Using Credit Cards

Probably one of the premier inventions of the 20^th century in the world of finance is the credit card. Second on that lineage are the now overly ubiquitous affinity programs, basically getting points for using your credit card, and then being able to get something in exchange for those points. After all, if you are going to use your credit card for various purchases (and nowadays who doesn’t?), and if there is no difference in cost (in the macro sense that is debatable), why not use a credit card that gives you points? 

When you do that, it’s obviously important to know what you can do with those points – do you get cash in exchange, can you use them for flights or hotel rooms, do you buy things with them? I don’t know about you, but my experience at looking at the catalogues from the credit card companies, where you can use points to buy product, is that those points tend to be worth a fraction of what they are under other circumstances – the products in the catalogues, assuming you even need them, are not reasonably priced in respect to what any good shopper can find. 

Keep in mind of course, as with any credit card, that primary aspect, among all other aspects, of the use of a credit card, is to pay it off as rapidly as possible so as to avoid the usually usurious interest rates. And, with points, keep an eye out as to when (if at all) they expire.