Sarah Rathner

So if I want to maximize my credit card rewards, what's your advice to do that?

So it depends on how much complexity you're willing to handle when it comes to your credit card.

At the baseline, using a card that earns, say, 2% cash back everywhere you use the card is a great way to begin earning rewards in a way that for many people is the most sustainable because it's the most...

simple way to earn rewards.

But you can also maximize this by having multiple credit cards.

It doesn't have to be 20 credit cards at once, but even two or three.

Different cards earn different rewards rates on different what we call spending categories, and that could be broad categories like gas, groceries, restaurants, travel...

Sometimes you might pick a card that earns the exact same rewards rate everywhere you use it, and that's the simplest thing, and those make a great foundational card.

And then you could add on to that with cards that earn maybe 3%, 4% or more in these very specific categories.

So really the key is finding the card or cards, plural, that match where your money is going so you can earn the most possible every time you use any credit card.

I'm going to say this very clearly.

If you have credit card debt, don't play the credit card points game.

At least not right now.

Because the amount of interest you're paying on your credit card debt is going to wipe out the value of any rewards you would earn in as little as a few months.

For anybody that's relatively new to this, I like to recommend that they have a specific trip in mind.

So if you know where you're gonna go in six months, a year, and you also know what airline you're probably going to fly,

where you're probably going to stay, whether or not you'd need a rental car.

You can begin to build your travel itinerary and then match credit cards accordingly.

So maybe a specific airline card has a good sign-up bonus.

A hotel card could get you enough points to stay for a couple of nights in a specific city.