Tricks to Earn Reward Points Faster

Reward points are offered by credit card companies as a loyalty scheme; spending a certain amount of money on the credit card earns points that can be redeemed for flights, gift cards and other products. There are a number of strategies you can follow to maximize your reward points and therefore maximize your benefits.

Consolidation

One of the key strategies is to consolidate. If you have three credit cards with, for example, 100 points on each, this is significantly less helpful than one card with 300 or even 200 points. This is because reward points are nontransferable.

So, what you need to do is focus on one credt card, or two at the most, for your reward point purchases. This should be the one with the best scheme, or the one whose rewards are most in line with what you want. If you have enough credit available, you can even pay one card's balance off with another card--the first card will be clear, while the second card will have its reward points.

Streamline

Streamline all your purchases into your chosen credit card. This means essentially avoiding cash altogether; instead, you should make every purchase on credit, and then pay the balance at the end of the month.

This does take some discipline; you should not spend more than you would spend in cash, since this will just put you in debt and render the rewards superfluous.

You can expand on this by paying for other peoples' purchases that they would have spent cash on. So, if you're at a bar with a friend who intends on paying for his drinks in cash, you can have him give you the cash while you pay the tab on your credit card. This will give you the rewards points for both of your tabs and also make the closing out process that much easier.

Stay Informed

Finally, you need to be aware of what is going on with your reward points. This is particularly relevant with regard to the expiration date. You need to know when your points expire and what you plan to do about that.

You also need to stay aware of any deals, like double points schemes and the like. If you are aware of these, you can capitalize on them by increasing the rate at which you implement strategies to gain points.