Sarah Barness is the Head of Content at O.school and freelance writer 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
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.
Find out how to receive a bonus from popular get-paid-to platform Swagbucks.
Advertiser disclosure
Finder.com is an independent comparison platform and information service that aims to provide you with the tools you need to make better decisions. While we are independent, the offers that appear on this site are from companies from which Finder receives compensation. We may receive compensation from our partners for placement of their products or services. We may also receive compensation if you click on certain links posted on our site. While compensation arrangements may affect the order, position or placement of product information, it doesn't influence our assessment of those products. Please don't interpret the order in which products appear on our Site as any endorsement or recommendation from us. Finder compares a wide range of products, providers and services but we don't provide information on all available products, providers or services. Please appreciate that there may be other options available to you than the products, providers or services covered by our service.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
How likely would you be to recommend Finder to a friend or colleague?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Very UnlikelyExtremely Likely
Required
Thank you for your feedback.
Our goal is to create the best possible product, and your thoughts, ideas and suggestions play a major role in helping us identify opportunities to improve.
