Credit Card Rewards! Should I Sign Up?

We often receive in the mail some credit card offer saying if we sign up for it then we’ll get a free round trip ticket or 30,000 miles.  But should you sign up for it?

First of all, if you are an individual who does not pay the balance in full on their credit card at the end of the month, you should not sign up for any of these offers.  Instead, you should search for a credit card with a very low interest rate such as the Chase Slate card.  However, if you do pay off your balance completely, then it would actually be very beneficial to sign up for these cards.

These cards offer some great rewards but if the balance is not paid on the card at the end of the month an annual interest rate at about 20% can be charged.  This is the drawback of the cards.  Also, many of them may have an annual fee.  

Lastly, look at the fine print of the offer.  Many will only offer you the reward after you spend a certain amount of money.  If you’d spend that amount anyways and the card doesn’t have an annual fee, I’d suggest you sign up for the offer and reap the benefits.

As for your credit score, as long as the card line is open for about 6 months or a year and not closed immediately after you receive the reward it should only help your credit score.  Also, from my research it seems as though about 6 credit cards at once should be the number to not exceed to not negatively affect your credit score.  Having this number can actually help your credit as long as you are not using much of the credit limit on each of the cards.