Weddingbee Blog

I can’t seem to recall where I heard this bit of advice, but very early on in the planning process, it was suggested that I pay for wedding expenses on a rewards credit card. The idea was not to spend more on the wedding than you’re able, but instead to reap the benefits of the increased spending by getting travel miles, hotel vouchers, or any number of other bonuses.

(source)

Since we do a lot of traveling to Mr. Husky’s home state, as well as to visit my dad, we opted for a rewards card from an airline carrier that offered one mile per one dollar spent, and two miles per one dollar spent within their organization (flights, luggage, food, etc.). They also add the actual miles flown to your mileage balance, and we received one roundtrip reward-travel flight for just signing up.

At this point, I feel obligated to climb atop my soapbox, and issue the following PSA:

Please do not sign up for a credit card unless you understand the contractual obligations of such an action, and you are able to pay the card off as you spend it. Otherwise you will waste more money on the exorbitant interest rates than you will end up saving with the rewards of the card. I have learned this the hard way.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I do have a few tips for using the credit card to reap the maximum awards:

• Pay it Off. We have put all of our wedding expenses so far on the credit card. I tend to be a little bit more spastic about the dangers of carrying a credit card balance, so I log onto the website several times a month to pay off whatever we’ve spent. It’s perfectly fine to wait until the statement arrives, but it’s easy for the bill to get lost in the mail shuffle. Or if you’re doing e-statements, the bill can be easily overlooked among all of the inbox spam. Regardless of how you pay it off, just pay it off.

• Book Early. No, really. Because airlines dedicate only a small portion of available seats to be eligible for reward travel. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

• Understand the Limitations. When we signed up for the card, we thought we would use our “free” tickets to fly to New York, and get our honeymoon flight out of there. Tickets are usually cheaper from the Eastern-coast airports. We later found out that our “city pairs” were not eligible for reward travel. If you have a specific destination in mind, find out if there are restrictions. Also, there are usually blackout days, when rewards cannot be used for travel. Most typically, these blackout days surround holidays and holiday weekends. If your wedding falls near a holiday and you plan to honeymoon immediately after, this may not be the right option for you.

Did you reap the benefits of using a rewards credit card for wedding purchases?