How credit card points can save you hundreds on holiday gifts

Redeeming recognition paper points for gifts is simply a unsocial mode to assistance trim immoderate of the accent of the vacation buying season. That could mean redeeming rewards for acquisition cards, travel, merchandise, and much — and an accidental to support immoderate currency successful your wallet.

You tin besides gain invaluable points and miles connected your vacation spending by utilizing rewards recognition cards to marque each your purchases. And if you instrumentality vantage of targeted paper offers and discounts, you tin debar dipping into your vacation fund excessively much.

• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card: Great for earning straightforward question rewards

• Prime Visa: Great for buying connected Amazon

• Chase Freedom Unlimited®: Great for 0% intro APR offer

• Wells Fargo Active Cash® Credit Card: Great for level cash-back rewards

• American Express® Gold Card: Great for eating and groceries

Depending connected your recognition paper and paper issuer, you tin redeem points, miles, and currency backmost successful antithetic ways, specified arsenic acquisition cards, connection credits, and travel. You tin besides redeem rewards straight for merchandise, but this typically provides little worth than different options.

Gift cards are fashionable gifts due to the fact that they’re casual and convenient. In addition, you person plentifulness of retailers to take from, including Apple, Amazon, Target, Instacart, Google Play, Best Buy, Cheesecake Factory, and more.

Most recognition paper issuers supply straightforward redemption values for acquisition cards, specified arsenic 10,000 points equaling $100 successful acquisition paper value. However, this tin alteration depending connected the rewards program.

Amex offers up to $100 successful acquisition paper worth for each 10,000 points redeemed, which means you whitethorn get antithetic values depending connected the acquisition card. For example, you tin redeem 10,000 points for a $100 Olive Garden acquisition card, but you’d lone get a $70 Starbucks paper with the aforesaid magnitude of points.

With Chase Ultimate Rewards points, the ratio is typically 1:1; 10,000 points usually equals $100 successful acquisition cards. Chase occasionally offers acquisition paper sales, wherever you tin get much worth from your points, specified arsenic redeeming lone 900 points for a $10 acquisition card.

Read more: Amex points vs. Chase points: Who has the champion rewards program?

Statement credits and slope deposits

Most cards supply the enactment to redeem recognition paper points for connection credits. In immoderate cases, you tin besides redeem points for deposits into checking oregon savings accounts.

These are immoderate of the astir flexible redemption options available; however, they whitethorn not ever connection the champion value. Still, you tin marque immoderate eligible acquisition connected your recognition paper and usage a connection recognition oregon slope transportation to screen it.

The rewards ratio for connection credits is typically 1:1, wherever 10,000 points equals $100 successful credits. However, with Amex Membership Rewards, you typically person $60 for each 10,000 points redeemed.

Read more: Here's however overmuch AMEX points are really worth

Consider utilizing your question recognition cards to acquisition a loved 1 a formation oregon edifice stay. You tin usage your rewards for question redemptions, typically done a recognition paper rewards portal. Most paper issuer portals are casual to usage for booking question since they relation likewise to platforms similar Expedia and Booking.com.

Read more: How bash question recognition cards work?

Travel redemptions chiefly usage a 1:1 ratio (10,000 points equals $100), but it tin alteration by card. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card tin supply up to 75% much worth with Points Boost erstwhile redeeming points for prime bookings done Chase Travel℠. Therefore, 10,000 points could beryllium worthy $175 successful this scenario.

Many cards supply ways to usage points to marque online purchases, including redeeming rewards for purchases astatine Amazon.com. With Chase, you tin besides usage your points to partially oregon afloat wage for an Apple purchase, getting $100 per 10,000 points if you usage the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal to store for Apple products.

However, we mostly don’t urge redeeming recognition paper points for merchandise arsenic this method often supply little value. On Amazon, for example, you lone person $8 for each 1,000 Chase points, and $7 for each 1,000 Amex points. You’d get much worth from your points by redeeming them for a connection credit.

If you’re successful a giving mood, immoderate cards supply an enactment to redeem your points for charitable donations. You could crook this into a acquisition for idiosyncratic other by letting them cognize you’ve donated to 1 of their preferred oregon favourite charities.

• How a equilibrium transportation tin assistance destruct vacation indebtedness

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• Best rewards recognition cards for 2025: Earn apical currency back, points, and miles

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• Can you bargain acquisition cards with a recognition paper — and should you?

Putting each your vacation buying connected a rewards recognition paper lets you gain invaluable rewards for purchases you’re already making.

For instance, booking a $10,000 household abrogation with a 2% cash-back paper would nett you $200 successful rewards. That’s not atrocious for thing arsenic elemental arsenic moving your spending from debit to recognition cards.

The champion clip to gain a recognition paper invited connection is erstwhile you cognize you person upcoming expenses.

If you use and get approved for a caller recognition paper that earns rewards, it volition apt person a sign-up bonus with a spending requirement. Sometimes, you mightiness person to walk up to $4,000 oregon much successful a fewer months aft you unfastened a caller relationship to suffice for a invited offer.

While that magnitude of walk mightiness not ever beryllium feasible with mundane expenses, the further vacation spending could assistance you deed the mark.

Many recognition paper companies — including Chase, American Express, and Citi — supply targeted paper offers to their cardholders, which they tin usage to prevention wealth astatine assorted stores and retailers. This perk is freely disposable successful paper accounts, but you typically person to prime offers earlier they tin beryllium used.

Read more: Best American Express recognition cards

For example, you tin browse antithetic Chase offers connected Chase.com oregon successful the Chase app and prime the ones you privation to adhd to your paper account. You would past request to usage the applicable paper astatine the specified retailer to person your discount. You tin find antithetic offers connected antithetic Chase paper accounts.

Related: Best Chase recognition cards

The Chase Freedom Flex℠ and Discover it® Cash Back supply bonus points and currency backmost connected rotating quarterly categories. During each quarter, you tin gain bonus rewards successful those categories if you activate the promotion.

It’s communal for these cards to person categories that align good with vacation buying during the vacation season. Some of the categories we’ve seen during the 4th fourth successful the past see Amazon.com, Target, and PayPal.

One of our favourite ways to gain other rewards connected purchases is to usage buying portals and rewards recognition cards portion buying simultaneously.

An online buying portal is simply a website, app, oregon browser hold that gets a committee erstwhile it sends shoppers to a retailer's website and they marque a qualifying acquisition — the buying portal past shares that committee with you arsenic currency backmost oregon different benignant of reward.

It’s escaped and casual to usage astir buying portals, and it’s worthy signing up if you bash a batch of online shopping. We find that browser extensions are often the astir convenient mode to instrumentality buying portals successful our mundane buying routine.

Popular online buying portals include:

• Rakuten

• TopCashback

• BeFrugal

• RebatesMe

• RetailMeNot

• Active Junky

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping

• American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping

• Delta SkyMiles Shopping

• JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping

• Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping

• United MileagePlus Shopping

You can’t usage aggregate buying sites for the aforesaid purchase, truthful it’s often worthy checking a tract similar Cashback Monitor to spot which portal offers the champion instrumentality astatine a circumstantial retailer.

Different types of paper protections tin assistance support your costly vacation purchases. Common recognition paper protections include:

• Purchase protection: Protects eligible caller purchases against harm and theft.

• Extended warranty coverage: Typically extends the manufacturer’s warranty by an further year.

• Cell telephone protection: Protects eligible compartment phones against harm and theft.

Read more: Get the astir from your cards: How recognition paper protections work

Why we similar it for vacation shopping: The Capital One Venture Rewards’ earning complaint makes it casual to gain miles nary substance the class of retailer you’re buying from, whether it’s dining, entertainment, online shopping, oregon thing else.

Read our afloat reappraisal of the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

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Why we similar it for vacation shopping: Few cards tin lucifer the earning imaginable of the Prime Visa erstwhile making purchases connected Amazon.com. Considering immoderate radical bash each their vacation buying connected Amazon, this is an fantabulous paper to deliberation about.

Read our afloat Amazon Prime Visa paper review

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Why we similar it for vacation shopping: The Chase Freedom Unlimited offers a generous intro APR connected purchases. If you person upcoming ample purchases during the vacation season, the Freedom Unlimited could assistance you debar paying involvement connected those purchases for a while.

Read our afloat Chase Freedom Unlimited review

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Why we similar it for vacation shopping: If you similar earning currency rewards, the Wells Fargo Active Cash provides a straightforward and rewarding earning complaint that works successful immoderate eligible acquisition category.

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Why we similar it for vacation shopping: The Amex Gold is an fantabulous paper for earning rewards connected eating and groceries, 2 fashionable vacation spending categories.

Read our afloat reappraisal of the American Express Gold Card

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With a fewer exceptions, you typically can’t transportation your recognition paper rewards straight to different idiosyncratic for free. Chase points tin beryllium shared betwixt antithetic accounts of members of the aforesaid household.

It’s besides imaginable to person your rewards to points oregon miles and past harvester oregon transportation them with definite loyalty programs. For example, Hilton Honors lets you excavation points for escaped with up to 10 different members. You tin besides transportation your points for escaped to friends and household members.

We urge utilizing rewards recognition cards for each eligible vacation purchases arsenic agelong arsenic you wage disconnected your paper equilibrium each month. Credit cards tin supply invaluable rewards and protections you wouldn’t person from utilizing currency oregon debit cards.

Statement credits, acquisition cards, and question often supply the astir worth for your recognition paper points redemptions. Statement credits are flexible due to the fact that you tin marque immoderate acquisition and redeem points for a connection recognition to assistance screen that purchase. Merchandise and online buying typically supply little worth and should beryllium avoided successful astir cases.

This nonfiction was edited by Rebecca McCracken

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Editorial Disclosure: The accusation successful this nonfiction has not been reviewed oregon approved by immoderate advertiser. All opinions beryllium solely to Yahoo Finance and are not those of immoderate different entity. The details connected fiscal products, including paper rates and fees, are close arsenic of the people date. All products oregon services are presented without warranty. Check the bank’s website for the astir existent information. This tract doesn't see each presently disposable offers. Credit people unsocial does not warrant oregon connote support for immoderate fiscal product.