9 Easy Ways to Meet Minimum Spend on Your Credit Cards

Earning a credit card sign-up bonus is my favorite way to earn a lot of points and miles. However, a certain amount of spend is required in a limited amount of time in order to earn that valuable sign-up bonus. In this post I’ll show you 9 easy ways to meet minimum spend on your credit cards.

1. Use your card all the time.

Whenever you apply for a new credit card, make sure to keep it in your wallet once you receive it in the mail. Put any and all kind of spend on it. Wherever you go to make a purchase, if the place accepts a credit card, use your new card. You’ll be surprised how much you can organically spend in 3 months; that’s the usual amount of time you have to meet the minimum spend on most credit cards.

2. Pay your bills.

Another great way of meeting minimum spend is using your credit card to pay all of your bills. You can pay bills like car insurance, cell phone, internet/TV services, gas, electricity, medical, etc. Those bills can add up pretty quickly helping you reach the minimum spend requirement.

3. Prepay your bills.

If paying your bills is not enough, you can ask to prepay some bills in advance in order to meet the minimum spend requirement on your new credit card. I know that T-Mobile allows you to pay extra to be credited towards your future bills. I’m sure other companies would be willing to do this as well.

4. Use Online Payment Services.

One of my favorite and easiest ways to meet minimum spend requirement on my credit cards is Plastiq. Plastiq is a service that charges you a 2.5% fee in order to help you pay bills like mortgage, rent or student loans with your credit card, where you’re normally not allowed to use a credit card. You’ll pay Plastiq with a credit card and they’ll write a check and send it on your behalf. The 2.5% charge is totally worth it especially if this is the only way you can meet a minimum spend of $3,000 or so where the bonus points are worth way more than the 2.5% fee.

5. Pay your taxes.

The IRS has approved card processors that you can use to pay your taxes with a credit card for a small fee. The cheapest of which is Pay1040.com, they only charge 1.87% for their service.

6. Purchase Gift Cards.

You can always buy gift cards to stores that you normally shop at in order to meet the minimum spend requirement. It’s as if you’re prepaying for stuff that you would buy anyway. You can buy Costco gift cards online, Amazon gift cards and many others.

7. Add an authorized user.

You can add a spouse, a family member or a friend you trust as an authorized user on your new credit card. This will help you reach your minimum spend requirement quickly since all their payments will count towards the spend requirement as well.

8. Pay for dinner.

If you go out to dinner regularly with friends, ask to pay for the entire bill on your credit card and have your friends pay their portion of the bill in cash or through Venmo. This becomes difficult when you have a lot of friends who are trying to reach the minimum spend on their cards as well 🙂

9. Give.

A great way of reaching minimum spend on your credit cards is by making charitable contributions. If you regularly donate every month or so, you can donate a few months worth in advance on your credit card. Most charity organizations accept donations using credit cards.

Bottom Line:

When you apply for a new credit card, make sure you have a plan on exactly how you’ll meet the minimum spend requirement to earn the sign-up bonus. These are 9 easy ways I use to meet the minimum spend requirement on my credit cards, I’m sure there are more.

Do you have other ideas on how to meet minimum spend on credit cards? Please share them in the comments.

Photo by EVG photos from Pexels

If you have any questions, comment below or tweet me @pointspointers or email me at ramy@pointspointers.com

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