Credit Card Cash Reward$

[Drake3287]

This isn't meant to sound like some humble brag or anything, just a comment about how great some of these different cash reward credit card programs are and why others don't do the same as me. You certainly don't need to be wealthy to make some easy money off these.

I just "cashed in" a bunch of reward credit's with my BofA Visa Travel Reward credit card today and was curious at how much I've made during the last 12 months and it comes to $2,290.21. That's pure cash back in my pocket for doing nothing other then charging everything I can on a credit card and paying it in full each month.

It use to be I used a United Mileage Plus Visa credit card for charging but even when I earned enough points it was nearly impossible to get the free flight I wanted. Plus these flight points didn't add up in cash value to anything like these cash reward cards do.

For those of you that trust yourself to pay your credit card in full each month, you really need to look into getting a cash reward card. Like many others, I charge everything, literally everything including almost everyone of my monthly bill's and use this "free" money towards vacations each year.

[disneysteve]

When you get a rewards card, it is very important to make sure that it pays a reward that is both easy to redeem and of good value to you. Airline rewards are notoriously difficult to actually use. Cash is always easy to use, obviously.

We have 2 cashback cards - Chase Freedom and Discover - but our main credit card is our Marriott Visa. We have earned dozens of free hotel stays over the years using that card. In fact, I was just coming onto the computer to book a stay for next weekend on reward points. Since we travel a lot, this works out well for us. I actually prefer it to a cashback card in some ways.

[corn18]

Agree. I got lucky and got in on a limited offer 2.5% cash back from USAA a while back. Year to date I have redeemed $1712 in cash back. Last year it was just shy of $6000.

I also use my business AMEX for all my business travel. That usually gets me around 150,000-200,000 points a year that I then transfer over to Delta. Haven't paid for a personal plane ticket in nearly 10 years. And all my Hertz and Hilton points let us stay for free with a free car.

[tripods68]

I hear that. We are in Belize right as I typed this family of 4 - fully paid by travel rewards including Airbnb stays for 1 full week, worth 4K in value.

[disneysteve]

I hear that. We are in Belize right as I typed this family of 4 - fully paid by travel rewards including Airbnb stays for 1 full week, worth 4K in value.

Enjoy! I loved cave tubing in Belize. Neat experience.

[kork13]

I think we just don't spend as much as others, but I agree that I love cash back rewards cards. I just cashed in a bunch as well, for a total of ~$350. Not sure how long it took to get that, but probably 4-6 months. Now that we're able to charge our daycare costs to our card, that'll increase our cash back a fair amount.

[rennigade]

Do a google search for credit card churning. Enjoy.

[AJ444]

Up until a few months ago I had the Citi double cash 2% card but their fraud prevention was horrible, they shut down the cards 6 times in a year, 5 were small purchases in my area so they made no sense.

My CU and Cap on Quicksilver offer 1.5% and I don’t have any problems with them getting declined.

The .5% wasn’t worth the additional headaches for Citi.

[james.hendrickson]

Do a google search for credit card churning. Enjoy.

I believe another term for this is "manufactured spending".

[bjl584]

I get 2% cash back and earn around $100 a month or so.

I haven't cashed anything in yet. I'm letting it build for now.

[rennigade]

I believe another term for this is "manufactured spending".

I rarely use that word anymore since manufactured spending is all but dead (that I know of anyway.) The days of buying $500 worth of quarters with a credit card and depositing in your physical bank are over. Amazon pay is dead although that only allowed $1000/month. I guess people still jump through massive hoops using that bluebird prepaid card and paypal...or something to that extent.

Really the only ms I do is prepaying utility bills...and I hardly call that MS.

If anyone knows of new methods feel free to share.

[disneysteve]

The days of buying $500 worth of quarters with a credit card and depositing in your physical bank are over.

I had forgotten about that. I remember doing that years ago.

I also used to write convenience checks from my Discover card on the first day of the billing cycle, deposit the money in my high-yield money market, and then pay the bill a day before it was due. I made hundreds in interest doing that. Then they change the fees on the checks and interest rates dropped and it wasn't worth it anymore.

[rennigade]

I had forgotten about that. I remember doing that years ago.

I also used to write convenience checks from my Discover card on the first day of the billing cycle, deposit the money in my high-yield money market, and then pay the bill a day before it was due. I made hundreds in interest doing that. Then they change the fees on the checks and interest rates dropped and it wasn't worth it anymore.

I wasnt even aware of writing checks to yourself for the month. That was a great idea before the changes.

[disneysteve]

I wasnt even aware of writing checks to yourself for the month. That was a great idea before the changes.

It was a great deal. There was a fee for the check but it maxed out at $5, I think. So I would write a $10,000 check and pay the $5 fee.

I would deposit the check in the money market which was paying 5%. I had about 55 days before the bill was due so I'd earn about $75 interest meaning a $70 profit every 2 months. I did that for a couple of years until they changed the fee to 3% with no cap.

[moneybags]

Airline rewards are notoriously difficult to actually use.

The exception to this is Southwest. We earned SW miles (plus 50,000 bonus for opening card) for 4 years while DD was far away at college. Their miles correlate with ticket prices, and you can use them for any flight. Added bonuses on SW: 2 free checked bags and if the ticket price drops you can rebook & get credit (or cancel and get your miles back). This works great with miles because the miles just go back into your account.

She graduated, and we switched back to cash earning credit cards.