Congratulations, New England Patriots fans. Your beloved team is the champion of the football world once again, and that means it’s time to buy.
Seemingly anything you can think of — from hats and T-shirts to shot glasses, bumper stickers and lanyards — will have “New England Patriots: Super Bowl Champions” slapped on it to commemorate the big win. And of course, you can buy it all with your NFL Extra Points credit card with the Patriots logo on it.
Those cards are made with the hard-core fan in mind. You can put your favorite team’s logo on the card. You can get 10,000 bonus points — nearly enough for a free Tom Brady or Rob Gronkowski jersey — if you spend $500 in the first 90 days. You get double points when you buy game tickets and other NFL merchandise. You can even cash points in (200,000 of them, to be exact) for tickets to a future Super Bowl.
For the credit card-savvy football fan, these cards can be appealing. They’re clearly not for everyone, though. In fact, they perfectly illustrate the importance of the first rule of picking a rewards card.
Know thyself.
If you don’t care about football, signing up for the NFL Extra Points Visa Signature credit card wouldn’t make any sense, no matter how great the terms or the sign-up bonuses. The card simply doesn’t fit your lifestyle.
People get ill-fitting credit cards all the time and may not even realize they’re doing so. The truth is that the rewards credit card game is a tricky one. Play it correctly, and it could work well for you. Take a few missteps, however, and things can get messy quickly.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself to make sure that rewards credit card is the right fit for you.
1. Do I revolve a balance each month?
Pay off your credit card balance at the end of every month and rewards can put money back in your pocket, fly you to exotic foreign lands and help you experience things you might not have been able to otherwise. Revolve a balance, however, and the math starts to work against you in a hurry.
Think of it this way: Would you ever consider paying 15 percent interest on something just to receive 2 percent back? Of course not, but that’s exactly what can happen when you carry a balance.
2. Am I willing to put in the time to maximize the card’s rewards?
Some folks are rewards junkies, loving the game of getting the most out of their card’s rewards. Other folks want to keep it simple. If you just want to keep it simple, consider the Citi Double Cash card, which gives you 1 percent cash back when you buy and an additional 1 percent cash back when you pay your bill. Or if you’re willing to invest more time, consider the Chase Freedom card. You can get 5 percent cash back in certain categories each quarter, as long as you remember to log in each quarter and opt in to receive those deals.
3. Will I really use the rewards when I get them?
Life is busy and travel isn’t cheap. (Just ask anyone with multiple children how expensive it is to fly anywhere.) That means even if you get a free airline ticket, you might not be able to use it. In a case like that, you might be much better off getting a cash-back card that can help you pay for gas and hotels for your next road trip. You could consider a hotel card as well, aiming to earn free nights when you’re on the road.
4. Will I trigger any extra costs by the way I use the card?
Credit card fees don’t hit all people equally. For example, frequent travelers know that foreign transaction fees — typically about 3 to 4 percent on each foreign purchase — can quickly eat up the value of any reward you get from a credit card. The good news is that more and more issuers are eliminating that charge these days.
5. Can I trust myself with the extra credit?
This question is crucial. When you use credit cards to get rewards for purchases that you would make whether you had the card or not, it can be a great deal. When you make extra purchases that you don’t need and may not be able to afford just to chase rewards, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Consider Nordstrom’s card. The more you spend, the more desirable the rewards you can receive. Spend up to $1,999 in a year and you get triple-points days, alteration discounts and other treats. Crank your yearly spend to $10,000 and you can get VIP access to in-store events and “extraordinary experiences,” as the website states, ranging from “far-off destinations and behind-the-scenes adventures to exclusive access to top designers.” Those may sound great, but if you have to go neck deep in debt to get there, it’s not worth it.
Again, all of these questions share a common theme: getting to know yourself and your tendencies before you sign up for that card. You may not always like the answers, but it’s far better to think them through now rather than find yourself stuck with a credit card that’s a bad fit.
More from U.S. News
8 Ways to Maximize Your Credit Card Rewards
7 Hidden Perks of Credit Cards
10 Work Perks That Offer Big Financial Rewards
The Golden Rule of Picking a Rewards Credit Card originally appeared on usnews.com
