Sometimes when people talk about credit card rewards, they assume that you need to spend a lot to earn a significant amount of rewards. As a college student, your expenses are likely relatively low, and it may not seem worth the hassle to get a credit card if you can just keep using your debit card.
I got my first credit card in July 2017 right before my sophomore year of college when I became an authorized user on one of my parent’s accounts. I recently sat down and added up all the rewards points I’d redeemed since then and was pleasantly surprised at how much it summed to. From July 2017-July 2020 I have earned $669 in cash-back rewards!
College students really can earn a hefty amount form rewards points despite their low cost of living. Here are my top tips for maximizing your rewards potential in college and allowed me to earn $600+ in cash-back in just three years.
1. Become an authorized user
Generally, as a young 20-something, you probably don’t have much credit history if any. This means your credit score may be nonexistent and you need to start building credit in order to have access to the kind of cards that offer rewards.
One way to get around this is to become an authorized user on someone else’s account. If that person has great credit, then you can take advantage of the perks such as rewards and a high credit limit.
Unfortunately, you may not be able to become an authorized user for one reason or another, so the next best thing to do would be to either open a secured credit card or a student card, start building credit, and upgrade to a rewards card once ASAP!
2. Always pay off your balance in full each month
One of the reasons credit card companies are able to offer rewards is because they make money off of people who carry balances on their cards and pay interest on that. The winners of this system are those of us who use our credit cards like debit cards, only spend what we can afford, and pay off the balance in full each month. If you do this, you will never pay a cent (or Two Cents) to your bank and all the rewards you earn will go directly to your pocket.
3. Put group bills on your card and Venmo request later
When I was in college, many of my friends didn’t have credit cards, so they didn’t care about earning points. This meant that I often offered to put big bills like dinner tabs and even flights and hotel rooms on my credit cards and then made sure to Venmo request them later. This definitely gave me a big boost in points!
4. Don’t become too obsessed with points
If you become too obsessed with points, you may be tempted to spend more than you normally would just to get the rewards. Pay attention to these impulses and try your best to combat them. Try not to look at your point balance too much and just let them accumulate in the background. You’d be surprised at how fast they add up!
5. Take advantage of bonuses
$200 of my rewards comes from when I opened a Chase Freedom card a few months ago. This was a great offer and made sense for me to take advantage of since I’ve been wanting to switch banks for a while. Take advantage of bonuses for a one-time boost in rewards especially if you were already thinking of opening a new card anyways. Be careful of opening too many cards in too short a time period, though, because this may hurt your credit score!
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