Get the Most Out of Your Credit Card Rewards

By Erin Hurd

Want to make your credit cards more rewarding this year? The key is to make sure they still align with your spending habits and goals.

Whether you’re a newbie or a veteran cardholder, following these eight tips can help you earn more, save more and get more value out of your rewards.

1. Take Stock of Your Cards

Start by evaluating the current plastic in your wallet. Have you been earning airline miles but want to pivot to more flexible cash back? Are you no longer using a card’s benefits enough to justify its annual fee? Is the card you opened for a balance transfer offer no longer useful?

The good news is you’re not necessarily stuck. You may be able to request a “product change” from your card’s issuer.

    Plus, from Robert Powell’s Retirement Daily on TheStreet: How Can I Lower My Taxable Income?

This process lets you upgrade or downgrade to a different product within that issuer’s portfolio — say, a card with better rewards or no annual fee. The process can vary, but in most cases there’s no new application, and hence no hard inquiry on your credit report. You often retain the same account number and, as such, the same account history. All of this is beneficial for your credit scores.

One drawback to a product change, however, is that you generally aren’t eligible for the sign-up bonus on the product you switch to. (You’re not opening up a brand-new account, after all.) So if you’re eyeing a juicy pile of bonus points, it might be worth a separate application. Even still, you may want to retain your old card and its account history, especially if it’s not charging you an annual fee. Just make sure to use it at least a few times here and there, perhaps to pay a recurring monthly subscription. That way you’ll avoid having it closed due to inactivity.

2. Ask for a Retention Offer

After taking inventory, you might have a card that you’re on the fence about. Rather than ditching it outright, consider seeking a retention offer — an incentive that an issuer may grant you to keep you as a customer.

Call your issuer and say that you’re thinking about canceling your card, but before doing so you’d like to know if there are any retention offers available. You may be offered a statement credit, bonus points or an annual fee reduction or waiver. Any of the above could make it worth your while to stick around.

Listen to the terms carefully, though. There may be minimum spending requirements in order to qualify for the retention bonus, just like when you open a brand-new card. Often, if you accept the retention offer, you will be obligated to keep the card open for another year.

3. Focus on Flexibility

If there’s an airline, hotel chain or retail store that you’re loyal to, it can make sense to carry its co-branded credit card, given the perks those cards can dole out. But such cards also tend to lock you into their own rewards systems, meaning your points or miles can’t be used beyond the boundaries of that brand.

General rewards credit cards, though, are much more flexible.

For instance, if you have a card that earns Chase  (JPM) – Get Report Ultimate Rewards points or American Express  (AXP) – Get Report Membership Rewards points, you can redeem them in a variety of ways. Travelers especially prize those kinds of points because they can be used to book travel directly with the card issuer, or transferred to many different airline and hotel loyalty programs, often leading to outsize value.

4. Track Your Rewards

Tracking your credit card points, including knowing exactly how many you have across multiple cards, is critical to planning your reward travel.

If you know only that you have “a bunch” of Marriott  (MAR) – Get Report points, for example, you may assume it’s enough to cover that anniversary trip to Paris. But you could be in for a rude awakening when you discover that the chic hotel you want in peak season is going for a hefty 100,000 points a night — and your…