subject: Can You Really Earn With A Credit Card? [print this page] It's the credit card world's goose that lays the golden egg for consumers: the borrowing tool that can actually make you money rather than costing you it.
But, and in danger of overloading on animal metaphors, it's also the borrowing world's elephant in the room because how can a product which is made for pure profit purely profit the user?
For the most part, it can for the same reason that credit cards with zero percent rates - such as 0% Purchase Credit Cards - can offer them.
The rewards, like the the 0% offer, are just the bait to get the credit card holder to switch products and eventually to pay interest or fees on their purchases to the credit card provider.
So, in this way, while it is theoretically possible to avoid paying out to the provider the financial institution hopes that you'll be part of those that won't.
On the other hand, when you do a credit card comparison to find a way to earn money as you spend you must do so in the expectation that you won't give in and pay fees on your credit card.
So to answer the title question very simply: yes you can really earn with a credit card, as long as you are exceptionally careful - more careful than your bank expects you to be.
However, this alone doesn't mean that you personally can earn with a credit card. For this to be true you'll need three features of your financial life.
First, you'll need to be able to do a significant amount of your spending on one credit card. Whether you go for rewards or cashback the more that you spend in one place the more you'll earn so this really is essential.
Second, you'll need to have an excellent credit rating and preferably have had credit cards in the past.
This also explains why many reward credit cards also happen to be instant decision credit cards: they're made for those who already know that they have a good credit rating.
Third, you'll need to be earning quite a significant amount. Earning with a credit card is one of those instances - all too common - where you'll need to have money to make money.
As a rule of thumb (although this is no means a hard and fast rule) only those earning above, say, 20k a year will be able to earn a lot using a credit card.
So, yes, you can really earn with a credit card. Just not as much and in as many ways as you can borrow or run up fees on a credit card which is how credit card providers are so successful.
