Sarah Barness is the credit cards editor at Finder, keeping up with the latest products in the industry to present readers with unbiased reviews and guides. She has over eight years of digital media industry experience in fast-paced newsrooms in New York City and Los Angeles. Before Finder, Sarah was ranked as a top-viewed HuffPost editor and writer. She was also a lifestyle senior editor for A Plus, a digital media publication founded by Ashton Kutcher. Sarah holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School, as well as a certificate in editing from Poynter ACES.
Expertise
- Reward, travel, balance transfer, secured and business credit cards
- Identity theft and scams
- Credit management
Experience
- Holds a certificate in editing from Poynter ACES
- Edited hundreds of credit card articles, from reviews to best lists to how-to guides
- Earned over 300 million pageviews during her tenure at A Plus
- Named in the top-20 most-viewed authors on the Internet by MediaMetric in 2014
- Boasted 40 million monthly pageviews during her time at HuffPost
Education
- Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction | The New School | 2019–2021
- Bachelor of Arts in rhetoric and media studies | University of California, Berkeley | 2008–2010
Featured publications
Industry insights from Sarah Barness
We asked Sarah to flex her expertise by answering a few questions about how COVID-19 has changed her credit card usage in 2021.
How did COVID-19 impact the way you used your travel credit card last year?
I use my JetBlue Mastercard most for travel. Before the lockdown, I had made travel plans to visit my hometown in Los Angeles. I was able to cancel the flight, penalty-free, through my credit card and reschedule the flight for a safer travel time. Because I didn’t travel for the year and the card has no annual fee, I felt comfortable putting it away and instead leaning on my other rewards cards.
What credit cards did you find to be more useful to you during the pandemic?
During the pandemic, I was mostly only buying food and essential supplies. For groceries and dining out, I used my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card, earning 3% cash back on dining purchases and 1.5% on everything else. I used my Amazon Prime credit card to buy other essentials I needed delivered, earning 5% back on my Amazon and Whole Foods purchases.
