An Example of Making Money with Credit Cards

Here's a great comment left on my post titled Why I Use Blue Cash from American Express that illustrates several principles you need to use to make money using credit cards:

I have 5+ years of AMEX Blue Cash Back experience and rewards. I have all bills except mortgage and electricity (PG&E just doesn't get it) going to the card each month. Plus, I charge school on it as well for an extra boost!!! I average $700-1000 per year in cash back. The only retailer that I "frequent" that will not take AMEX is Fry's Electronics (so what......they pay Visa and Mastercard 2-3% per purchase, what's wrong with 5% for AMEX).

I recently got a Jupiter Visa card while purchasing some hardware from Apple.com. I will switch my bills to the new card since each $2500 charged (outside of Apple) gives you a $25 iTunes reward!!!!!!

As you can tell, I go back and forth depending on what my wants/desires are. Regardless of the plastic choice at the moment, I never carry a balance.....creditors lose!!!! :-D

The key principles to making money with credit cards highlighted here:

1. Selecting a card that's appropriate for the situation -- and moving back and forth when needed.

2. Charging as much as you can on credit cards...

3. ...while also paying them off every month.

Good stuff.

As I said in the original post, I prefer Blue Cash from American Express. It's part of my effort to make an additional $10k this year.

Comments

[kurt]

$25 rebate (in itunes) for each $2500 spent? You can get better refunds than that (and in cash, too). And I think you don't understand what "it" is when you say PG&E won't let you pay with a credit card. You then later say that vendors pay up to 3% (or 5%!) when someone uses a credit card. Clearly PG&E knows what you do.

[card user]

By paying off each month you will avoid interests.
I also like cash back credit cards (I prefer Amex blue cash) all other rewards credit cards aren't so profitable - they have annual fees. Besides I don't think it is worth using airmiles credit cards if you don't fly 50 weeks in a year.