How to Get the Most Out of Your Credit Card Rewards, According to The Points Guy
There’s plenty of cash on the table if you know what you’re doing. The Points Guy offers some expert tips.
Get the most out of your credit card rewards with tips from The Points Guy.
Bucks County native Brian Kelly — a.k.a. the Points Guy — has spent the last 15 years helping consumers get the most out of their credit card rewards via his popular website. (There’s also an app.)
“The United States is the global epicenter of consumer earning,” he says. Which is to say, there’s plenty of cash on the table if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t — if you’re paying with a debit card or even a credit card with paltry rewards — you might actually be losing money, Kelly says, “because the cost of goods in America by and large includes the cost of credit card processing.”
In other words: Go get yours. Not sure how? Kelly offers up some (free!) advice.
Get new cards.
As a new cardholder, you can snag huge sign-up bonuses, Kelly says — essentially free money available only as a one-time points boost. Given this, it’s generally better to get a new card than it is to upgrade your existing ones, Kelly says. “And as long as you pay on time and keep your balances low, your credit score goes up.”
Do your homework.
To find the cards that have the most to offer, try actually reading that stuff you get from credit card companies, Kelly advises — you’ll often find targeted offers in the snail mail and email you’ve been ignoring as junk. You can also Google “welcome offers” for various credit cards to compare and use the CardMatch tool on the Points Guy site, which aggregates offers for which you are eligible.
Beware the lure of “no annual fee.”
“Cheap is expensive,” Kelly says: “Free” cards have the stingiest rewards and perks, while “even just a $95 annual fee might give you $1,000 worth of points in a sign-up bonus.” Before you balk at a fee, he recommends considering the value of what comes with it. Take, for example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. “Some people see the $550 annual fee and say no way,” Kelly says. “But peel back the layers and you see that Chase automatically gives you $300 a year in travel credit” — that’s pre-points earnings — “and that can be used for Uber, parking, tolls, transit.”
Look for cards with rewards for where you spend the most money …
After the sign-up bonus, your next consideration is the ongoing category bonuses, Kelly says — points you earn every time you use the card on, say, travel, dining, or groceries. Pro tip for renters: The Bilt Mastercard (“probably the hottest new card in America,” he says) lets you earn up to 100,000 points on your rent with no processing fees, double points on travel, and triple on dining.
… And with perks.
The higher the annual fee, Kelly says, the better the perks usually are. Coverage for travel delays — tickets, hotels, car rentals, and so forth — is worth assessing as a money saver.
Consider the cash.
Not into travel? Fine: The gold standard for a cash-back card is two percent, Kelly says. “Some cards will offer rotating bonus categories of five percent, but they’re usually capped, and so unless you’re really managing like a general, I would recommend just getting a two percent cash-back card.”
Review yearly.
Kelly — who has 27 (!) cards — recommends reassessing each of your cards annually to make sure the value of the rewards still outweighs the fee. If not? Don’t cancel it, Kelly says — it’s best to keep the credit and the average age of your accounts as old as possible. Instead, call to downgrade to the no-annual-fee version of the card. You’ll retain the credit and save yourself some cash.
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Published as “How to Make Money By Spending It” in the October 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
