Mistakes happen, but nobody wants to be the one making them — especially when something like a juicy credit card bonus is on the line.
Whether you just got one of the many increased rewards card welcome bonuses available recently or you plan to get the big 100,000-point bonus that ends in a couple of days, here are some common mistakes to avoid so you don’t miss out on the bonus points that probably made you apply for the card in the first place.
Accidentally counting the annual fee (and other noneligible spending) toward the amount of spending required to earn your welcome bonus. I almost messed this up once by counting a bill I paid via Venmo — it didn’t count toward the amount spent to earn the bonus and I almost missed earning it. Some cards, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, actually have spending trackers to show your progress toward the bonus, so you can easily keep an eye on it — don’t cut it too close and accidentally miss out.
In the same vein, if a charge doesn’t fully post to your account by the time your bonus period ends, such as with a shipping delay, you can miss earning it that way. And yes — refunds after earning the bonus can sometimes result in the issuer “clawing it back.”
Biting off more spending than you can chew. If you find yourself struggling to meet the minimum spending requirement for a card bonus (without buying things you don’t need), here are some tips and reminders for things you can charge, such as car insurance, medical bills (claim on your Flexible Spending Account later), quarterly taxes, electric bills, rent and more.
Not waiting the required period of time since earning that bonus last time. Some bonuses are “once in a lifetime” (which can mean a lot of things) but some have other time frames, such as needing to wait at least 48 months for the Sapphire Preferred bonus since last earning a Sapphire bonus of any type. Note that’s 48 months from earning the bonus, not from when you opened the card, which is often a different date by a few months.
The final mistake we see every single time a big offer rolls around is someone missing the offer deadline because they just waited too long and life got busy. So don’t let that or these other mistakes cause you to miss out on thousands of dollars in bonus points.
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