Dealing with Credit Card Reward Caps

In an earlier post on dealing with credit card companies for gas rewards, I mentioned 3 main issues that would hurt your gains from using credit card gas rewards. One of these was the rewards limits that some rebate programs place on your purchases. Let's get started in solving the issue, by first examining how do these limits get placed, why they are placed, and then we'll talk about the solution to it.

In a highly profitable industry, individual companies will always seek to bolster their profits, in fact, in ANY kind of economy, companies will try to add to their profits, and minimize the costs of getting these profits. Credit card companies then, are no different. Wherever you may be getting your credit card, most likely from banks, chances are your provider is trying to get as much money out of you as possible. Of course, they don't make much money if you always pay on time, and thus getting no interest, but they do make money on large percentages of the population that don't pay fully, and on time (Well, who would have these credit cards if they didn't need the money anyway right? But no, we're going to take advantage). As you are reading this, you are probably thinking about your own rewards, and why you opted to get a credit card. Part of it may be due to reading this blog, but most likely, you needed the money and also want of more gas rewards.
Now, rewards began because companies wanted to give an incentive for people to take their credit cards. But, they do need to continue profiting, so this incentive will never be extremely high, but they will be rewarding enough, that people may select their credit card for the reward, over a different card. What they want to do then, is to get people to use these cards everyday for all their purchases. Companies want you to buy with these cards even on purchases that either don't give gas rewards, or give very low gas rewards. That is because giving too much money just isn't profitable. However, that's not the only way companies must use to become more profitable. We have to think back to why the companies offer the rewards in the first place. We've already discussed this, and it's because of competition. This competition will help us to get a much better deal. In efforts to get as many customers as possible, credit card companies have to keep their card better than the competitions. If they suddenly withdrew all rewards, they would be knocked out. People use credit card gas rewards for a reason, and part of it is the incentive.

Now here's the important part. Some companies offer extremely high reward percentages when you just begin with them, to attract you to them, and then the reward drops like a rock. Obviously, you shouldn't keep using them at this point. Perhaps less obvious, is that other companies will GLADLY take you in, in hopes of keeping your money in profits. Thus, the technique we have to use is to find a highest reward credit card possible, use it as much as you possibly can, then switch to another one, as a new customer. This eliminates the problems of having your rewards drop out. You can continue to get more credit cards for all your purchases, in order to maximize the amount of gas rebate you get. It's clear then, that using one credit card for a long time simply cannot be a great way to get more gas rewards. What you can do in such a situation is to get a different gas reward credit card after one another always having a credit card. However, that's not the only way to get around the issue of capped rewards, and in fact, I will be giving you another method of getting around the immediate capped rewards when companies off for example a monthly limit on your bonus rewards. I will also later address the issue of companies that may include a lot of fine print, telling you exactly where your rewards apply, and how to get around limits of those, together with getting around monthly or short term limits. In the next few posts, I'm going to resolve the other 2 problems we found with the credit card gas reward companies in today's environment.

Let's summarize what we're talked about today. We discussed the need of companies to beat their competition as part of the way to make profit. We also discussed the reason why incentive on gas reward credit cards actually exist. Then we talked about how to get around reward caps on these gas credit cards by using their need of making profit against them. It's clear that using their competition will have more uses later on. If you just read this article and the previous, you should also check out one of my first articles, on the 3 main characteristics of a good credit card. You see, these are very important when selecting a credit card, but as you may have noticed in this article, they are not intangible. There isn't just one perfect card around. Truly, no card is perfect, because then they wouldn't be profitable. We just have to realize, that we can use one of their guiding principles, of creating profit, to make more profit for ourselves. There are too many banks and credit card companies for there to be low competition. In fact, the worst gas reward credit cards will still offer reasonable gas rewards, because otherwise they wouldn't exist. Most companies then, will have those 3 characteristics, but many of them choose to advertising and focus on main points of their gas reward credit card that separates them, and their competing credit cards.
Let's stop here for now. I've already written a huge deal on this competition aspect, and I will surely expand on it further. If you don't want to miss any of these tips on getting the best credit card gas rewards possible, then keep checking back to subscribe to our feed.

All the latest and the best information on credit card gas rewards, gas rebates, and where to get them, brought to you by the Credit Card Gas Rewards Blog. Updated all the time, with the greatest information that you need concerning your credit card purchases, and everything that has to do with your credit card and rebates for gas. Sphere: Related Content

Deal with credit card gas reward companies

Right now, we're still in the midst of a credit crisis or credit crunch, which causes some problems for those looking for credit card gas rewards for themselves to save on their spending and consumerism. Of course, there are still many opportunities to get credit card gas rewards, although it may not necessarily as much as previously, back with gas rewards could be obtained plentifully, and the credit card and loan industry was thriving.
Now, our main focus with this post today, is not about the credit crisis, although that's what I've begun this post with. I want to illustrate something that's being largely shown through this credit crisis, and that's that situations can and will change frequently. I recently stumbled upon a relatively old article (from March 2008), that has some interesting points brought up about how the industry has been changing. Here's some of that, taken from smartmoney.com:

Many card issuers put caps on the amount you can spend each month or year, and still receive rewards. This isn't a recent fine print addition, but because drivers hit these caps more quickly as gas prices rise, it's worth comparing how much you typically spend on gas a month against these limits before selecting a card, says Scott Bilker, founder of DebtSmart.com. The Discover Open Road Card, for example, offers a generous 5% rebate on gas purchases — but that's only for the first $100 spent in each billing period. After that, you'll earn 0.25% to 1%, depending on your overall spending. Someone driving a Honda Accord in Los Angeles, where gas is averaging $3.57 a gallon, would hit the cap during their second fill-up in a given month.

Even with $4 gas expected to arrive within the next few months, you may still not spend enough to get the full reward. Some cards assess rebates based on your total charges on the card, with bigger rewards only taking effect after you've done some big spending. Blue Cash from American Express offers 5% back on "everyday purchases" including gas, but only after you've charged $6,500 on the card in a given year. Prior to reaching that point, such purchases only earn 1%, while all others earn 0.5%.

They also talked about how "...a growing number of savvy customers start taking advantage of the savings that gas rebate cards offer at the pump, credit-card companies are making it tougher for them to reap the cards' benefits."

Yes, the economy is quickly changing, and more people are beginning to realize the potential of credit cards and gas rewards. What does this mean? Well, like they said, the average percentage of return on your gas reward card has gone down from 5% to 3% so that these greedy companies can be more profitable.

But don't feel as if the companies are really smartening up and taking away more of your money. You can still combat them by playing them against each other, and taking advantage of competition. You don't always need to get a great deal right away, because chances are, you won't get one anyway. It's better to negotiate, and how better to do so, by plotting "smart" credit card companies against each other for the best gas rewards?

There are basically several areas of main concern on these gas reward credit cards right now, so let's list them clearly.

1. A capped amount of rewards
2. A prerequisite of a large amount of spending
3. Low rebate percentages or low rewards in general

Each of these problems should be closely examined, and then we must decide on the best way to combat them. The first problem can be addressed quite easily, whereas the second two are stronger problems. The biggest issue here is probably that your gas rewards simply are not rewarding enough anymore, thanks to the way the industry has changed. To tackle these problems, I'll be adding another post later on, to address each of them individually. As I have previously stated, this will involve plotting credit card companies against themselves by taking advantage of their competition, and gaining both quality and quantity, in order to sustain, or even increase your gas reward gains. But it doesn't stop there, as many advisers would tell you, using some of these same techniques will also get you lower interest rates and such. Our main goal is to get a better deal in general. Whether that means to get rebates, or save on interest rates while getting those rebates doesn't matter. The overall goal of having a gas reward credit card, is to get gas rewards, and we want that because we want to save.

However, I won't forget the current state of the economy either, so in time, I will also provide further information concerning how to save in this credit crisis, and continue to make good choices regarding getting gas rewards from your credit cards.

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All the latest and the best information on credit card gas rewards, gas rebates, and where to get them, brought to you by the Credit Card Gas Rewards Blog. Updated all the time, with the greatest information that you need concerning your credit card purchases, and everything that has to do with your credit card and rebates for gas. Sphere: Related Content