For nearly a month now we have been looking at how you can use your
loyalty programs and credit cards to help you out financially during
these difficult times. In many of our articles we talk about the
liquidity of your points, miles and even cash back as there is a lot of
variation from each of the programs and card issuers. It is the latter
where much of that variation comes in – that is how quickly or how
easily can you access your credit card points or miles or cash back to
help lower your credit card statement balance.
The reason we look at this is front and centre in our
news and world today. Thousands of Canadians are being laid off from
work or are working much less hours from home or at their workplace and
this means lower to even no income. On the date of publishing this
article a survey reported that 49% of Albertans were already feeling a
financial pinch. That’s where you can look at your credit card reward
programs as source of financial aid by using the rewards or cash back to
help pay down your expenses. We won’t go into huge detail in this
article since we have covered it in great depth in the following
articles:
- Shifting your loyalty program strategy to help during these trying and tough financial times
- In
light of what’s going on in the world should you shift to a cash back
credit card instead of a travel card? Why not a card that has both? - Use Instacart to circumvent Loblaw stores non-acceptance of Amex and to earn 5x points with the Cobalt Card
- Low Interest Credit Card Options
The one recurring theme you’ll notice in many of those
articles is our warning about many of the most popular cash back credit
cards. They are being heavily promoted right now since travel is almost
nonexistent but you have to be aware that a lot of them don’t give you
easy access to that cash back. Many of them only provide you your cash
back return once annually – something that doesn’t work for many who may
need access to those rewards in the short term. That is why we
developed this feature so that you can compare the various cash equivalent redemption options of many of Canada’s popular credit cards.