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Using credit card cash back to its fullestI first got my GM credit card in the early 90's. The nice thing about this card is that 5% of your purchases with this card is given back as a rebate toward the purchase of your future GM car. I built up a sizable rebate in 2001 and used this to buy a new Prizm. Since this rebate can only be built up for 7 years and I plan to keep my Prizm for 10 or more years, I'm now using Discover credit card. This gives 1% cash back.
Since I'm not a big spender, I was never able to accumulate much of a rebate until I found out about this one method. What I started to do in 1999 was to use my credit card to buy US savings bonds. Savings bonds are great alternatives to CDs. Their rates are comparable to CDs, and best of all, you don't pay federal taxes until you cash them. With savings bonds, I was able to finally build up a nice rebate.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The government is ending the credit card payment system for savings bonds, and instead has started a system that debits your checking account. However, the credit card purchase system is still in effect until December 30, 2003. They're now pushing this new system. Their old credit card system is hidden away here.
There's also another trick for maximizing credit card rewards. I got my Discover Card by signing up at SearchCactus.com. This site gives a cash reward for signing up for credit cards and other things. I received $20 for signing up for Discover Card at this site. I then used it to buy savings bonds with 1% cash back, with no annual fee or other charges.
Of course, this credit card technique breaks down if you carry a balance and pay interest and finance fees. I just read from a Wall Street Journal article by Ron Leber that claims 61% of Americans carrry a credit card balance. According to the article, this is 51 million households who carry an average balance of $11,944 (article sites Cardweb.com for this statistic).
