By Santosh Agarwal
Every card serves a unique purpose—some cater to high-spenders who maximise rewards, while others are designed to help travellers save more on their trips, some are co-branded with airlines or popular platforms while others are focused around making everyday experiences more rewarding for users. To choose wisely, analyse your spending patterns and opt for a card that provides the highest savings in your preferred spending categories.
Use multiple cards strategically
Understand reward programmes on each card and track which purchases earn the best value on each card, while keeping an eye on exclusions and other terms and conditions. Most credit cards allow redemption across multiple categories like air miles, vouchers, merchandise or statement credit. Some cards may offer better redemption value on select categories. Hence, understand the best redemption options for your card and redeem your points wisely.
Additional perks
Most credit cards offer perks beyond cashback and reward points, such as complimentary airport lounge access, travel vouchers, dining and movie discounts, fuel surcharge waiver, concierge services, travel insurance, etc. Premium cards take it a step further offering exclusive benefits like membership to luxury hotel loyalty programmes, airport meet and greet, etc. Thus you can enhance your experiences while deriving greater value from your card.
Use cards to complement your cash flow
One of the most underrated advantages of credit cards is the interest-free period. Strategic use of the interest-free period can smooth out your monthly finances by working in tandem with your cash inflow and outflow. By timing bigger purchases at the beginning of a statement cycle, you can have the complete window of 40-50 days for repayment without incurring interest. Since different cards have different billing cycles, shuffle between them to maximise your interest-free period.
Ensure timely payments
To avoid falling into a debt cycle, always pay the total amount due on or before the due date. While issuers provide you the option to pay the minimum due and revolve the remaining amount to the next cycle, this comes with substantial charges.
Similarly, cash withdrawals from credit cards attract finance charges from the first day and new transactions become ineligible until the withdrawn amount is paid in full.
The writer is CEO, Paisabazaar.
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