unfortunately. Nor is there 0% APR on balance transfers, both things to be aware of. But regular APR on the card ranges between 17.24% and 24.49%, which is pretty on par for most credit cards, and there is a $95 annual fee.
But despite these minor drawbacks, the Venture Rewards Credit Card offers features like the $100 application fee for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck, and the freedom to transfer those miles to more than 15 travel loyalty programs with no foreign transaction fee. With this in mind, why not use the Capital One Venture Rewards card to buy an engagement ring and pay for your honeymoon while you’re at it?
And there you have it: the three best credit cards to buy a band of gold, or the perfect diamond to represent your love.
We’ve already mentioned the average engagement ring costs about $5K. But is that the right amount for your ring? What is the perfect amount to spend on a ring?
We’ll answer that question in our next section.
How much should I spend on an engagement ring?
No two engagement rings are made the same, nor should they be. An engagement ring should be as unique as your love and commitment. Naturally, this means engagement rings prices can vary well beyond — but also much less — than the average.
When budgeting for your engagement ring purchase, here are some points to consider. Because the truth of the matter is, beautiful engagement rings are available for as little as $1K, or much more than $20K, depending on your tastes.
- The Two Months Salary Rule: Debunked
Popularized by De Beers, the two months salary rule says your engagement ring should cost two months salary. Or in other words, if the average American salary is about $80K a year in 2021, then you should plan on spending about $14K on your engagement ring.
What’s the problem here? You got it. That’s nearly 3X the average cost of a wedding ring. We discourage using the two months salary rule because it sets up some unreasonable expectations about how much a wedding ring should cost: expectations padding the bottom line of the jeweler instead of the planning budget for the big event.
- The Diamond Approach
Some say the cost of an engagement ring is reflected by the size, type, and carats of the diamond, and if you want to pay less, you should downgrade the diamond.
This may seem sensible at first, because diamond prices can vary widely depending on a number or factors, directly affecting the overall cost of the ring. The thing to be careful about using this approach, though, is that when it comes to diamonds, you get what you pay for.
Just be sure your thriftiness won’t result in dissatisfaction with the overall presentation of the ring sometime down the line.
- The Rule of Averages
Which brings us back to that $5K average cost of an engagement ring. Most experts agree that an engagement ring will cost you somewhere in the range of $5K to $6K, regardless of your income, and regardless of the size, type, and quality of the diamond.
Bearing this average in mind when you begin the ring-shopping experience will help ensure you don’t overpay for the ring, but that you also get a ring that you and your partner will be truly satisfied with for eternity.
Engagement ring or not, it’s never a good idea to purchase something on a credit card you can’t afford, or without a plan to pay off the debt in a timely manner. Planning carefully, though, while saving some cash, and buying the ring with the right credit card can pay dividends down the line: on the ceremony, for the honeymoon, and for your life beyond.
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