Earning Points and Miles

Almost all credit card companies offer products that earn points or miles on everyday spend. Earning rates on different categories will vary by product, so it's important to be familiar with the earning rates on your current card setup. It's also important to understand what your highest spend categories are when looking at future card options.

For example, if you have both the Capital One Venture X and the AMEX Gold, booking travel through the Capital One Portal with your Venture X would net you 10 points (10x) per dollar spent compared to the AMEX Gold's 3x. If you were grocery shopping, though, the Venture X would earn you the standard 2x points on everyday spend. Using the AMEX Gold for groceries earns 4x, meaning you'd double your points earned just by knowing what card to use when.

Some people prefer to use a single card for all of their spend. That works perfectly well if you're looking for simplicity. In those instances, the Capital One Venture and Venture X cards offer a great 2x earning on everyday spend. Similarly, the Citi Strata Premier offers 3x on most categories - gas, groceries, dining, hotels, and charging stations. Your preferred credit card ecosystem is bound to have a product that targets the everyday spend.

If you're looking to maximize your points and miles earnings, though, you may have to look at multiple products across a card company's ecosystem. In some instances, you might find the best setup to maximize your earnings is across multiple card companies. It all comes down to your existing cards, your highest spend categories, and what your ultimate goal is.

Spend Categories

There are various groups that your spend can be categorized as. Popular spend categories include:

• Groceries

• Dining, including take-out and delivery

• Travel

• Hotels

• Car Rentals

• Gas

• Transportation (tolls, parking, bus tickets, etc..)

• Streaming Services

Identifying Current Spend

Credit card companies will typically have products aimed at different categories. You'll rarely find a single card that earns the most points/miles for all of your spend categories. Understanding where you spend the most, though, will help you identify what card(s) will give you the best value.

Say you're a 25 year old living in Bozeman, Montana, making $45,000 a year. You spend $1,500 a month on rent, $500 on groceries, $300 on gas, and $120 on streaming services. You rarely dine out. When looking at the best cards for groceries, the AMEX Gold stands out at 4x per dollar. The Gold card also offers several perks, including a $50 semi-annual Resy credit.

Earning 4x on groceries and 1x on gas and streaming services, you're looking at earning ~2,420 AMEX MR points each month. The semi-annual Resy credit is likely to go unused as there are few Resy restaurants in your area, plus you rarely dine out anyway. With a $325 annual fee, the Gold card likely won't bring enough value to justify the annual fee.

If, however, you opt for the Citi Strata Premier, which has a $95 annual fee, you'd earn 3x on gas and groceries - earning you 2,520 Citi Thank You Rewards points each month.

Again, what value you get out of a card is individualized. It's important to review your spending trends to see where you spend the most money, and to also be honest about your spending patterns. Maximizing points and miles earning is only beneficial if you're able to pay off your balances in full each month.

Merchant Offers and Shopping Portals

Each major credit card company has their version of discounts and offers that cardholders can link their accounts with to earn additional cash back or points/miles when shopping. Capital One, Chase, Citi, and American Express all offer cardholders discounts for purchases made with specific merchants. Depending on your credit card, you may earn these discounts in the form of cash back or statement credits. Likewise, if your credit card earns rewards, you may earn additional points or miles for these purchases.

It's important to check the terms of these offers as they all vary. You'll want to confirm whether the offer is in store or online, whether the purchase must be made through a specific link, and if there are any exclusions or limits to be aware of. The terms and conditions of the offer should outline each of these.

In addition to credit card company offers, shopping portals have become a great way to earn additional points and miles. I can't tell you the number of AMEX MR points I've earned simply by purchasing my dog's food through Rakuten PetSmart offers. Many times, these additional points can equal, or even exceed, what you'd receive from a card's sign up bonus.

Airline loyalty programs, credit card companies (Capital One Shopping, Citi Shop, etc..), and portals like Rakuten all allow you to earn additional points and miles on your everyday spend. If you know you're going to be making a purchase, it's always best to check for offers or shopping portals to see where you can maximize your spend.

Stacking Offers

The best case scenario occurs when you find an offer from your credit card company, as well as find an offer for that same merchant on a shopping portal, and you are able to combine (or 'stack') the offers. This scenario can also be referred to as 'double dipping.'

So how exactly does offer stacking work? Let's say you have an AMEX Platinum that earns 1x on everyday spend. You log into the AMEX website and notice there is an offer for +3x on Sephora purchases. If you add this offer to your Platinum card, a purchase at Sephora would get you the standard 1x plus the additional 3x from the offer, for a total of 4x per dollar spent. So a $100 Sephora purchase would get 400 total AMEX MR points. Not bad, especially considering the purchase without the offer would have only earned 100 AMEX MR points.

Let's add in stacking. Rakuten allows you to choose how you receive your cash back - you can receive a check for the amount of cash back or you can elect to receive it in the form of AMEX Membership Rewards points. In order to receive cash back in the form of AMEX MR, you need to have an MR earning AMEX card. After linking your AMEX account, you can earn MR multipliers just as you would cash back. When a merchant offers 2% cash back, you instead would earn 2x MR points; 4% cash back = 4x, 5% = 5x, and so on...

Say you add the Sephora offer to your AMEX Platinum card and then you check Rakuten. You notice that Rakuten has 8% cash back on Sephora. Making a $100 purchase with your Platinum card through the Rakuten link would earn you the standard 1x from the Platinum, an additional 3x from the AMEX offer, and 8x from the Rakuten deal. By stacking Rakuten with the AMEX offer, you now earn a total of 12x per dollar, or 1,200 AMEX MR points!

While 1,200 AMEX MR points might not seem like an incredible amount by itself, consider making 4 or 5 purchases a month of over 1,000 points each. At 5 purchases a month, you're looking at an additional 5,000 AMEX MR points. Since Rakuten pays out quarterly, you'd be getting an additional 15,000 points that quarter or 60,000 points in the year. It's essentially earning the same amount of points of some sign up bonuses offers on cards without having to add to your 5/24.

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Additional Ways to Earn Points and Miles

Sign Up Bonuses (SUBs)

The quickest way to earn a high number of points is by completing what's called a sign up bonus, otherwise referred to as a SUB. Nearly all credit cards have some form of a SUB, rewarding you with a certain number of points after spending a set amount of money within a given timeframe. The number of points, spend amount required, and the timeframe in which you have to hit the SUB all vary by card and by credit card company.

One thing to be aware of when considering SUBs is that not all points are equal. For instance, consider 3 different sign up offers. The first would be a Chase Sapphire Preferred with a SUB of 60,000 Chase points for spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. The second would be an AMEX Hilton Surpass card with a SUB of 130,000 Hilton points for spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. Finally, consider an AMEX Gold offer with a SUB of 80,000 MR points for $6,000 spend in the first 6 months.

The Hilton Surpass card might seem the most appealing given its 130,000 points; however, when you consider that the AMEX Gold offers 80,000 MR that can be transferred to Hilton at a 2:1 ratio - you realize the Gold SUB could net you 160,000 Hilton points. With the AMEX Gold, you also have the ability to transfer to any one of the other transfer partners, making the AMEX MR points more flexible than the Hilton points. Remember, you can transfer credit card points (Capital One Miles, Chase points, AMEX MR, Citi Thank You Rewards) to any of the transfer partners. If you earn a specific brand's points, though, you are generally unable to transfer those to another point system - or at least favorably do so.

Likewise, Chase points can be transferred to Hyatt hotels at a 1:1 ratio. While 60,000 Hyatt points might not seem like much compared to the 130,000 Hilton points - consider that a standard Hilton room can run anywhere between 60,000 and 120,000 points. Hyatt, on the other hand, offers standard rooms starting at 7,500 to 45,000 points a night. So depending on where you are looking at staying, as well as the length of time, 60,000 Hyatt points might end up being higher value.