This is the second of a five-article series aimed at helping you learn how to use a credit card to earn the most benefits while avoiding the huge costs of credit card mismanagement. 

The focus of this article is about how to set up your credit card to start earning benefits, protect your credit information and save yourself time.

How to Use Your Credit Card to Earn Monthly Benefits 

Following is a high-level description of how to use (set up) your credit card to earn monthly benefits:

1. Use the auto pay function if available for as many existing monthly bills as possible
2. Designate a credit card as your “auto pay card”. Run your recurring monthly bill payments through that card
3. Pay the auto pay card to a zero balance every month; a must to make this process “pay off”

Expected Outcome

You will earn credit card benefits for every dollar you “send through” your designated auto pay credit card — without paying one cent more than you do now for your monthly bills. 

Added Benefits:  Because you will know what the total monthly bill will be for monthly auto pays – you can set up the process to automatically pay the monthly card balance through your bank website. You will no longer be burdened with writing checks to pay recurring monthly bills. 

If you are assisting an elderly relative, consider setting up this process for your relative. You will no longer write individual checks to pay for his/her recurring monthly expenses. You or the relative will gain benefits, and you will have 100% visibility of all financial activity on their bank website. 

How to Set This Up

Go to the website of each of your monthly vendors or service providers. Go to payment options. If auto pay is available, set it up so the vendor or service provider reaches back to your designated auto pay credit card for the monthly payment.  This process is what sets you up to earn monthly credit card benefits.

Beware! If you simply push your bill payment to the vendor or service provider from your bank to them, this does not run the charge through your credit card. Thus – you will not earn credit card benefits for those monthly expenditures.

Additional Benefit

You can obtain much better protection from hackers if your monthly bill payments are pulled from your credit card by your vendor or service provider.

Why? The vendor or service provider most likely has a better, more robust capability than you do to protect your personal information and card number from hackers.  (Example: I have used the same credit card number for auto pay for over 15 years and NEVER been hacked.)

Upcoming Article:

In the next article we will discuss the “hacks and traps” of earning credit card benefits.

Hint: The auto pay process works best with two credit cards that each serve a different purpose.