The Fastest Ways to Earn Welcome Bonus Points

When you first sign up for a new travel credit card, you’re typically earning 20-30% return on your spending, because you earn a welcome bonus after you spend the designated amount of money within your first few months. A common spending thresholds for many popular cards is to spend $4,000 within your first three months, and there are a number of strategies that can help you not only meet that goal, but meet it quickly. 

If spending $4,000 in three months is a stretch for your spending habits, or if you’d like to accelerate how quickly you can meet that bonus, below are some helpful strategies that can get you that Welcome Bonus faster. As a reminder, in pursuit of this, you should never spend money you don’t have. Make sure that you can pay off whatever you spend on time and in full, so that you’re not wasting money on interest or late fees.

Hopefully, these first three are things that you’re already using your card for, but I often find that people miss some of these along the way. So I’m restating each of them along with some bonus tips to help you go further in each of them.

1. Everyday Expenses

Make sure to use your card for all of your everyday expenses. Whether it’s gas, groceries, dining, online shopping, and more, make sure you use that one card for every expense.

Bonus Tip: If you’re Travel Hacking in 2-Player Mode, you can load your credit card onto your spouses digital wallet so that each of you are using the card for all of your everyday expenses.

2. Recurring Expenses

Go through all of your monthly expenses (Utilities, Cell Phone, Internet, Insurance, etc), and setup autopay with your card to ensure that you earn points off of all of those expenses. Beyond that, comb through all of your subscriptions and update your payment method to your new card.

Bonus Tip #1: A commonly missed recurring expense is that you can give to churches and charities using your credit card instead of giving directly from your bank account. If you are regularly giving, this can be a great way to earn points. Take note - There typically is a small transaction fee associated with this payment method, so be kind to the recipient and cover the transaction fee. (Don’t worry, the transaction fee is minimal - Especially since you’re earning a 20-30% return on that spending) 

Bonus Tip #2: If you’re planning to pursue several Welcome Bonuses per year, I find it helps to keep a simple list or spreadsheet that helps you keep track of all of your recurring expenses, and which card you’re using for each of them. If you store your card info your Apple or Google device, you can easily switch over your payment method with everything on this list quickly. 

3. Reimburseable Expenses

You can also leverage personal connections and professional expenses to earn a lot of points through transactions that you'll be fully paid back for. Personal reimbursements are expenses that you cover for trusted family & friends and have them Venmo you the money or give you cash in return. Professional reimbursement are things that your employer asks or allows you to run through your personal card and you just have to submit the receipt to be repaid.

Bonus Tip: To help you think through options, here are a number of practical ideas - Large group meals, group movie/concert/park tickets, group gifts, work travel, company product orders, conference tickets, and team building events.

4. Buy Gift Cards

Another strategy for earn your welcome bonus points faster is to purchase gift cards. For example, let's say you typically only spend $1,500 per month on your credit card, but you want to earn your welcome bonus sooner for an upcoming trip. Think of places that you frequent and will spend the money later on and buy large gift cards to those locations. It could be a $250 Gift Card to Wawa, a $500 Gift Card to Costo, a $1,000 Gift Card to Amazon, or something else. 

Bonus Tip #1: Don't buy Visa Gift Cards. They have activation fees associated with them, so you're needlessly spending extra when you purchase those.

Bonus Tip #2: Don't spend more than $1,000 on gift cards in a single transaction. Crossing that threshold can create issues with stores and/or your credit card company. So just avoid that all together and keep any gift card purchases under $1,000.

5. Make Annual or Advanced Payments

Many places that you currently make monthly payments to will allow you to make an annual payment instead - Plus, it typically saves you money to make an annual payment instead of a monthly payment! If you're able to do that with your auto/home insurance, subscriptions, or other bills, that can be a big boost. Beyond that, you could also make advanced payments by paying more than you currently owe to places like your utility providers, cell phone company, and internet service provider. They'll then credit that money to your account and apply it to future bills.

Bonus Tip: If you make quarterly or annual tax payments, you can put those on a credit card through various tax payment platforms.

Pace of Earning Based on Pace of Spending

Every person and situation is different, but understanding and engaging these different strategies can accelerate the pace of earning points on your everyday spending on top of earning welcome bonuses. One of my Travel Hacking Course students adopted these strategies and has now earned almost 500,000 points to use for all kinds of travel for their family. If they can do it, you can do it too!