Am I the only one who ignored credit card points for years?

I used to think rewards cards were a scam, just a way to get people to overspend. Then last month I sat down and ran the numbers on my wife's Chase card from our last 12 months in Austin. We paid off the balance every single month and still racked up $412 in cash back just from groceries and gas. That was enough to cover our entire Thanksgiving dinner plus a hotel night for a weekend trip. I get that the system only works if you're disciplined about spending, but I feel like I left free money on the table for a decade. Has anyone else had that moment where they finally checked their points balance and felt dumb?

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emery_white1mo ago

Wait, did you say that $412 was just from the last 12 months, or did you mean that was the total for the whole decade you were missing out on? Because that math feels a little off. I know that feeling though, I did the same thing with my airline card a few years back and realized I could have flown free for a year if I had just used it for stuff I was already buying. The key thing people miss is that points are basically a discount, not free money, so you're really just getting a better price on things you'd buy anyway. And yeah, you do have to be careful not to spend more just to earn more, but if you treat it like a coupon and not a reason to splurge, it's hard to argue with the results.

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michael_coleman101mo ago

People always forget the long game until the math slaps them in the face.

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