- Never keep chasing rewards and charging purchases onto your card simply to earn rewards as this can prove to be risky in the long run. Never spend on the card with the sole purpose of earning points. Instead, you can use the credit card to pay the important utility bills and you will get rewarded for that.
- There are caps on the rewards that you can earn during a particular period which may be monthly, quarterly, or annually. Hence, it is important to understand the limits because once you reach the cap you will stop earning points irrespective of how much you end up spending using your reward credit card.
- Sometimes just owning a rewards credit card is not enough and you will have to register for the rewards program. Hence it is important to ‘opt in’ or you may never qualify for the maximum points that you can earn from the purchases.
- Just earning reward points is not good enough and you must ensure that you redeem them as well. You may exchange the rewards points for gift, cash, merchandize, or cards. When you know it is time to redeem the rewards, ensure that you evaluate your options to get the maximum value.
- Never allow your rewards points to go a waste. There are rewards cards where you may carry your unused points into the next period. This way the points will not expire. But, there are certain reward credit cards which have a time limit for redemption. In such cases, if you don’t redeem your points by the end of one year you may end up losing all your hard earned points. Hence, it is better to be aware of these expiration dates if you are a reward card holder. This way you will remember to redeem your points on time.