I know it may seem odd for a personal finance blogger such as myself who condemns the evils of debt and encourages readers to be on tight budgets, to be lauding the benefits of a credit card! But I am! If you can manage a credit card and keep it under control, it can be a wonderful tool. Credit card companies throw out tons of free benefits hoping you’ll rack up tons of debt and they’ll make money off of you. Well jokes on them, because I’ve paid them $0 interest and earned $1,800 in cash rewards these past two years. Here’s how I did it:

$1,800? That’s silly; I got like a million points/miles with mine.

Ah, the ol’ hotel/airline credit card gimmicks. I actually keep the Delta Platinum credit card in my wallet, and rarely use it! The problem with points and miles is that it’s tough to get a good reading of how much they are actually worth, and I always felt like I was getting the short end of the stick whenever I went to redeem miles that I’d earned. Wait, so it costs how many points to go to the Caribbean when I can go to Europe for just a few more? (True story, happened to a friend recently).  Hotels and airlines are always going to make sure they make out better than you did. Plus, do the math on that 70,000 mile flight you just redeemed. How much did you have to spend to get that?

Cash is king.

That old saying is certainly true, and that’s why my preferred credit card of choice (I use it 90% of the times I swipe it) is the Capital One Venture card. Sure you actually earn ‘miles’ instead of cash, but when you get into the redemption, you quickly learn those miles are really just dollars. The Venture card gives you ‘double miles’ which are redeemable at a 1% conversion rate. Do the math and you’ll find that makes it a 2% cash back card. When I go to redeem my miles, I just simply get a credit on my statement for any travel related purchases that I want. Which do you think you’ll get a better value for: paying the airline cash for a flight or redeeming miles with them? The airline certainly makes a lot more with the former. In their eyes, I paid with cash; they certainly don’t need to know I just erased that purchase afterwards using my rewards.

Think outside of the box.

With a little creativity, you’ll actually be able to work the system a little to maximize your rewards. For a while there, Expedia.com and my Venture card teamed up. Whenever I booked flights, I got a double mile bonus, on top of my already bonus miles. That means I was getting quadruple miles (4%) back. Boom. I also was able to get Expedia points, which I’m saving up for a free hotel stay. Oh, and I still get Delta miles for my flight. #Winning.

The payoff

I got married this past summer and my beautiful bride and I traveled down to Belize for an awesome ten day honeymoon. It was awesome, beaches, Mayan ruins, hiking, zip lining, snorkeling, all super fun. Certainly wasn’t cheap though. Thankfully with all my rewards, I was able to ‘erase’ those purchases right away. Now, the Venture card does have a little regulation that only lets you ‘erase’ strictly travel purchases (flights, rental cars and hotels…). Unfortunately, not all of our purchases in Belize were ‘travel’ related. Thankfully, as a healthcare consultant, I had plenty of business travel expenses I’d put on my card (and got reimbursed for) that I could erase and use to offset our trip.

The beauty of it all

When properly managed, rewards credit cards are awesome. After seeing the light of a rewards credit card, I rarely use cash anymore. Every expenditure is a chance to save a little bit for a future trip (or two!). $900 per year is certainly not a small sum. I can enjoy a nice vacation for that price. And plus, it was all FREE. I earned that money simply by living my normal, routine life.

Are you getting the most from your rewards credit card? Leave a comment with any great tips or success stories!

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