Credit Card Points In USA

This is a full guide to everything bonus credit card points and explains how to get started today by collecting points and maximizing your credit card points to book trips for the best price/value. Here, you can also learn about the credit card tier list.

What are Credit Card Points?

Credit is used all around us. It’s what has allowed great countries like Australia to get to where we are today. Capitalism was built on credit, and it laid the foundation of where we are as a society. Tech giants in Silicon Valley, who created companies like Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, and more, needed credit from investors to get to where they are today.

They’re one of the largest forms of credit extended to students every single year. Small businesses are the backbones of what makes this economy so great, and most of them start their journey by utilizing credit from banks and other entrepreneurs. Even our government utilizes credit daily by borrowing money from bonds and other instruments to fund our healthcare, military, and central government.

There are three main credit bureaus called:

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

If you pay your good credit card back on time to these big banks and companies, you never have to pay interest at all. Instead, you can make money as a Credit Card reward for borrowing the bank’s money and then paying it back on time.

So, I currently use 20 different rewards credit cards in Australia. In the last five years, I’ve recruited millions of card points, which are presently worth anywhere from $30,000 conservatively to over $100,000 that I can use freely at any time.

Now, there’s such a high discrepancy that I can go as low as 30 grand to as high as 100 grand through what we call redemption. If I use my credit card deals points for just cash back, I could redeem one point for 1 cent.

On the other hand, if I use those same point cards for travel, more specifically, getting first-class flights, I can get a greater point redemption. Instead of my credit card earning points being worth 1 cent to one point, they could be worth $0.05 to even $0.15 per point instead.

Some Cards are lost, and leaders

• A great example is the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which was a card that gave away so much money to cardholders that it cut profits for JP Morgan, chased by over 300 million bucks.
• The second reason is that credit card companies profit from the interchange fee. You may know to learn, but retailers have to pay a credit card merchant fee whenever you use a credit card, also known as interchange.
• The third and final reason is that there will always be people who end up using credit for the wrong reason and paying interest on that amount.

Regarding the credit card points offer game, there will be four main issuers. Aside from them, you’ll find different bank and credit union cards, which are still okay. But the first four that we mentioned will take precedence over some of these other cards within the bank and credit union cards.

Good Store Cards

Now, there will be good, decent, and mid-tier store cards. And then you have your bad Co-branded cards and your good store cards. Apple is a decent choice.

There will still be better options than Apple, but it is a good card. You have your Amazon Visa rewards points card. This is something I use for my Amazon purchases, allowing me to get additional cashback on my spending. 

If you spend a lot of money on Amazon Prime and similar services, this is a card that I would still consider. If you buy a lot of stuff from Costco and they’re not accepting your American Express, it’s another good option to earn some cash back.

Decent Co-Branded Card

Some decent Co-branded cards; you have the Best Buy card. This is alright because they have a no-interest payment period, but you also get additional cashback, and things like the Instacart MasterCard are not terrible cards.

Bad Co-Branded Cards

Say, as an example, with the Old Navy card, the welcome bonus offer is that I’d get 30% off my first purchase that I use with that card at Old Navy compared to an American Express Platinum card, where I can earn up to 90,000 membership reward points that is of value at conservatively $900 cash back.

What is The Process For Getting The Best Credit Cards?

1. Capital One (Savor One Rewards)

Capital One Saver One credit card is one of this year’s best credit card reward points. This is a great starter card no matter where you’re in your journey because Capital One is an issuer. That’s much more lenient on newer applicants and fresh people to the credit card game.

Benefits of the Card:

• You can earn $200 after you spend $500 on your card.
• But you can get 10% back on Uber Eats and purchases, which is crazy.
• This is through November 2024; you can also get a free Uber One membership fee.
• So when it comes to this being your first card, prioritize getting that welcome bonus offer.

Get in the routine of building your rewards on credit cards, so all you have to do is sign up for the card, use that card to make purchases, and then set up auto pay and ensure that you are never going negative or leaving a balance on that credit card.

2. Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred allows you to get a travel credit card without fully committing to one with a high annual fee—a welcome bonus offer of 60,000 points, worth about $600.00 one-to-one. After spending $4000 in the first three months, Chase values it on their site at 750. That’s because this card gives you access to the Ultimate rewards portal, which provides you with an automatic 25% boost on your points when you redeem them for travel.

Now, the ultimate rewards portal is straightforward. American Express has its version of the American Express Membership Rewards Travel portal, and Capital One has its version two. Simply put, it’s just like Expedia. You can book hotels and airfare through it. You just put in your travel dates, and then it’ll tell you how much it costs in cash and points. Now, this card also gives.

A ton of different benefits have an annual fee of $95. This means you will be charged $95 to hold this card every year. But if you look at the welcome bonus offer and even just some of the different credits, like the $200 back you get or the $50 you get in statement credits on hotels, you realize you still have an extraordinarily high break-even fee.

Your break-even on a points hack credit card is the annual fee you would pay versus the return on benefits you get. So if I pay $95 a year to hold this card, but then I get over 1000 dollars and free cash back points and more, I would subtract that full value I received from the $95 annual fee to notice that I would then get an ROI of over $900.

If I couldn’t get over $95 in benefits, I would be breaking even on this card.

And unless I couldn’t get that welcome bonus offer, it’s a card that I would reconsider applying for. I need to stress this. Credit cards are meant to get positive ROI if you’re breaking even or unable to hit that welcome bonus offer anytime.

Why Business Credit Cards?

• you get the most amount of points
• certain business cards don’t impact your credit (including Chase Ink cards)
• does not add to the chase 5/24 rule
• more variety in cash back on your spend
• higher credit limits
• better organization of expenses

What If I Don’t Have A Business?

The sole prop will include freelancers, artists, actors, writers, babysitters, dog walkers, food and grocery delivery drivers, and even Facebook marketplace flippers. Suppose you’ve ever done anything where you’ve earned a little side income. In that case, you are a sole proprietor, which falls under the umbrella term of the business owner, which also qualifies you for these business credit cards. So everyone, including you, can get a business credit card even if you think you don’t own a business.

Favorite Resources To Get a Business Credit Card

1. Rover: Dog Walking
2. Instacart: Grocery Delivery Driver
3. Tutorme.com: Private Tutoring
4. Squarespace, Wix: Start Your Own Blog
5. Shopify: Star an E-commerce Store

So, after you pick out your business, you’ve gone through the options. So 1, go to irs.gov and get yourself an EIN. This is completely free. You can pick up a number at any time. Save that EIN because that is what you will use when signing up for some of these freelance sites and when you apply for your business credit card. The second thing is to get your pay stubs and expense receipts for your business.

3. Chase Ink Cash v Chase Ink Unlimited

Now, both cards have no annual fee, and to figure out which one you want to get, you need to look at your business spending habits. Consider the Ink Cash card if you’re spending a lot on office supplies or store stuff. But if your spending is over the place and you want to keep it easy, Chase Inc Unlimited might be better. You’d like to get both cards because they don’t add to the 524 rule.

And you can hit those welcome bonus offers after you get these two cards. Get the Ink business preferred. This will have an annual fee, so keep that in mind. However, you’ll get many points from holding this card, too. I’ve been holding my Ink business cards for many, many years now, and these are cards that I would not consider cancelling. This is because these two cards have no annual fees. It doesn’t cost me a single thing, and even with the Ink Business Preferred card, I’ve still been able to break even on my spending.

4. American Express Gold Card

It’s going to be your first American Express card that you can get. It has a strong welcome bonus offer, and the American Express Gold Card fits within the lineup, which is generally how American Express wants new applicants to enter their ecosystem. What I mean by that is they came out with a rule a few months ago where if you apply for the American Express Platinum Card first, you won’t qualify for the American Express Gold Card Welcome bonus offer.

There are many points right there that you want to take advantage of. So the Amex Gold is the card I got next, and aside from the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, where I was like, well, this is my first metal card, the American Express Gold card is where I believe the love for the game starts kicking in. Once you do that, get the welcome bonus offer on this card. It’s very straightforward: you must spend 6 grand in six months. I’m sure most people can do that, but it will be more work with some of these other cards.

5. Premium Tier Travel Credit Card

These three travel credit card rewards in Australia are going to be your Capital Adventure X card, your Chase Sapphire Reserve, and your Amex Platinum card. I consider these to be like the three Pokémon where they’ve evolved, and they are like the steroid version. You got your Charizard, you got the Turtle. Although these three cards are similar, I’ve broken them down.

So, the Capital Adventure X Credit card with points is actually what I consider the most affordable and still has many great benefits. Capital Adventure XI Think is a great card for most people, who still have labelled it one of the best credit cards for this year. Capital One has gone ahead and just added so many jam-packed benefits for now. 

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is another great card, but I’m going over why I’d hold off on this card. And if you’re someone who values like the Amex Platinum card, you get all the benefits. You know that you’ll use a Saks, 5th Ave., and all the lounge access you get, and this is a card you want. You could also get this from American Express. Platinum card is going to have an annual fee of 695. It’s going to have the most status benefits.

How to Get 100k, 125K, 150K Offer

• Check AMEX’s Website Directly. The Link is Here
• get a personal referral link from a friend or family member.

So with Marriott, Hilton, even at different car rental places, they’re going to give you status benefits where normally people would have to spend X amount of nights at that hotel or X amount of different drives they’ve done with that rental company for you to get. But you can skip all that if you hold on to this car. As I mentioned, the cards you may want to consider getting will be between Venture X and Platinum. I’d get the Capital One Venture X.

It would store very well with your original Saver One card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The reason why you may want to skip that is because we already have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and there is one little rule called the Chase 48-month rule where if you get a Chase Sapphire product within the last 48 months, you’re not able to qualify for the bonus on the reserve. It’s about four years since I reapplied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve because I wanted to take advantage of those points. 

So instead, do this. Get the Capital One Venture X card, get used to a travel card to this degree, and then get the Amex Platinum card afterward. When it comes to the Amex Platinum card, you need to prioritize this. You need to understand how to find the welcome bonus offers because, unlike the Capital One Venture X card, the welcome bonus offers are usually stable.

The American Express Platinum card has limited-time welcome bonus offers at different rates. I’ve seen it go as high as 150,000 points that you can get back compared to the normal 80,000 points. This one is rare; I only see it sometimes. But what I have seen more commonly is 100,000 Mr. Points or even 125,000 Mr.

6. Premium Luxury Travel Credit Card

We’ve got one of our premium luxury travel credit cards, and from here, you’ll notice that we have some cards stacked on top of one another. This year, you’ll have your hotel credit card. Depending on the places you shop, the hotels you prefer to stay out of, or even some of the airlines you like riding versus others, there are a ton of these different cards.

I have The World of High Card. It’s a great card and something I’d recommend for most people because the way these cards work is that you pay an annual fee on most of them, but you can get a benefit like getting one hotel night for free. An example is the World of High card. If I’m paying $95 a year to hold this card, I can get one free hotel credit every single year, but that hotel room costs 150 or even $200.00, and then I get all the status that this credit card gives me, and I’m getting positive value. 

Now, if you are a homebody, you are traveling less. You may not consider a hotel or airline card, but other Co-branded brands like Amazon might be more valuable. I get 5% back on all my spending, so I still consider co-branded cards a viable option, especially in the late game if you’re looking to maximize your spending even further.

After that, you should focus on hitting more welcome bonus offers. At the end of the day, that small 2 to 4X cash back you get will be around for a while, but where you get most of your points will be through hitting welcome bonus offers consistently year-round.

Super End Game

1. Start with Hilton Aspire Card
2. Wait 5 Days AMEX will only Approve you for 1 card every 5 days
3. Day 5, Apply for Hilton Surpass Card
4. Wait 90 Days, AMEX will only approve you for max 2 cards every 90 days
5. Day 90, Apply for the Hilton Honors Card
6. Hold all 3 cards for 1 Year
7. Downgrade Hilton Aspire & Surpass to Honors. This will leave you with 3 Hilton Honors Cards/
8. When you get a Hilton Honors Upgrade email and use it.
9. Maximum end game is owning 3 Hilton Aspire Cards

You have two methods: reward portal and transfer partners. You will find the most value in transfer partners, but it will take more work. These are highly valuable because getting a good transfer redemption takes work. You could do it to so many different hotels. There are always conditions. Some are worth more than others.

There are various peaks, different destinations, and a huge variety of factors, and it could take even a couple of hours of research for you to find a decent redemption. But I’ll go over how you can shortcut it, save all the time and effort, and still get the same outcome. However, you should know that transfer partners are where you can find very high value.

But some first-class flights are extremely, extremely just out of the world. You get to like your shower; you get a private area. Even a business class flight where you can lay down for your 14-hour flight sounds very nice to me. Regardless of whether I was trying to get a first-class, I would get an economy flight ticket through Korean Airlines. Say it costs just $1000 in cash. 

When I get to a point where it says, hey, do you want to upgrade your seat for money or points? Sometimes, if you want to upgrade your flight with cash, it will be $29,000. Or it’ll say, hey, you know what, it’s only just going to be. It’s like 500,000 points instead of 3 million.

And that’s where you can find significant outsize value. It’s from getting upgraded business or first-class flight seats. On rare occasions, you can book directly with some of these airlines and get a regular first-class seat. You don’t have to go through the upgrade offer and wait for availability because sometimes they’re unavailable. Sometimes, you wait, and then a few days before the flight takes off, they’ll be like, OK, the upgrade is available on first come, first serve.

Even if you apply it, you may still get approved. Sometimes, I got denied a credit card and had to use this method to reverse that decision. I’m also going to go over how you can increase your credit score because this is fundamentally the biggest reason why people will get denied and how you can get much better benefits, get approved for more cards, and get better rates on different programs like your mortgage and your auto loan or even a business loan down the line.

We’re also going to go over how you can accrue more points. I was teasing this up for so long within this PowerPoint, and we’ll finally go over that. And then 4, I will share how I could Lambo with credit cards. OK, first of all, use reconsideration lines if you want to get approved for any credit card. Whenever you apply for a credit card, it is a computer algorithm that automatically decides if you get approved or denied. 

However, algorithms do not consider real-world situations. So, if you’re dealing with the financial mess that you took care of five years ago, but it’s still impacting your credit score, this is where you can call up the reconsideration line. Talk to a person and see if they can reverse that decision. If that person is saying no, we can’t do anything, and the algorithm is right. You do something called hookah. Hang up. Call again. Now, I’d rinse and repeat this at most five times.

But if you did it five times and they’re not approving you, they’re probably not going to approve you. The good thing about any of this is that when you get declined for a credit card, the bank will always send you a letter telling you exactly why. Sometimes, your history needs to be higher; sometimes, you’ve just applied for too many credit cards, which are easy fixes. OK, wait a bit and reapply, and you can get approved then. 

Just keep in mind if you ever get denied or they need more information, it is not the end-all. I’ve seen the Recon line come in clutch many times on your screen, and these will be the numbers for them. You can also verify it by looking up the directory on their website, which I always recommend you do. 

OK, always double-check because when it comes to finances and credit cards, you never want to have any of your information leaked to someone posing as one of these banks. Now, if you want to get proof for any credit card, it’s as simple as ensuring you have a good score. The highest score you can get is 850; getting an 850 credit score is also very simple. So 1; pay off your credit cards in full and on time.

When you get a new credit card, you can set the auto-pay date, and sometimes, if you have it set, even a few days after, it will report the utilization on your credit score, which makes up a large chunk. And more specifically, it will make up 30% of your credit score, which is a big amount. So I encourage you guys to turn on the auto-pay but do it earlier than when the statement balance is reported. Now, every credit card has a different date. OK, you can look this information up online. 

For example, with my Chase Sapphire Reserve, I had it set to the 16th of the month, and then I kept noticing my utilization was rather high when I was using that card. I switched it, so it pulls it out on the 1st of the month. I make sure I spend my money wisely, and I always have enough money to pay off my cards, and you’ll see your score increase very fast. If you have a bad score, it’s because of some credit card debt. 

So, to solve that, you need to find ways to cut down on your spending, start budgeting, and start using apps. I use things like Rocket Money. I also use basic budgeting templates. I also like to look at my expenses and see where I can cut down or where I can add income. It’s fine to cut down your spending to near 0 if you first won’t survive. If you do that, you must still eat and pay for utility, rent, and whatever. But most importantly, you need an active income to pay off any balance.

So make sure you pick up a side hustle, start a business, pick up second shifts at work, and stay at work longer. If you need to, ask for a raise at the hospital you’ve worked at for a long time. Another little life hack here is you can always call the banks, and they have a department where they can work with you. They can lower the interest rate in a payment plan, give tools, and set you up for success.

Don’t buy things you don’t need because credit is a tool that you have to be disciplined in your spending if you want to be able to find value. Before you do all that, though, you need to monitor your credit history. A lot of companies are going to charge money to do this, but if you sign up for some of these cards, they’re going to give you access to monitor your score for free, but they’re not going to provide you with the full picture because there are three main credit bureaus.

So, like we said, Experian, TransUnion, Equifax. If you want to see all of them for free, use annualcreditreport.com. I’m not sponsored or affiliated with them anyway. This is actually what the FTC encourages people to use. The government vets this. You can get a free report, but they’ll start charging you if you do it more than a few times within a year. Now, when you get your full credit report, you have to do a little bit of work because many credit bureaus make a ton of mistakes.

Another way to increase your score best is by using the piggybacking method

• Take this image here of my wifey on my shoulders picking her little apples on her apple farm trip back last year where I’m carrying her with my good credit, and with someone saying she has bad credit; I’m able to give her good credit and to do that you add them as an authorized user on your account. So this will only work if the authorized user who adds you to their account has good credit, too.
• Now, to add someone as an authorized user to your account is very simple.
• You pull up your credit card, whichever is sure you’re with, and it’s going to say, do you want to add an authorized user?
• You put in their name and their Social Security number.
• You don’t even have to give them the credit card.
• They don’t have ever to spend it.
• You can cut it up, but automatically, based on your credit score, you will transfer that data, that history, and the benefits of your hard work over to them.
• So, if you are struggling with credit, find a family member with an 850 credit score, something that’s high, and see if they can add you as an authorized user. It costs nothing for them.
• It takes them two or three different clicks, but you’re going to start seeing an increase on your credit score the next month because if they have even like $200,000, say, of credit on your account, their history is going to get reflected on to you and your credit score goes up.

It can be difficult in this weird economy right now with inflation up. So 1, when it comes to welcome bonus offers, maximize these two strategies and pay your taxes. It’ll tell you the fees and what they will charge you. And if you click on this, it will bring up a website. So I’ve used Pay USA tax for many, many, many years, but they’re going to be different sites like Pay 1040. These are all directly affiliated with the IRS, and if you’re paying even a tax bill of three to $5000 for the money you made that year, this is an easy way for you to hit that welcome bonus offer.

All right, second option here. If you are into business, this is going to be huge. So Melio is a recent app and product that I introduced. This app comes into play where you can use any credit card to pay a vendor for an expense that you have. So, for me, my official wedding celebration is coming up, and many vendors want to get paid by Zelle or PayPal.

Zelle and PayPal allow you to pay with credit cards, too, but they tack on a huge fee, so sometimes it’s only worth it if you’re going for the welcome bonus offer and your ROI is there. But it needs to match up if you’re trying to get 1X cash back but paying 4% in fees.

First, even if you get all the best welcome bonuses in the world, you won’t get the supercar. Getting your dream home comes from starting a business or getting a good-paying job with an active income. Building up credit cards does come into place significantly. If you pay it off in full and your score increases, you can leverage OPM other people’s money more frequently, allowing you to get loans on these vehicles.

Now, it’s only sometimes just businesses you start. I’ve started four or five firms now. I was losing sleep a lot of the time. There are times when I got burnt out and many moments when I threw in the towel. So after saving up for years, investing my money constantly, growing different income streams, growing the business, and supporting A-Team, there was a point where it still needed to make sense financially for me to buy a Lambo out in cash.

So, first, as you build credit, lenders will want to extend more credit to you 2. Applying for a new car with a good score will be the difference between seeing a $2000 monthly payment. By the way, that’s what you would expect on getting a supercar versus a 3000 or $4000 a month payment if your credit score isn’t that good 3 Like we said, you need to ensure you have enough income, OK? Credit cards.

You must spend money to get a certain percentage back, so you must make more money than you’re spending. That all equates to what I just mentioned with the impact of bad credit; notice this: This is just the interest in a car loan payment of $20,000 over 60 months. If you have a terrible score and interest is 14%, your monthly payment will be $467. You are comparing it to a 5.61% rate, 380, $23.

Now, this is exponential if you do that on a larger scale, where the car is worth 200,000, three, or $100,000. So, when using a credit card, pay it off on time. Make sure you build up enough income streams because that will allow you to decide then to get access to these different auto loans, dream vehicles, and little splurges you want to make.

Credit gives you even more access to different tools, and it’s a better decision for you to get something like a business loan or business line of credit that even JP Morgan Chase extended out to me. When you start a business, you leave an impact; you provide value to people. At the end of the day, if you can help people, that’s what money is.

Money is just an exchange of value. Value comes from helping others and helping them make more money, helping them solve their needs, providing services, and providing value is why doctors get paid for what they do.

But it turns out, even though business owners and entrepreneurs may not be as smart, they can make a lot more money because their impact doesn’t just go from one person at a time, but it can go from one to thousands, one to hundreds of thousands or one to even millions.

So I know I’m going all over the place. But credit blends in with all these different avenues in our lives. It’s not just the credit card they used to swipe.

• Don’t carry balance on credit cards
• Don’t use just one creduit card
• Don’t cancel or close a credit card
• Don’t try to game the system