Make Up To P12,000 A Year With These Cashback Credit Card Tricks!

Written by imoney

More and more credit card users are opting for cashback credit cards because of straightforward rewards and easy redemption. In fact, cashback credit cards are the preferred card type of affluent American cardholders.

But you don’t have to be wealthy to enjoy the extra money a cashback credit card can give you. We’ll show you the tips and tricks you need to make your cashback credit card work for you! Read on to find out these cashback credit card tricks:

1. Know your reward categories.

Photo: Shutterstock

Not all cashback cards are created equal, and not all of them reward you in the same way. Some will reward you by giving you points you can claim for cash, while others, like the Security Bank Complete Cashback Card, will give you rewards in the form of an automatic rebate on your credit card bill. Saving money has never been easier.

Check which categories give how much cash back. The Security Bank Complete Cashback Card gives you rewards in the following categories:

• 5% for groceries
• 4% for gas
• 3% for utilities
• 2% for dining
• 1% for shopping

There’s no use getting a cashback credit card that gives you 5% off on shopping if you don’t shop that much. Get the best cashback credit card for you by choosing the one that already fits your spending habits, rather than changing your spending habits to fit the card.

While designing the Complete Cashback card, Security Bank analyzed their customers’ spending habits to create a cashback credit card that would match up. Their research found that most cardholders spend the most on groceries, followed by Gas, and so on so they tiered their rebates accordingly.

2. Check your minimums.

Photo: Free Images

Some cards also require that you spend a minimum amount in other categories before you can earn the maximum cashback rewards. Thankfully, the Security Bank Complete Cashback Card has no minimums, so all your purchases will put money back in your wallet, no matter how small. That means you get guaranteed cashback every month! And you won’t have to worry about your cashback rewards expiring.

Knowing the mechanics of how your cashback card works will allow you to use it more effectively and to save more money every month, without spending any more that you’d normally do.

3. Know your cashback limits.

Photo: Shutterstock

Cashback credit cards have a limit on how much you can earn back, either every month or every year. The Security Bank Complete Cashback Credit Card has a cashback cap of P1,000 every month. Before you even apply for the card, you can project your expected cashback earnings by looking at your total spending and seeing how much cashback you can earn for each category. This way, you’ll know if the card will reward you for your typical spending, and how much cashback you can expect.

To do this, calculate how much you can spend before you hit the cap. If you don’t think you’ll hit the maximum cashback rewards every month, the next step should take care of that for you.

4. Charge everything to your cashback card …

Once you know the categories and the caps, you’ll know how much you’ll need to charge to get the maximum cash back possible. So because the Security Bank Complete Cashback Card gives 5% cashback on grocery purchases, and the total cashback cap is P1,000 every month, you know that you can charge up to P20,000 in groceries to earn the reward.

But if you know that you don’t spend P20,000 a month in groceries (and you probably don’t, because according to a Nielsen report, the average grocery spending for Filipino families was only P4,700 in 2014), you can still get the maximum by charging all your expenses in other covered categories to it. Let’s look at a sample calculation:

Category	Monthly Spend	Cashback	Cashback Earned
Groceries	P10,000.00	5%	P500.00
Gas	P4,500.00	4%	P180.00
Utilities	P6,000.00	3%	P180.00
Dining	P5,000.00	2%	P100.00
Shopping	P4,000.00	1%	P40.00
		Total	P1,000.00

As you can see, the simple act of charging all your routine expenses to your cashback card can save you as much as P12,000 a year. Good news for savvy savers! That’s like getting more than a month’s worth of groceries for free every year, all because you used your Security Bank Complete Cashback Card for your everyday expenses.

5. …but pay off your card in full every month.

Photo: Alamy

The trick to getting the most out of your cashback credit card (and all credit cards) is by not carrying a balance on it from month to month. To maximize your rewards, pay your card in full each month. This way, you’re getting cash rewards for money you would have already spent anyway, and you can keep the cashback that you earn without paying interest fees.

You might be tempted to charge more than you can afford to your cashback credit card just for the rewards, but keep the following in mind:

• don’t bust your budget by buying things just for the cashback rewards
• only use your cashback credit card for expenses you were already going to buy even without the card

This way, you can maximize your rewards and save more money every month.

Now that you know how to maximize a cashback credit card to save you as much as P12,000 a year, what are you waiting for? Apply for a Security Bank Complete Cashback Credit Card and start earning money back today. Plus, apply from now until June 30, 2015 and get a free S&R pizza.