How to Meet Minimum Spend on Credit Cards

So at this point, you may be thinking: this all sounds great, but if I sign up for 2 new credit cards this month, there’s no way that I am going to be able to meet the minimum spend on both of them!

Think again.

Here are my favorite ways to complete minimum spend and ensure that you will receive every mile and point of your sign-up bonuses.

1). This seems obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: put everything on your credit card.  I mean everything.  Groceries, gas, your phone bill, your gym membership, your childcare payments…everything.

2). Amazon Payments is your friend.  You can use this service to pay anyone up to $1000/month using a credit card.  This is huge, because it means you can use a credit card to pay people for “goods and services” that you normally would pay in cash!  You could pay your babysitter.  You could pay your best friend back for dinner.  You could pay your rent.  You could even pay your husband to take the kids to the park while you take a nap.  You get the idea.  Just be mindful of the fact that if you ping payments back and forth to anyone, Amazon will shut your account down.

3.  Gift cards.  Say you buy groceries frequently at Safeway, or shop online at Amazon.  You can buy gift cards now (to meet minimum spend) and use them later.  You can also buy gift cards to give as gifts (I know – what a novel idea!)

4.  Pay in advance.  Do you have a Christmas or vacation fund set up?  Consider using it in advance (for its intended purpose, of course).  For example, maybe you could start Christmas shopping in July.  Or you could buy gift cards that you will use on your travels.  I just recently bought several hundred dollars’ worth of Disney gift cards to meet minimum spend in anticipation of our trip to Disneyland this fall.

5.  Last but not least, you can use a payment service such as Venmo or PayDivvy for a fee (currently 3-3.5%).  Sometimes it makes sense to pay a small amount if you will be earning a large amount of points.  For example, if you were contemplating a 75,000 point bonus worth $750 (or more!),  the math works out in your favor if you use a service that charges 3% to make a payment of $3,000 to meet minimum spend (cost would be $90).

The bottom line is that before you apply for any credit card, it makes sense to do the math and double check that you will be able to meet the minimum spend requirements.  Hopefully these tips will give you some good ideas on how to accomplish that.