Is The Cash Rebate Card Worth It?
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Cash Rebate Card.

Earn Cash By Making Payments. Sounds Impossible? Not Really.

Recently, more and more credit card providers have been supplying rebates. A cash rebate card works in such a way where a certain percentage on a spent amount or purchase is paid back to the credit card holder. Most credit card systems have some sort of "pay-back" policy, but not many offer the cash option, since they give out mostly items like frequent flyer miles, store discounts, gift certificates, and the like.

Most cash rebate card providers use a tiered system of calculating the cash-back amount. The percentage paid back on purchases is calculated as the payment amounts are split into tiers, with specific amounts at each level. As the amount spent increases, the percentage decreases, nevertheless paying back more cash since the amounts are higher.

But is a cash rebate card a good thing? The first step for ensuring that rebates are earned, is, well, to use the card for making payments. And the lure of earning more cash may induce some unnecessary spending. In fact, in many cases, the tiers of percentage calculations are very large, with the top tier of spending amount that earns the most cash back, being a very big sum of money spent. Very few rebate cards carry a flat percentage rebate rate, whereby the same percentage is paid back on any amount irrespective of size.

The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) on cash rebate cards is also significantly higher than for normal credit cards. Though quite a few 0% APR cards are out there, it is often only for the starter period that the interest level is kept to nil, whereby the interest rate going up afterwards. This is often a hidden "cost" of such cards.

Another detracting aspect of the cash rebate card is that in most cases, there needs to be a carried-forward balance on the credit card from month to month for the rebate to be considered. This then implies APR costs on the said carried balance, which might sometimes lead to people paying more in interest than what they would actually earn with the rebate.

A cash rebate card is therefore something to invest in smartly and with much prior consideration.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.