You’ll need to take a multi-pronged approach to maximize your credit card rewards.
1. Choose a Card That Matches Your Spending and Travel Habits
You’ll want to use a card (or cards) that offer bonus points in spending categories that are meaningful to you. It’s also important to ensure the type of rewards you earn—whether that’s miles or points specific to a certain airline or hotel, or more flexible rewards—also lines up with your travel style.
I most commonly pull out my Citi Strata Premier℠ Card to earn bonus points on regular, daily expenses I have at home, like gas, groceries and dining. For other expenses that don’t earn at bonus rates on that card, my other go-to is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card since it earns 2X on everything, regardless of how a particular merchant codes the purchase. Both of these are flexible rewards cards, so I don’t need to be brand loyal with a specific airline or hotel. This works out best for me since I hop around brands based on which is best for a specific trip.
2. Use Your Credit Card To Cover as Many Expenses as Possible
In order to earn a meaningful amount of points, you’ll need to use your credit card to make payments regularly. Using credit instead of debit or cash can also offer extra purchase protections, which is another advantageous perk. Just remember: Credit cards have high APRs and other potential fees, so you’ll only want to use them if you expect to pay the balance off quickly. Otherwise, your potential rewards earnings will be offset by the cost of interest charges.
3. Learn Your Redemption Options
Maximizing your travel credit card rewards involves learning the ins and outs of your card’s related loyalty programs since some redemptions can be worth more than others. On co-branded airline and hotel cards, this might mean reading award chart prices or doing a little research on available options for your specific trip before clicking the “redeem now” button.
On flexible rewards cards, you may also want to dig into the value per point from different redemptions. I know that my Citi ThankYou Points are worth 1 cent each toward cash redemptions, but other reward points may only be worth half a penny each unless used for travel. That’s a significant difference if you’re cashing out a lot of points! Additionally, both programs have different partner lists if you want to transfer your miles.
Most often, I transfer miles from my credit card to an airline in order to book international airfare. I’ve taken time to learn the sweet spots of each program, where I might find a better ticket at a lower price. But I’ve also learned one major reality of rewards travel: The best value is sometimes the ticket that’s available to your destination on your dates, even if it’s not the fanciest, fastest or absolute lowest price. Value is subjective so make sure you’re customizing options to your needs.
