Print Behind Freebies

People are hooked on credit card reward programs and they simply love the word free. Anything that they can get free they want. However, most people fail to read between the lines, leading them to overlook the hidden charges associated with these free offers. And, unfortunately, most free programs don’t deliver what they promise. In order to get the promised reward, you’ll probably end up spending more than what you would have spent to purchase the item elsewhere.

Popular Reward Programs

Let’s have a look at some of the credit card cash reward programs on the Internet. Frequent flier miles, five percent cash back, or redeeming your points for miles are just some of the most popular offers that you come across. However, there are a few things you’ll notice that will surprise you if took a closer look at these programs. At the end of the day, they’ll leave you wondering, Are Chase travel rewards worth it?

Do You Get the Five Percent Back?

Many cards offer from one up to five percent cash back on credit card purchases. However, in most of these cases, you might have to spend a lot more to get that five percent back. In some cases, the cash back offer is limited to select purchases made on the card. Like some credit card companies only offer cash back on groceries, gas and so on. So for you to get the five percent cash back, you would have to spend a fortune on grocery everyday, which you probably wouldn’t do on your credit card. The same is true of gasoline purchases. Apart from spending, do not forget the date when you have to pay off your card balance. That will really hurt if you don’t.

Free Ticket Redemption

Even the free ticket redemption plans that many cards offer should be carefully reviewed before signing. Unless you are loyal to a particular airline and are a truly frequent flier, this card won’t be very useful for you. For example, let us say you want to redeem a ticket for 25,000 miles. It would take you five years to redeem that ticket, if you spend about $5,000 on flying each year. In other words, unless you spend more than $8,000 a year on flying, you cannot redeem these points for miles in the near or immediate future and by the time the five-year period is over, the program is over as well, since most of these programs do not last for long.

In addition, if you have a different travel miles card, you cannot combine these miles together. You need to have a separate account for each of your cards. You may even be charged by some cards to redeem your points. Now does that make some sense? If the promotional period passes or the program has ends, you cannot redeem your points at all.