Best Apps to Track Credit Card Rewards
If you have several different bonus credit cards, it can be difficult to keep track of which card gives you which benefits. Some cards give you the most points for buying groceries, gasoline, or the magical spinning reward category; others retain their best rewards for bookings with a particular airline or hotel. It’s enough to make you give up the game you once aspired to and use the same card every time by default.
Earlier, we wrote about AwardWallet , one of the first apps to track your miles and points. But this app has gotten clunky and is struggling to contact some card issuers.
But don’t despair! We found three reliable apps for people who want to know which card they should use depending on what they plan to spend their money on. Let’s take a look at each of them.
MaxRewards
Once you connect your credit cards to MaxRewards (which currently supports over 70% of cards, according to the company), you can see which card brings you the best rewards in the locations closest to you. If you don’t see the location on the map, you can search for the company by name.
For example, I live a block from a gas station that has a convenience store. I would guess that it doesn’t matter which card I used at the convenience store, since I don’t have a card that gives me points for refueling at gas stations . But this convenience store is actually in the snack bar category, which means I can get 3x Lunch Points with my Chase Sapphire Reserve.
MaxRewards also shows you a list of connected cards, your reward balance converted into dollarable dollars, and your card balance. It also shows your use of your credit, so you can be sure your spending doesn’t get out of hand. You can also see the FICO credit rating if provided by your card issuer.
I have one credit card that MaxRewards does not support. But it still shows me how many points I get for different categories of purchases, so I have a quick reference that I can check on this card.
One of the new features of MaxRewards is “Deals”. Do you know those cashback offers that you can get for using your card in certain stores? You usually have to unblock them from your credit card account, which means I forget to look at them ever again. MaxRewards opens matching deals for American Express, Bank of America, Chase and SunTrust cards and includes them in your “best card” recommendation.
There is a fee for this: For every $ 25 you save through unlocked deals, you give $ 5 up to MaxRewards, and you must enter your credit card information so that this fee can be drawn. If you are not particularly interested in these additional offers, you can skip this step and the rest of the app will be free.
MaxRewards is Best for : People who want to quickly familiarize themselves with their credit card lineup to pick the best card for each location where you plan to spend money.
Birch
Birch works in a similar way to MaxRewards: connect your credit cards, open the card to see the companies around you, and choose the best card for your next transaction. You can also see recent transactions and connect your checking accounts to track your cash flow along with your credit card usage.
I tested MaxRewards and Birch in several of the same places and they usually agreed on which card would give the most points. But while MaxRewards only focuses on your credit cards, Birch acts more like a budgeting app by displaying expenses. It even indicates how many rewards you “missed” due to the wrong card.
The latter feature is great if you are trying to earn as many points as possible. But let’s say that you also regularly use your debit card for some transactions. These will appear on Birch as “missed rewards,” giving the impression that you did a poor job of earning the rewards when you actually just made a different buying decision.
Birch is Best for: People who want a more holistic view of their finances while still making the most of their credit card rewards while they’re on the go.
Maxivu
Maxivu earns me runner-up status as the simplest reward tracking app I’ve tried. It doesn’t connect to any of your accounts to display expenses or balances in real time. But it’s still very useful. All you have to do is choose the cards you are holding and this will remind you of the earning potential for each one. He chooses the “best” card for the places you are looking for or identify on the map.
Maxivu also shows you the potential income from your online purchases. If you have cards that reward online purchases as a modifiable or preferred category, it’s worth checking out the Maxivu catalog before proceeding to checkout.
Maxivu is best for: People who don’t want to share personal information to test their reward potential.