How I Used Credit Cards To Save Thousands On Wedding Costs – Forbes Advisor – Technologist

When it came to using credit cards to save on wedding expenses, we focused on finding cards with valuable welcome bonuses and redemption options.

Most credit cards offer 1% or 2% cash back on purchases, with some cards going as high as 5% or more for purchases in specific categories. Earning 2% cash back on the cost of a wedding can mean saving hundreds of dollars. That’s not bad, but welcome offers tend to be far more lucrative.

Welcome offers are one-time rewards that card issuers offer to help convince people to apply for a new credit card. Some bonuses can offer the equivalent of 40% back on your initial purchases.

Rewards Earning Strategy

My wife and I focused on Chase credit cards because of their high bonuses, flexible redemption options, ability to pool points, and long-term potential. We wanted to avoid credit cards we’d only use for the welcome bonus and never use again.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card was one of the cards we both opted to apply for. The welcome offer at the time allowed each of us to earn 60,000 points. To earn those rewards, we each needed to spend $4,000 within the first three months of getting the card.

Thankfully, holding a wedding made it relatively easy to meet that requirement. Between the initial payments to the venue, hiring a DJ and other expenses, we quickly met the requirements, earning roughly 128,000 Ultimate Rewards® points in total.

We also each applied for Chase Freedom Unlimited® cards, which at the time offered a $200 (20,000 points) bonus after a $500 spend in the first three months from account opening. A few smaller expenses, such as decorations helped us hit those spending requirements, adding another 41,500 points to our balance.

Earning these points did not result in immediate savings, but they quickly came in handy.

Rewards Redemption Strategy

My wife and I planned to take a honeymoon to France. Unfortunately, despite taking precautions, I tested positive for Covid-19 a few days after the wedding. We delayed our trip by a year, leaving for France the following December.

One of the reasons we chose to apply for Chase cards is that Chase offers several different ways to redeem points, including cash back, travel, or transfers to Chase’s partners. Ultimately, we used the option to redeem points by booking flights and hotels through the Chase Travel℠ portal.

One benefit of the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the option to redeem points through Chase Travel for 25% more value or 1.25 cents per point. This meant the welcome bonuses we earned from the cards were worth a bit more than $2,100.

Admittedly, earning points on spending doesn’t automatically mean you’re saving money. However, we would have gone on this honeymoon anyway. So using the credit card rewards we earned from paying for our wedding to cover these honeymoon costs was as good as saving $2,100 on our wedding.