Although I was made an authorized user on a credit card of my parents before I could drive, I didn’t get into the points game until college. Without any plan, I signed up for two cards. One earned points for long distance phone calls (because that was still a thing) and the other was for Barnes and Noble. Neither of these had much value, but they seemed great at the time.
Post college I moved into an apartment complex that accepted credit card payments for no fee (I seriously miss those days) and I realized that I should take advantage. Initially my rent just went onto that B&N card, but I found out there were much better cash back cards to be obtained. That’s when I started hitting sign up bonuses. I didn’t have much income or organic spend, so my bonuses were typically around $100 but since my rent was $500 that was actually a pretty good bonus.
With my credit history established (that authorized user card from my parents really helped), I started getting offers for 0% interest. That’s when I had an idea. I could transfer a large chunk of my student loans which ranged from 1.8-5% to the 0% cards and pay them off much faster. Everyone I told thought I was crazy and would miss a payment causing the interest to skyrocket, but I set up automatic payments and wrote down the payoff date in multiple places so that I never missed one. Using the 0% interest rate and some points gained from the Gift of College cards that eventually came along, I paid off the loans in half the expected time. I’ve since used the 0% card method to pay off car loans in less than two years.
Over the last 20 years I’ve opened (and closed or product changed) more than 40 cards. They’ve allowed me to pay off debt (not get into more!) and take a lot of trips I otherwise couldn’t have afforded. These days it’s rare for me not to be working on at least one bonus.
