Maximizing your money with Rewards programs and Credit Card Rewards

In the world of Lego Investing, one of the best ways to save yourself money and maximize your investments is by using rewards programs. In a world of advanced technology, almost everybody accepts credit cards now, and even more so, most stores now offer their own credit card. Assuming you have good credit and know how to properly use a credit card, this can be a huge advantage in the investing game. If you prefer not to use a credit card, there are many great rewards programs you can use to still maximize your profits accordingly.

First, a slight disclaimer. I am speaking about all of this from my own experience. Absolutely do not go out and apply for 20 credit cards immediately and start spending money as if it is free. All recommendations as to how to use a credit card and how applying and using it affects your credit report are outside of the scope of this blog. I encourage anyone taking my advice to be sure you know all the risks behind every action you take based on my recommendations.

Now that we have that out of the way, we will start with rewards programs that don't require a credit card:

Lego VIP program

The upside: The VIP program has been addressed already on this site multiple times, especially well in an article by dschooley called LEGO VIP Program and Maximizing Your VIP Rewards. Here is the gist of it: Every time you buy a set from a Lego store under your VIP program account, you get rewards points – specifically 1 for each dollar you spent. Once you get to 100 points – you have $5 VIP rewards dollars you can use on a purchase in a Lego store or at Lego.com. This equates to a 5% cash back program which is really good. At certain points they have double VIP points on certain sets as well as special VIP exclusives you can get along with your rewards points. Plus, ITS FREE TO SIGN UP – you just select to sign up with your next purchase.

The Downside: Lego sets directly from Lego are not discounted usually so the 5% you get back may not equate to getting a 30% discount at Amazon.com.

Barnes and Noble Membership

The upside: This one is a really nice under the radar rewards program. I was curious about it awhile back so I posted to see if anyone else had it. Several people reported they had pretty good luck with it. So I decided to give it a try. With this card, you get 10% off every purchase in Barnes and Noble. This is outstanding – most programs are only 2-5% cash back or % off the purchase. Clearly Barnes and Noble is serious about their membership. Plus, every holiday they will send you a 20% off coupon, and it STACKS with others (are you listening TRU?). Plus Barnes and Noble is not a hugely popular Lego supplier, meaning some bigger sets will sit in their stores long after EOL and you can snag them up for 30% off after they have already shown they will be a big money maker. I recently snagged a SW Frigate 7964 from there with this for around $85 (BP price is $115) and it was MISB.

Also if you like to read, they have 40% off hardcover books as well.

The downside: The only real downside is the membership is $25 a year. So make sure you intend on spending enough money there for it to be worth it. I got that money back just on the Frigate and since then have bought 3 other sets with some massive savings. The upside is – if you want to make a few single time purchases because there are a couple of good sets in store, you can get the membership free for two months with an online purchase.
TRU Rewards R US Program The Upside: I know, I know, we all can't stand these money grabbers. But lets be honest, every once in a while they have a sale where we figure out some good deal and we don't care enough to not buy that great deal . This program is not amazing, but it's free so it makes sense to have it if you are ever going to shop there. For every $1 you spend, you get 2 points. Unfortunately 500 points = $5 so it's only 2% cash/rewards back. Every month they calculate your points and if you have enough for a reward, they make a gift card in $5 increments available to you for use. You can sign up in store and you can use coupons while getting the Rewards.

The downside: Not a whole lot – its just not that great. Only shop at TRU if you know its a good deal – BOGO 50% off etc.

Now for the beefier credit card portion for those of you who love rewards.

Target Red Card

The upside: This one is pretty simple: 5% off every purchase. I love this one because you don't have to wait for any rewards dollars to come back or mature – Target plays it hard and just slashes 5% right off your purchase. This has been discussed on this site multiple times so this is just one more plus for it. I have it and I and my wife love this card.

The downside: Besides the downside of every credit card, none.

TRU Rewards are Us Credit Card

The Upside: Now while the rewards program is not that great, this one gets a lot closer. You get double points for every dollar you spend – that's 4% cash back which is pretty substantial – especially if you are already getting BOGO 50% or something of that nature. Also, there is another major immediate benefit – 15% off your first purchase. They don't always have this going, but in regular intervals if you open a card, you get 15% off your first total purchase. Now, though this doesn't apply to exclusives (which would rock), it does apply to everything else and it stacks with every deal and any coupons you have. I took advantage of this with a $20 off coupon, along with a BOGO sale and then of course the 15%. That was a good purchase!

Also, they will commonly send you coupons in the mail encouraging you to use your card in store, and if you qualify for the Mastercard, out of store. I recently got a coupon that gave me 100 rewards points each for my next 5 purchases on that card. I bought lunch with it at work for a week. I also received aa coupon for $25 off a $125 purchase. It was fully stack-able so I used it in a BOGO sale on two 7965 Falcons ($90 a piece!).

The Downside: None really besides the normal. Just as always with TRU, make sure with your deals that you are getting an actual deal and not a TRU deal (130% retail -30% = you are still paying retail).

Amazon Credit Card

The Upside: This is a card that was just recently brought up in the forums and several people, including Ed Mack, came out talking about how they loved it. Now, I didn't buy a ton from Amazon until I got into Legos so I had never really thought about it again. I decided to re-investigate and found out that this is an awesome card.

First of all, when you open it you get a $50 gift card immediately applied to your purchase. When I opened mine, I got a discounted Tower Bridge for $229 - $50. That one will turn out to be a pretty good deal.

On top of that, every purchase on Amazon.com gets 3% cash back. Now that I am into Lego investing, I make a lot of purchases on Amazon.com, so this is a really big help. Also, you can use the rewards right on Amazon. The credit card also gives you 2% back on gas and groceries (which is awesome) and 1% on everything else. So you can save up for Lego purchases by just spending money on everyday purchases.

Downside: None besides the normal with a credit card. Only thing past using it on Amazon, there are some other cards with the same or better rewards – which we will get back to later.

Discover Card

I love my Discover Card. I kept seeing commercials about all these cash back programs and free money, plus coming out of college and getting married, I had to start improving my credit for purchasing a house. I signed up for a Discover card. Their opening reward for the card is not necessary great for investing: It is 0% APR for 12 Months. This can be a help though because if you see a bunch of sales one month, you wont have to immediately pay off the card.

The real reward is their extensive cash back program. First off, every purchase is 1% cash back which is pretty standard. However, every quarter Discover has a different 5% cash back program in a different area like Restaurants, Home Improvement, Theaters, Gas Stations, Groceries, etc. The best one: Online purchases. This comes around about once a year for three months. There are usually three areas per quarter they allow the 5% cash back on.

On top of that, they have 100s of special cash back programs throughout the year. Common ones include 2% cash back on everything in your birthday month, 2% cash back when you set up automatic bill pay with your credit card and several 2% cash back holiday's. They normally have about 5-6 of these going on a time and some are always there.

Even more, they have 100s of special retailers that if you navigate from Discovers site to the retailers site and use your Discover card, you get up to 20% cash back. I use these for things like Kohl's, Lowes, and Home Depot. This adds up really quick.

If you thought I was done – my other favorites are their Cash back monthly spending rewards programs. After you spend a lot on the card, Discover starts sending you deals for more cash back in the mail every month. One of my favorites is based on your monthly spending. For instance, they will tell you if you spend $1000 a month for the next three months, they will give you $150 in cash back. And this stacks on top of everything else I have just mentioned. There are months when I calculated I got back 8% of my total purchases for the month.

Now that you have the rewards – what can you do with them? Well you can get them to just send you a check, deposit the money in your bank account, you can link it with your Amazon account and use it immediately there, or the best – more online retailers. These retailers swap around every month or so, but commonly there are some good retailers (including ones that sell Legos) that you can use your cash back on and get a little extra. For instance, you will get a $50 gift card for $45 in cash back. There are hundreds of these. Last year alone, I earned about $400 in cash back on this one card. I never paid any interest so it was a great deal.

fThey also have a great referrals program. Anyone referred by a card member gets some special deals upon opening the card and the person who refers them gets $50 in cash back. I refer people as much as possible and then buy Legos!

Downside: None besides normal. This one is my favorite.

Chase Card

The Upside: This card is very similar to the Discover card in its rewards programs. This makes sense because they are direct competitors. Their starting reward is a little better for an investor – If you spend 500 within the first 3 months, you get $100 cash back.

They also have the quarterly rewards programs and most of the time they are different than Discover's. This allows me to have 4-6 areas I get 5% cash back in every quarter.

Unfortunately they don't have all of the extra rewards programs Discover does, but they do have the online retailers where you can get extra cash back. They normally have different ones than Discover as well, so again you can double up in a since.

Chase's rewards dispensing program is awesome though. You can immediately apply the rewards straight to your monthly statement or you can spend them at select retailers in which you will, like Discover, earn more money for your cash back.

I have also found Chase's support to be super. Once I accidentally missed my payment by a day and they removed the charge after I called. They are also right on top of fraud – they call me anytime a purchase is made outside of my area, etc.

Downside: None but the normal Credit Card downside.

Other Credit Cards

There are tons more of these out there. I have several more, but the above two are by far the best to me. I have one more, the PNC Everyday Rewards Card that gives 4% back on gas and groceries always – unfortunately that card is discontinued for new applicants. But there are a ton more rewards cards out there and if you get a big portfolio of them, you can ensure you are getting 5% or so back on every purchase you make.

Walmart Credit Card:

I decided to check this one out recently. There isn't a lot here. Their card is done by Discover, but its premier card is much better. You don't get anything special for using it at Walmart, so I would just stick with another.

Again, just be careful. There are safe alternatives and ways to never spend a dime in interest. Make sure you don't or you are just cutting into these fabulous rewards you just earned. But if you do it right, you will be thoroughly rewarded!

Note: All of the information here are my own opinions and are pulled from my experiences. You may or may not have success with these methods.