How an Apple Designer Maximizes His Credit Card Reward

I was invited by a friend of mine, who works at Apple and designed the iPad, to his house. During dinner, he flashed a self-made card from his wallet and I asked what it was. It turned out to be a cheat-sheet of rewards of many credit cards that he and his wife share.

The sleek design of Apple iPad is, in many people's hearts, a beautiful design. The cheat-sheet he made to remind himself of what's the reward is far from eye-catching but is indeed easy to use, as he explained. For most rewarding cards that offer percentage rebate on specific categories often change every quarter (every three months). For example, the Chase card tells their customers to use the card toward gas from January through March, then between April and June, it is best to spend on groceries and movies to get 5% rebate on the spending. For gas, in February, it is best to pay at the pump using Chase card for the 5% rebate.

My friend made the card at the end of the previous year as soon as he received such scheduled rebate promotions from the credit card issuers and consolidated the highlights into a format that he felt most comfortable with. The design of the card may vary from person to person. The point is everyone should be able to stretch an extra mile to optimize your benefits of using a rewarding credit card with discipline by never carrying a balance and always paying with the right card with the max rebate of the month for a particular category. Is there an app for that?

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by Charles Gwa

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