What are the ways to earn more credit card points?

Credit card points and rewards are a way of “rewarding” the loyalty of the customers by banks and other credit card companies. This is mainly done to cultivate good spending habits amongst credit cardholders. The interest on credit cards is pretty high ranging between 30%-60%. Missing or delaying a payment brings you the added penalties, late payment fees, and damaged credit score. Your credit score can even be affected by paying just the minimum due amount every month (check your credit score here).

Then what is the right way to earn more credit points?

The right way to use your credit card and earn more credit card points is to make as many credit card transactions as possible and clear your monthly bills on time. If you fail this, even the best credit cards promising the best rewards will end up charging 30% or more interest.

So, no matter what purchase you make, at the end of your card billing cycle, you should be able to pay it back. You should never have a partial payment on your credit card and end up paying interest on your spending. Now let’s see what are the ways to earn more credit card points.

Best ways to earn more credit card points

Go cashless, swipe for things that don’t charge a fee

Using your credit cards instead of a debit card or cash for transactions, and paying back your card at the end of the billing cycle, is one of the simplest ways to earn more credit card points. All the small purchases together when aggregated, ends up getting you rewards and bonus. For example, paying your WiFi bills and Netflix subscriptions through your credit card, instead of a debit card that doesn’t earn any points.

Use online shopping portals

Using shopping portals for online shopping can be a great way to earn more credit card points. 100s of brands such as Apple, Nike, Gap, etc., are available through portals. You can shop as usual through the merchant’s website, but before you do that, you will just need to take one extra step of navigating to their online shop through a link affiliated with your frequent flyer account. When you do that, a cookie is put in your browser to track your shopping activity, in turn crediting you with miles correlated to your purchase.

While this seems to be an easy option, sometimes your shopping expenditure might turn out to be really hefty to pay back the credit card bill, especially with the high rate of added interest. Instead, making use of a Salary Card can be more helpful. With a credit limit of up to Rs. 5,00,000, you can use the card for all your shopping needs with 2 times more limit, and availability of up to 6 EMIs.

Pay for your colleagues, friends, and family

Great offers are available on credit card payments at various merchandisers. Even though you are not planning to make use of the offer, think about how it might be used by people around you. See if your friends, neighbors, or other people around you are interested in using the offer. By making the purchase on behalf of them, you will end up earning more credit card points and they too will be rewarded by the discounts and offers. You should always avoid lending the card and instead, make the purchase on their behalf, and it is best to collect money from them in advance to avoid any problems further.

Take on office expenses with your rewards card

If you have expenses at the office for which you need to pay first and collect from the office later, then you’ve found a way to earn more credit points. You can use your credit card for the following reasons:

Booking business trip tickets
Paying for team and business lunch, dinner, etc
Cab and travel expenses
Hotel stay during office travel
Business software and subscriptions

In case you are concerned about late reimbursements from the office, and missing the payment of your credit card bill, then you have one less thing to worry about. You can make use of a Salary Card that provides you easy EMI options with lower interest than a credit card, to clear your debt.

Insurance, Home Loans, Investments, Rent

There are a lot of places where you can use your card, instead of paying with cash or a debit card, UPI, or net banking. You can, later on, pay the money back into your card. Few such areas are:

Insurance payments
Home loans that let you pay through credit cards
Rent (check out paying the rent with CRED)
Utility Bills

Online Groceries

Groceries and dairy products are something that everyone buys almost every day. Instead of making separate payments every day, making weekly or monthly payments for them through your credit card can get you more points on your credit card. They open up room for more offers and discounts too. For example, Amazon runs weekly and monthly rewards programs for various purchases made through credit cards.

Make the best use of the rewards structure available

Learn and understand the various rewards programs and rates offered by your credit card. Some of the best credit cards have multiple programs that offer you rewards through which you can earn more credit card points

Balance transfer option

From time to time card issuers run balance transfer programs that may give you points for transferring the balance from one card provider to another. Make use of it. End of the day, if you are planning to pay back the card, you may as well earn more credit card points and payback.

Travel rewards and Air miles conversion

Not just reward points, some cards will let you earn more credit card points and convert them for air miles. From time to time, they even give you a bonus % when converting rewards points to Airmiles. When using this, make sure the air miles value is the same or more than the value of your rewards points. There are a lot of cases where they hoodwink you and give you cheaper air miles that are worth a fraction of your reward points.

Statement Credit

Few rewards credit cards such as SBI and Axis, provide you statement credit on meeting spend criteria. By timely tracking them, you can make use of them and earn more points on your credit card. Even if you are not spending enough, see if your friends or family members have any large purchases coming up, that you can complete using your credit card.

The bottom line

There are several ways to earn more credit card points, but you should never spend more than you can repay. You might want to use your credit card everywhere just to earn more credit card points, but you should also remember that your credit score might get badly affected if you do not pay the bills on time. You can always rely on travel loans and shopping loans for your expenditures.
In case you wish to have a huge credit limit, a salary card can be your savior. You can use this for shopping, travel and entertainment, educational purposes, medical insurance and even learning new skills. Unlike credit cards, they come with easy EMI options and you will get to choose your repayment tenure. An added advantage, you will not be damaging your credit score too.

Download the instant loan app here, or log in to our website and be a part of the #OneSmallStep experience.

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