Credit Card “Coupon” Benefits: Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em

My husband and I each own some credit cards with annual fees that we continue to renew year after year because the benefits are worth it (to us, based on our travel habits). Most annual-fee cards now have monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual benefits that are akin to coupon books. As much as I’m not a fan of these coupon books, it is what it is.

However, these benefits are only worth it if you actually use them. And of course, the trick is to use them for things that you would already be buying/using and to not do unnecessary spending just to use the credits. With the end of the first half of the year coming up tomorrow, many of you probably have card benefits that you have to use before then.

Tracking Credit Card Benefits

If you own a lot of credit cards, it can be a pain to remember which cards have benefits and when they expire. For example, my husband’s Amex Platinum has quarterly credits for Resy restaurants and Lululemon purchases that we use up every quarter, and the Bilt Palladium card has semi-annual hotel credits.

The easiest way for me to track my credit card benefits is a free tool by Thrifty Traveler. This tool allows you to select which credit cards you own from a checkbox list, and it alerts you what your credits/benefits are and when they expire. You can input details as you use your benefits. For example, the tool alerted me that we have 4 benefits expiring at the end of June on the Amex Platinum card:

I can see all of my cards on a dashboard, and then navigate to each card to see the details.

Using Bilt Palladium Semi-Annual Hotel Credit

The big benefit I needed to book before end of June was a 2-night hotel stay using a $200 semi-annual hotel credit (combined with a monthly $100 Bilt Cash allowance). I had intended to use this credit to book my son a hotel in Thailand, but I found the hotel choices in the Bilt travel portal for that area were too limited. So instead, I pivoted and booked a 2-night stay at a hotel in Austin for a trip I already had planned for later this summer. It’s not a glamorous hotel by any means, but with the $300 credit I’m only paying $5.24 out of pocket.

I updated my booking on the Thrifty Traveler tool to indicate I used the benefit:

Are you planning to use/spend your expiring credit card benefits before the end of June?