Do You Need A Plan for A Travel Reward Credit Card?

While it is not something that we automatically think of it would not hurt to have a plan for a travel reward credit card. Far too often, we simply acquire the card and make purchases. We then pay the balances as we receive the card and then accrue the valuable miles. When we reach the point where we can cash the cards out for miles we then have the choice of setting up a vacation or simply letting the miles continue to accrue and cash out those miles…eventually. Oh, come on, folks, does that sound like a good idea? It seems more like a passive means of acquiring miles without any plan of action in mind. Needless to say, such a haphazard approach could end up defeating the purpose of acquiring the miles in the first place. After all, you may end up not using them! Now, what purpose would they serve if this was the case?

Rather than approach this in such a haphazard manner would it not be better to plan things out a little clearly and deliberately? Now, this may seem like a somewhat difficult and complicated methodology but it truly isn’t. In fact, all it comes down to is a little simple planning. If you were to set aside a certain number of purchases towards the credit card per month (say $1,000) and then made a comparable number of payments per month (hopefully, you will pay the full $1,000 balance!) you will end up with an accumulation of 12,000 points by the end of the year excluding sign up bonuses and double points plans. Actually, when it comes down to it you can also strategically make ‘double points purchases’ so this could be an option as well. So, if you need a certain number of points for a particular airline ticket you could actually plan out a strategy for acquiring the ticket within a certain specified time frame.