credit card rewards programs

[teachermom2834]

*please do not respond with credit cards are evil or refer me to Dave Ramsey. I believe credit cards can be useful and convenient. I have no issues with overspending on them and I pay the credit cards off in full each month and have for years.*

Now that is out of the way- how do you maximize rewards if you use a credit card with that intent? We don't travel much at all. We are pretty simple in our spending habits and I really think I would just use the cash back feature as a credit back on our account. We have been doing that for awhile without intention; we just use the credit card for specific things and when we have some rewards cash built up I use it as a credit on our account. 

I recently got a new card with a higher rewards cashback percentage. Obviously it isn't enough in rewards to justify buying anything we wouldn't normally buy, but if I intentionally used this card for all the groceries/gas/school expenses/dance studio tuition/cell phone/utilites, etc. it would add up by the end of a year and those are all things we are buying anyway, I think I have figured out which of our bills we can pay by cc. 

My mortgage and my car payment can't be paid that way but so far it seems like all our other bills and insurance can be. 

I guess i'm just asking if anyone else does this and if they have found any other tips to maximize rewards. Do you spend them periodically or let them build up over a year or more? How often do you pay your cc bill? I suspect I will pay on it biweekly when dh gets paid. I'm not used to having a high balance on it and I think it might make me twitchy and initially I will probably pay it off every time dh gets paid. 

I guess another upside would be putting alot of these bills on autopay. I have only done that for a few things over time because I just like to physically move the money out of my checking account. I don't like a bunch of automatic drafts just i case something happens and dh gets paid late or there is an error and it can be a pain getting those automatic drafts stopped. But if I could put them set to autopay on the cc, that would be more convenient. 

Any other tips or tricks for maximizing rewards? Have you found a great rewards card? 

[Katy]

There are lots of tricks to maximize rewards, it’s called credit card churning. It can also negatively affect your score. There are lots of websites about it and even a sub Reddit I think. I haven’t tried it but for a while I followed a YouTuber who claimed to make $250-500 a month doing it. It seemed like a lot of work to me when he’d just retired early as a software engineer and could have made the same in a few hours of consulting. 

[teachermom2834]

1 minute ago, Katy said:

There are lots of tricks to maximize rewards, it’s called credit card churning. It can also negatively affect your score. There are lots of websites about it and even a sub Reddit I think. I haven’t tried it but for a while I followed a YouTuber who claimed to make $250-500 a month doing it. It seemed like a lot of work to me when he’d just retired early as a software engineer and could have made the same in a few hours of consulting. 

Yeah that is probably more than I’m looking for. I don’t want it to become a second job and I do stay pretty aware of our credit score. I’m not looking to get a bunch of new cards or transfer balances around or anything. But thanks!

[mommyoffive]

We have done it, but used the rewards for travel, before Covid.  It has saved us thousands and let us take our whole family on lots of international vacations.  We still have tons of points and miles to this day.  You can use the points of some companies as cash or for giftcards.  We haven't done that yet though. 

We have done it to travel hack and it has never taken much time at all to do.  Open card, reach spend, and use rewards.  Our scores have never taken a hit either.  We had great credit and still do. 

We put everything on the credit card and always pay it in full every month, never carrying a balance or paying any interest.  

The best way to get rewards is to to open new cards for high bonus points.  

[Pawz4me]

We have cash back rewards cards. We use them to pay everything we possibly can--groceries, gas, any recurring monthly bill that allows CC use, OOP medical expenses, etc., and then make biweekly payments on the cards so that we never pay any interest. We usually get back a little less than $1,000/yr. although some years it's been closer to $1200. We let it build up during the year and use it as our Christmas fund. We don't fool with trying to maximize our earnings beyond just using the cards for everything we can. We don't have the interest or the need to hassle with something like churning.

[PeterPan]

There are engines like NerdWallet that will help you find your best rewards cc. Fwiw, there are also *debit* cards with rewards. And although the rewards are *higher* with cc than debit, you might still like that option for expenses that involve discretion or spending goals. To me the 1% vs. 2% wasn't worth the hassle of not being clear where my spending was. I'm completely clueless and brainless on my spending, so debit for discretionary, credit for recurring/non-discretionary saves my butt.

I let the rewards auto pay to my (I forget, probably savings). I have a personal savings account I use for pet projects (cruising, travel, whatever), so it just goes in there nicely.

Edited February 21, 2021 by PeterPan

[katilac]

The biggest factor is to pick the card that has rewards correlating to what you buy on the regular. It takes a bit of research on the front end but then you never have to think about it again. 

For example, my dh's work card pays triple points on dining out. That would be a bad card for someone who eats at home almost all of the time, a good card for someone who eats out frequently. Vice-versa for groceries. 

We used the work card rewards for travel in the Before Times. They have a bonus for booking travel through their portal, but you do have to compare. Sometimes the cost is exactly the same or even cheaper, and you reap the bonus. Sometimes it works out better to not use the portal. 

Our Amazon points tend to get used on more fun or frivolous purchases, simply because it increases my enjoyment of those items 😃

We just pay our bills as they come due. 

 

[katilac]

3 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

There are engines like NerdWallet that will help you find your best rewards cc. Fwiw, there are also *debit* cards with rewards. And although the rewards are *higher* with cc than debit, you might still like that option for expenses that involve discretion or spending goals. To me the 1% vs. 2% wasn't worth the hassle of not being clear where my spending was. I'm completely clueless and brainless on my spending, so debit for discretionary, credit for recurring/non-discretionary saves my butt.

I don't see the difference in knowing how your money is spent on a credit card vs a debit card? Getting a receipt or not is the same, checking your purchases daily or not is the same, what's the difference? 

[TexasProud]

We have an airline one and a GM one.  The GM one is getting more use now. When we have bought one child's car we have had $5,000 extra to be paid toward the vehicle. ( We typically give them a car for their 21st birthday.) For the airline one, we also had a checking account that earned miles for awhile. We took a trip to Europe with the family using only miles.  If we need a car repair, we use it. If we need to buy an air conditioner, we use it. I actually don't use it for bills. I still pay with checks.  Credit cards are fine if you pay them in full each month and are not overspending and still saving.  Some people have the discipline to do so. Some do not. 

[marbel]

We have two cards with rewards and we use one or the other of them for all our monthly bills (that can be done on CC without a fee) and all our spending. One is linked to Costco, so we get a "coupon" every year to use for shopping or cash back at Costco. The other offers various options for rewards, including gift cards; sometimes we get an Amazon card to use for everyday purchases, but we have also used it for a credit on our statement, or other gift cards to give as actual gifts for people. We pay our card monthly on the due date via autopay; I know a lot of people pay more often but I don't see an advantage to that, as paying it in full on the due date avoids any interest. (Note I'm not saying it's wrong to do it differently than I do, just that I don't see an advantage.)

We don't fiddle around with changing cards, just keep the two we have. We don't pay any fees on them. They may or may not be the best cards out there but we are not interested in trying to maximize. We don't spend vast amounts of money anyway so our rewards are not going to be huge. 

[mommyoffive]

1 minute ago, TexasProud said:

We have an airline one and a GM one.  The GM one is getting more use now. When we have bought one child's car we have had $5,000 extra to be paid toward the vehicle. ( We typically give them a car for their 21st birthday.) For the airline one, we also had a checking account that earned miles for awhile. We took a trip to Europe with the family using only miles.  If we need a car repair, we use it. If we need to buy an air conditioner, we use it. I actually don't use it for bills. I still pay with checks.  Credit cards are fine if you pay them in full each month and are not overspending and still saving.  Some people have the discipline to do so. Some do not. 

Wow, that is cool. 

[PeterPan]

12 minutes ago, katilac said:

I don't see the difference in knowing how your money is spent on a credit card vs a debit card? Getting a receipt or not is the same, checking your purchases daily or not is the same, what's the difference? 

Well remember I said I spend zero mental effort at keeping track of my finances. My dh knows what I spend more than I do, and I'm the one spending it. Apparently I have some sort of funky math disability, because I can't look at a list of prices and know what it will add up to either. To me, all the numbers were tiny and how did that happen? 

So every week we deposit a (reasonably generous) discretionary spending amount into my account. When it's gone it's gone and until the next week. I LOVE it. I can buy anything I want (plane tickets, cruises, whatever) and he says diddley. And I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be high at the end of the month. If it's there, I can spend it. If I'm saving for a project, I shove money around in my little savings account. 

He pays the bills his way (cc, autopay, all that stuff) and I do my discretionary spending with a debit. Like I said, saves my butt. Bills for me were always a surprise. I would assuredly need an accountant if I didn't have dh, lol. 

My debit account has a widget for my phone, so I flip to it or use face ID for the app, and boom I know where I'm at.

The important point is that you can have *rewards* with a debit. If she wants that *mix* of debit and cc she can have it and still get rewards.

Edited February 21, 2021 by PeterPan

[MeaganS]

We have a few credit cards and use them for different things. We have our main one that gives 2% back on everything. When in doubt we use that one. But we also have one that gives me 6% back at grocery, so I make sure to use that when doing groceries. Our Amazon card gives us 5% back on Amazon purchases if we use it and our Walmart card gives 5% back at Walmart. We have one (one of the above I believe) that gives us free cell-phone insurance if we use it to pay our cell-phone bill, so that's a nice perk too.  Some have roadside assistance included if you look at the fine print. We also pay them all off on time etc. We get probably $1000+ a year back from our various cards, so it is totally worth it for us. We use credit cards to pay for everything that we can.

When dh was in medical school, our yearly Christmas budget was however much our Amazon card got back in cash credit at the end of the year. It worked great!

I agree that it is just a matter of researching individual cards to see if they have what you want. 

[kokotg]

We have two rewards cards and use them for everything that we can. We have an Amex Blue Cash Preferred that does 6% back on groceries up to a certain amount ($6000/yr, I believe) and then a Chase Sapphire that we use for most everything else--I love the Chase Sapphire, but it's more of a travel card (no foreign transaction fees, better rewards when you use it for travel). They both have annual fees, but we get several times more back than we pay. Chase Sapphire is running some weird promotion through April where you can get more for all your grocery and restaurant purchases--we had been saving points for over a year since we hadn't traveled much, and we just got a $750 credit on our last statement. Pay off the balances in full every month and all that. We've done cards occasionally for sign up bonuses (like a Delta skymiles card), but we don't very often. ETA: oh, and we have Amazon and Target cards for 5% back there. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by kokotg

[katilac]

28 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

 So every week we deposit a (reasonably generous) discretionary spending amount into my account. When it's gone it's gone and until the next week. I LOVE it. I can buy anything I want (plane tickets, cruises, whatever) and he says diddley. And I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be high at the end of the month. If it's there, I can spend it. If I'm saving for a project, I shove money around in my little savings account. 

Okay, you're just worried about tracking the total amount/not going over a total amount, not so much knowing where the money went. That makes sense. 

[Bambam]

Not trying to maximize rewards, but one option is to use the Fidelity Visa and have your rewards go straight to an account with Fidelity. No caps. It's only a straight 2% though. 

[Soror]

We do a bit of this. I have an Amazon card of course, they are worth it for anyone who spends much on Amazon at all. I use different cards for different things depending on which gives me the most back for that category. We've done some for sign up bonuses which isn't very complicated, there are limits on this, you can only open so many cards in a time period so you want to read up on this if you want to go this route. I use our cash back towards travel. It is best to look at your spending and see where you spend the most to figure out what is the best for you. There are cards with fees for higher rewards but then you will have to look closer to see if the increase in rewards are worth the increase in cost. Some cards out there have lots of rewards for things I would never buy so not such a good deal for me but for others they are a great deal of course because they do. I like to look at The Points Guy and Doctor of Credit for more information as a starting point. And fwiw I've not had any issue with my credit score going down doing any of this, it has been in the excellent range for many years.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Soror

[elegantlion]

I use my CC rewards to go toward the payment. I use it for most of my expenses (my budget is pretty small though) and I pay it off every few weeks. I honestly don't need more stuff and I'm not spending enough to earn a trip. My goal is to not carry a balance. 

I also have an IKEA visa, not their project card, and the reward is a gift card to IKEA. When I lived near one it was great, I'd use it to buy frozen meatballs (lol). Now that I don't live near an IKEA, it's not such a great reward. I currently have a $15 card that will expire soon, but their not shipping the few items I want and it's certainly not worth the drive. 

 

[teachermom2834]

35 minutes ago, Bambam said:

Not trying to maximize rewards, but one option is to use the Fidelity Visa and have your rewards go straight to an account with Fidelity. No caps. It's only a straight 2% though. 

Oh I like this idea.

[gardenmom5]

i have different cards.  we have a mastercard with a good "general" cash back.  But I also have a costo visa and an amazon visa with a higher cashback.  (we spend enough at those two stores that the cards pay for themselves.)

dh isn't willing to get an alaska card, even though I fly a couple times a year to dd's.  1dd got it, and is using the 'companion' ticket so she and 1ds can go visit 2dd.

[J-rap]

We have two reward cards and we try and use them for as much as possible.  We've gotten lots of air tickets with points over the years.  Also, some cards let you transfer points to someone else with no fee.  So sometimes if our kids are short just a little (they're all adults now and most have their own cards), we can transfer some of our points to them so they have enough for a ticket.   I think the travel category has expanded for some cards too, and now includes things like restaurants, movie theaters, etc.   But, I prefer to use them for actual air tickets because then I feel like I'm getting a real deal.  😄   So, that means we save up points for awhile until we have enough.  

We have USBank FlexPerks, and Capitol One Rewards.  They work a little differently.  For USBank, you have to book tickets through their website.  For CapOne, you can book it through them, or book it yourself and then reimburse yourself later.  (I usually prefer finding my own flights and reimbursing myself.  I think that gives you more options.)

We almost always pay our entire balance every month, just before the due-date.  Now and then we have a balance hanging for awhile, and then I use autopay so that I know I'm paying it off regularly within a reasonable time-frame.  (Otherwise, we don't use generally autopay.)

On a different note...  I also try and book hotels through hotels.com, because after 10 stays, you get a free night.  That probably seems like a lot of hotel stays, but we tend to stay at hotels quite a bit.  That one free night is always fun to use!  (Of course we weren't able to build that up in 2020...)

[Corraleno]

I have lots of different cards and use them in a way that maximizes the rewards for each one. All cards are set up to autopay the full balance each month.

I have a Costco Visa that I use at Costco (2% back) and for gas (4% back)

I have an Amazon Visa that I use at Amazon and Whole Foods (5% back)

I have a Southwest Visa that gives both miles and qualifying points towards status upgrades and companion passes. I've had a companion pass since 2019, that is still good until the end of 2021, so I have not had to pay for DS's ticket any time he's flown with me, and I have something like 400K reward miles saved up so I don't have to pay for my own tickets either. Plus I get priority boarding and free upgrades.

I have a Williams Sonoma Visa that I specifically got in order to buy some Le Creuset cookware, because it gave me an extra 20% off my first purchase (and the items I bought were already marked 30% off, so I basically paid half price). Plus I got two a $20 bonus credits, and each piece I bought earned reward certificates I could use to buy more pieces. I hardly ever use this card anymore, just for a very occasional purchase from WS or Pottery Barn.

I have a Delta Amex card that gives me a free companion pass every year on Delta, plus priority boarding and other perks. I used that a lot when DS was competing internationally, but I don't use it much anymore since I almost always fly Southest in the US. 

I have an Amex Blue card that I don't really use but it has a very high limit and no annual fee so it's good to have as backup. This is the card I put my kids on as authorized users, to help them build credit and provide emergency funds. DD also uses this card for purchases if she runs errands for me.

I also have store cards for Macy's and Nordstrom that I got for the perks, extra sales discounts, etc., but I hardly ever use them because I hardly ever shop there.

[TechWife]

We have a credit card that earns Starbucks stars. We use it only at Starbucks because we earn more stars with purchases from there. We pay it off with our credit card that earns frequent flier miles, which we use everywhere. It also has an airline club membership. There is a fee for the card, which is a bit less than the club membership. It's worth it because my dh gets a lot of work done there when he is traveling and they also provide a variety of snacks that enable him to eat a light meal (soup, cheeses, crackers, yogurt, cereal, granola, a variety of beverages, etc. depending on the time of day and location), and some cities have shower facilities, which he uses on long hauls. All of those features save time & money. The frequent flier mile card is paid off from our checking account. I also have a Target Visa card that gets a 5% discount on purchases at Target, but I don't use it much. We don't carry a balance on any of our credit cards.

Edited February 23, 2021 by TechWife

[MeaganS]

I just remembered that we have a Lowe's card that I love. It's not even a credit card. It's a kind of debit card and rather than rewards it just gives you a 5% discount on everything. We've literally saved hundreds just by using that silly little debit card. If you DIY much, it's totally worth it. I bought a garbage disposal this afternoon and got $11 off for no effort at all.

[amiesmom]

We have an Amex Blue Cash Preferred that gives 6% back at grocery stores. Our one "hack" with that card is to use it to purchase gift cards from the grocery store. So we use it to buy gift cards to give as gifts, but also cards that I then use at the gas station or if we know we are going to do a big purchase at Home Depot or something I will buy a gift card for that as well. As long as it's purchased from the grocery store I can get the 6% back.

[mommyoffive]

14 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I have lots of different cards and use them in a way that maximizes the rewards for each one. All cards are set up to autopay the full balance each month.

I have a Costco Visa that I use at Costco (2% back) and for gas (4% back)

I have an Amazon Visa that I use at Amazon and Whole Foods (5% back)

I have a Southwest Visa that gives both miles and qualifying points towards status upgrades and companion passes. I've had a companion pass since 2019, that is still good until the end of 2021, so I have not had to pay for DS's ticket any time he's flown with me, and I have something like 400K reward miles saved up so I don't have to pay for my own tickets either. Plus I get priority boarding and free upgrades.

I have a Williams Sonoma Visa that I specifically got in order to buy some Le Creuset cookware, because it gave me an extra 20% off my first purchase (and the items I bought were already marked 30% off, so I basically paid half price). Plus I got two a $20 bonus credits, and each piece I bought earned reward certificates I could use to buy more pieces. I hardly ever use this card anymore, just for a very occasional purchase from WS or Pottery Barn.

I have a Delta Amex card that gives me a free companion pass every year on Delta, plus priority boarding and other perks. I used that a lot when DS was competing internationally, but I don't use it much anymore since I almost always fly Southest in the US. 

I have an Amex Blue card that I don't really use but it has a very high limit and no annual fee so it's good to have as backup. This is the card I put my kids on as authorized users, to help them build credit and provide emergency funds. DD also uses this card for purchases if she runs errands for me.

I also have store cards for Macy's and Nordstrom that I got for the perks, extra sales discounts, etc., but I hardly ever use them because I hardly ever shop there.

Wow!  That is amazing.  How did you get that many miles? 

[Corraleno]

16 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Wow!  That is amazing.  How did you get that many miles? 

I already had a ton of points even before I got the CC, and then I got 60K bonus points with the card, plus with Preferred status I get double points for all flights, and I also get points for every dollar charged on the card (which I use for pretty much everything except Costco and Amazon), plus double points for flight, hotel, and rental car charges. And they often have promotions, like getting 5X points if you fly between certain dates and charge it to your card, so the points accumulate really fast, and until covid hit we were traveling a lot for competitions and to visit relatives. I usually pay for flights early in the year to get enough points to keep my Preferred status for the following year, and then I use miles for free flights for the rest of the year. The cool thing about Southwest's Companion Pass is that you can use it even if you are using points for your own ticket, so both of us essentially fly free on those trips, plus I get four free upgrades per year, which I usually apply to DS's ticket, since I already get priority boarding. It's a pretty sweet deal. The thing I'm most looking forward to once things get back to "normal" (-ish) is being able to travel again!

[mommyoffive]

7 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I already had a ton of points even before I got the CC, and then I got 60K bonus points with the card, plus with Preferred status I get double points for all flights, and I also get points for every dollar charged on the card (which I use for pretty much everything except Costco and Amazon), plus double points for flight, hotel, and rental car charges. And they often have promotions, like getting 5X points if you fly between certain dates and charge it to your card, so the points accumulate really fast, and until covid hit we were traveling a lot for competitions and to visit relatives. I usually pay for flights early in the year to get enough points to keep my Preferred status for the following year, and then I use miles for free flights for the rest of the year. The cool thing about Southwest's Companion Pass is that you can use it even if you are using points for your own ticket, so both of us essentially fly free on those trips, plus I get four free upgrades per year, which I usually apply to DS's ticket, since I already get priority boarding. It's a pretty sweet deal. The thing I'm most looking forward to once things get back to "normal" (-ish) is being able to travel again!

Pretty amazing that you were able to get that many points.  I would have figured you opened a bunch of other Chase cards and converted the points to SW points.  Yeah CP is a really sweet deal for domestic and some international travel.