12 Secret Ways to Make Money With Credit Cards

Credit card debt may be a major source of financial stress, and this is common knowledge. Many people fall into financial ruin because they made an immediate purchase with the intention of paying it off later.

In any case, you probably already know that credit cards can be used to your financial advantage.

Indeed, many people make a respectable annual income through credit card usage. And now, we’ll reveal some insider secrets for making money using credit cards.

Let’s begin exploring the several hidden credit card schemes available today.

12 Secret Ways to Make Money With Credit Cards

1. Make use of credit cards that offer rewards or cash back

Credit cards that offer rewards or cash back are two options for generating income via plastic. The details of each are provided below.

Credit cards that offer rewards typically give you 1 point for every $1 you spend.

If you want to use your points to buy anything or pay for something, each point is worth exactly one cent. A $100 gift card would cost $10,000 in points.

With a cash-back credit card, you can get a percentage of your spending back as cash. There are cards that give you a bigger percentage back or even a flat dollar sum.

Cashback can be cashed in for either a statement credit or a paper check. Find cards that give you the most cash back if you decide to go that route. My go-to credit card is the American Express Blue Preferred.

This is due to the fact that it provides 6% cash back at supermarkets, 3% at gas stations, and 1% everywhere. So, if I spend $100 on food, I will receive $6 in rebates.

2. Skip the Car Rental Insurance

The daily cost of renting a car can rise if you choose the rental coverage offered by the company. However, the type of credit card you use can determine whether or not you need additional insurance.

If you pay for your rental with a major credit card and choose not to accept the rental agency’s insurance, you should be covered.

Every time you rent a car, you can save a significant amount of money by doing this.

3. Take advantage of price adjustment

There’s always a chance that a few days after you buy anything, the store will reduce the price.

However, if you have a credit card that offers price protection, you may be eligible to get the difference refunded to your card.

The credit card you use will determine how simple it is to receive the advantage. Look into your plan’s specifics to learn how to file a claim and how long you have before your claim is no longer valid.

4. Accumulate grocery store rewards

Bonuses from food stores are another hidden way to gain money with credit cards.

You can save $0.10 per gallon on gas if you spend a particular amount within a certain time period.

There was a campaign where you could get a $10 coupon off your next purchase if you bought a particular number of gift cards during the promotion period.

You should keep an eye out for these extra windows of opportunity and use them to your advantage.

Credit card rewards are one way to generate money, but you can also save money by using coupons and discounts at places like gas stations and grocery stores.

5. Use Sign up bonuses to your advantage

Although this strategy is most effective with rewards credit cards, cashback cards occasionally have similar promotions.

Rewards cards often come with attractive sign-up bonuses, such as 60,000 points after spending $5,000 monthly on the card for the first three months.

It’s not hard to rack up substantial credit card rewards if you can spend that much each year. And this procedure can be repeated as often as desired.

These offers are typically only available to new cardholders, who are defined as those who have not held a credit card with the issuing bank within the past year.

You’ll need to keep track of the dates you canceled your cards and the dates you’ll be able to reapply for them.

6. Make greater use of online shopping

Did you know that using a cash-back credit card for online purchases allows you to quadruple your rewards?

Now let me explain how it all goes down. It is recommended to check out sites like Ebates and Swagbucks before making any online purchases. They are similar to e-Bates, but they pay you to shop online.

A visit to Ebates will reveal that if you buy something from Best Buy, you will receive one percent back in rebates.

To make a purchase from Best Buy after clicking the “shop now” button on Ebates, all you have to do is click the button.

Using Ebates to receive 1% cash back on your credit card purchases can increase your cash back from $1 to $2 on the same purchase when compared to not using Ebates.

7. Make use of credit card company portals

It’s important to remember that the online portals of the credit card companies themselves can be used in conjunction with online cashback sites to maximize cashback earnings. Better cash-back deals are often available.

For a while, I could get 5% cash back at select stores when I shopped through the Discover Deals website.

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with what merchants the credit card websites offer, you won’t have to keep checking back for updates.

Email notifications can be set up to inform you of any upcoming bonus cashback events or the addition of additional retailers.

8. Invest your rebates and incentives

Making money with credit cards is great, but if you use your cashback rewards wisely, you may quickly increase your earnings.

So, let me explain what I mean. The most common form of redemption for cashback cards is a credit to the cardholder’s monthly statement.

At first glance, it seems perfect. The bill is for $1,000, but you only have to pay $900 after cashing in your rewards.

If you’re clever, though, you’ll put that hundred dollars into the stock market. Doing so will allow your cashback to accumulate over time and increase in value.

Now let me explain how it all goes down. A $100 cashback reward can be redeemed as a $100 statement credit when your credit card bill is $1,000.

In addition to the $900 you use to settle the bill, you move $100 from checking into savings.

In what ways might this matter? Suppose you earn $500 in cash back a year and decide to invest it with Wealthsimple where it can generate an annual average of 8%.

9. Automatically invest using the Acorns app

While the aforementioned advice is excellent, putting it into practice will need effort on your part and the discipline to actually invest the money.

One wishes there was a simpler solution. You bet! “Acorns” is the name for it.

Connect your debit and credit card accounts for free with Acorns. Acorns will automatically add a small fraction of each dollar to your savings account whenever you use your credit card.

If the sum of your round-ups is $5 or more, Acorns will invest the money on your behalf.

In what way is this amazing?

This is the second piece of advice I have for making money with credit cards; if you are particularly disciplined, you can implement both of them together.

You may easily fund your Acorns account with your rebate money. You may build up a nice emergency fund quite quickly when you use credit cards.

10. Use 0% offers to your advantage

When you sign up for certain credit cards, you may be eligible for an introductory 0% APR period. Discipline is essential if you want to succeed financially here.

Don’t worry about making any large payments; just start charging things and pay the minimum when the bill comes. Then, save the remaining money that is owed.

Monthly payments should be made in this manner until the end of the introductory 0% APR period has passed.

Then, settle your credit card debt using the funds you’ve set aside.

Supposing you put $500 a month on your credit card, for instance. You decide to pay the very minimum required, $10, on your bill. The remaining $490 should be deposited into a savings account.

11. Use 0% balance transfer offers to your advantage

Credit card arbitrage is another name for this unorthodox method of making money using credit cards. You can make a good living doing this if you can maintain your self-control.

But if you lack self-control, disaster might find you quickly.

A simple way to handle this is to take advantage of 0% balance transfer offers, put the money from the transfer into a savings account that produces interest, and then gradually make payments on the transferred sum.

12. Sell your rewards

The last piece of advice for making money with credit cards is selling your rewards. To put it another way, don’t precisely sell your prizes, but do use them to gain money.

Take concert tickets as an example; maybe you can redeem your credit card points for them. Though your pal is keen about going, you aren’t at all interested in joining them.

For example, if two tickets cost $150 each, you could offer to use your points to “buy” yourself two “free” tickets. You buy two tickets for $100 each and resell them to a buddy for $250.

They’re able to save cash, and you’re able to profit.

Credit card companies often ban the public sale of rewards points, so think twice before announcing your intention to do so. You will lose all of your points if they catch you.

Credit card companies will not notice if this is done on a small scale with close friends and family. What this means is that you should use common sense.

Conclusion

Earning money using credit cards is simple. You need just make a plan, commit fully to it, and exercise strict discipline.

If you’re able to pull this off, you’ll be rewarded handsomely.

If you follow the advice given in the section about investing your cash back and putting away an average of $1,250 per year, you will have nearly $61,000 after 20 years.

Spending money is wasted unless you utilize a credit card that offers some sort of cashback or rewards program.

The method is straightforward, and the outcomes are really useful.