Rewards - Save or Redeem?

[Anonymous]

Do you guys save your points on your account or do you usually redeem them after increments of say $50-$100? I am saving mine for a future item I want to buy or a trip somewhere. 

[Anonymous]

Cash rewards I do the same thing and wait until I get a larger value (just cashed out $1300 from discover it) since you can't really devalue cash but with points I try to use them whenever the redemption value meets a certain threshold since they could be devalued at anytime

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Cash rewards I do the same thing and wait until I get a larger value (just cashed out $1300 from discover it) since you can't really devalue cash but with points I try to use them whenever the redemption value meets a certain threshold since they could be devalued at anytime

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oh wow 1,300! That must have been great. How long did it take you to reach that? Was that with the double cash back promo?

[Mattopotamus]

I save them for either A) vacation or B) christmas.  I try to save my reward points for vacations and the cash back rewards for christmas.  For example, my CSP UR points will pay for a trip to seattle later this year, and the citi DC will pay for Christmas gifts.

[pip3man]

I'm wondering the same thing too, got about $900 on my Quicksilver and I been considering whether or not to cash out or keep accumulating. Hmm decisions!!

[Anonymous]

haha this reminds me of my grandma's story for some reason. she used her BofA card for everything. she literally didn't even know it got rewards lol. she called them one day for something and they're like "hey did you know you had almost $5k in cash back?" she was so shocked lol. she went on vacation almost instantly (like a week later)

[Anonymous]

It didn't take me very long to accumulate that $1300. Most of it was from the 10% Apple Pay promo (I spent almost $8k on Apple Pay during that time) it hasn't been doubled yet but I have another (at least) $1300 coming in July from the double cash back promo!!

[longtimelurker]

This is discussed here a lot and I never really understand the "other" side.  My view for cashback.

Unless there are special offers (e.g. Discover when if you have enough you can buy a giftcard at a discount), cash out as soon as you can, and if you need discipline, put it in a savings account and then spend it at the end of the year or whatever.

Leaving it with an issuer causes a (slight) risk that you can lose it if the issuer decides to close your card, and you are not earning any interest on the saved rewards (so in effect you are paying them interest, which you probably know to avoid).

Real transferable miles are much more complex, as you have to consider potential devaluations by airline (so you don't want to guess and transfer them to the wrong one too early etc), but the cashback case seems pretty cut and dried to me!

[Open123]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

This is discussed here a lot and I never really understand the "other" side.  My view for cashback.

Unless there are special offers (e.g. Discover when if you have enough you can buy a giftcard at a discount), cash out as soon as you can, and if you need discipline, put it in a savings account and then spend it at the end of the year or whatever.

Leaving it with an issuer causes a (slight) risk that you can lose it if the issuer decides to close your card, and you are not earning any interest on the saved rewards (so in effect you are paying them interest, which you probably know to avoid).

Real transferable miles are much more complex, as you have to consider potential devaluations by airline (so you don't want to guess and transfer them to the wrong one too early etc), but the cashback case seems pretty cut and dried to me!

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Right, for cash, I'll cash out 0.25 cents.  Except for Fid Amex (because of Serve), I don't use any cash rewards cards with a redemption threshold, since it literally takes me years to hit $25.

Travel rewards points is much more complex.  It really depends on so may factors.

[kdm31091]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

This is discussed here a lot and I never really understand the "other" side.  My view for cashback.

Unless there are special offers (e.g. Discover when if you have enough you can buy a giftcard at a discount), cash out as soon as you can, and if you need discipline, put it in a savings account and then spend it at the end of the year or whatever.

Leaving it with an issuer causes a (slight) risk that you can lose it if the issuer decides to close your card, and you are not earning any interest on the saved rewards (so in effect you are paying them interest, which you probably know to avoid).

Real transferable miles are much more complex, as you have to consider potential devaluations by airline (so you don't want to guess and transfer them to the wrong one too early etc), but the cashback case seems pretty cut and dried to me!

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I would agree, not sure what the downside is to redeeming your cash back as often as you can and putting it into a savings account. There's no advantage to leaving it sit in the rewards account other than specific circumstances (gift card discount from Discover, US Bank $25 bonus if redeem $100+, etc).