Personal Finance

Tips for maximizing rewards cards

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  • Feb 26th, 2015 11:56 am
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Deal Addict
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Sep 6, 2008
4282 posts
2281 upvotes
BC

Tips for maximizing rewards cards

I'm brand new to the reward point collecting game and while I wait for my first rewards card to come in the mail (mbna rwe) I was thinking about creative (but still qualifying) ways to use my new card to maximize reward points. I have no intention of carrying a balance on the card but I would like to start using it with ...enthusiasm. From reading some other posts here I found some interesting ways like using your rewards cards to pay your cable/phone bills as well as your car insurance which I think is pretty awesome. Another great thing (for my card anyway) is the emall where you can get point bonuses in addition to regular points for using their links to shop online. Also, I know some people use gift card buying to great advantage though I haven't really looked into that much myself.


Basically, I really just don't want to wait until I'm a few years into point collecting before I find out about other great ways to accelerate and optimize my reward points. I'd like to hear from some rfd pros on how they do it.







P.S - sorry if this is a repost, I know this must be like the #3 question asked on this part of the forum but I searched but didn't find anything to useful.
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Sr. Member
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Apr 5, 2009
948 posts
334 upvotes
Toronto
The RWE card is a flat 2% card and there isn't much you can do to game it other than use it whenever you need to pay for anything.

Where is gets a bit more involved is when you get a card that gives better rewards for some types of purchases - plenty of those for gas, groceries, restaurants, etc. Whether the additional annual fees are worth it depends on your spending patterns. Many offer first year free to see how it works out.

The other thing is churning cards with intro bonuses. Not all card can be used this way, but Amex is notoriously good for that.

I've also recently found out that a number of bills can be paid using a credit card that are normally only available through online banking - using a website www.plastiq.com - including your T1 and T2 taxes for CRA. The site does charge almost 2% for credit card processing. This makes it useless for a card like RWE, but there are cards that offer higher rewards for a limited amount of transactions. For example, Amex Business Gold Rewards card offers a 40,000 points bonus when you spend $5000 in the first 3 months (this offer is only available through referral) making it an effective 9% reward on that $5000 spending. If I run my tax bill and some other things through this, I will get 7% after accounting for the Plastiq's fees.

Mind you, if you have other things to charge to the card instead, the exercise may not be worth the hassle, but in my case, I'd have a harder time getting to the required spending without that additional bill.

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