Many premium travel credit cards offer welcome bonuses for new customers, but they are usually contingent on meeting a certain level of spending in a certain period of time. Most cards require spending $1,000-$1,500 in 90 days to achieve the full welcome bonus, which is fairly doable for most people.
On the other hand, cards such as the American Express Platinum Card or the BMO World Elite MasterCard ask for $5,000 and $3,000 in the first 90 days respectively, which can feel difficult to meet unless you start buying things you don't normally need.
I personally don't believe in changing your spending habits for the worse for these more premium cards. However, with some maneuvering, you can re-arrange your payments without increasing your spending.
Here are nine (9) legitimate ways to meet your Minimum spend, without compromising your regular spending habits:
1. Time your large purchases around minimum spend
✔ No fees✔ Takes Amex
Are you buying new furniture? Booking flights and hotels for your next vacation? The easiest and most natural way to meet minimum spends is to make sure your large purchases fall within the three or four month window to grab the welcome bonus.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of examples:
Are you buying new furniture? Booking flights and hotels for your next vacation? The easiest and most natural way to meet minimum spends is to make sure your large purchases fall within the three or four month window to grab the welcome bonus.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of examples:
- General shopping
- Electronics (cell phone, TV, laptop, gaming consoles)
- Home renovations, furniture, appliances
- Vacation (flights, hotels, use the card while you're on vacation)
- Deposit on new car (some dealers take up to $3,000 on credit card)
2. Prepay your mobile phone, Internet or TV bill
✔ No fees
✔ Takes Amex
Rogers, Fido, Bell, Telus and other similar service providers allow you to prepay your bill. They don't really have a maximum amount you can prepay, although obviously you should prepay only what's required to meet the minimum spend.
This is one of the easiest ways to meet minimum spend on Amex cards, as almost all telecom companies take Amex as a form of payment.
3. Pre-load your reloadable transit card
✔ No fees
✔ Takes Amex
In Ontario, you can load your PRESTO card up to $990. If you do spend a lot of time on transit systems that take PRESTO, consider beefing up your balance as it counts as a transaction on your Credit card. Again, PRESTO takes Amex as a form of payment.
4. Pay for home and auto insurance with your credit card
✔ No fees
✔ Takes Amex
Most insurance providers will encourage you to use pre-authorized debit (PAD) via your bank account to pay for insurance, but most do accept credit card as a form of payment.
5. Pre-load food and beverage apps that you frequently use
✔ No fees
✔ Takes Amex
Starbucks, Second Cup and other coffee apps allow you to add money to your account for coffee. If you're a coffee drinker - it's a win-win!
6. Buy gift cards to places you normally shop at.
✔ No fees
✔ May take Amex
Do you frequently buy things on Amazon.ca? Maybe you always shop at a large grocery chain? If the answer is yes, consider buying a gift card to these places, which will count towards your minimum spend. You can then slowly use up the gift card balance over time.
7. Pay for your medical or dental benefits directly instead of going through insurance.
✔ No fees
✔ May take Amex
If you work full-time and have medical and dental benefits, the normal process is for your provider to bill the insurer directly for payment. However, you can also request to pay the amount upfront and submit the claim for reimbursement yourself. Some places do take Amex given that claims are usually hundreds of dollars.
If you get wellness benefits such as massage therapy or counseling, you would normally pay upfront and submit the claim later regardless.
8. Buy prepaid or reloadable MasterCard/Visa gift cards.
✔ Small fee to activate cards
✔ May take Amex
Many places such as Shoppers Drug Mart or 7-Eleven have $100-$300 prepaid MasterCards or Visas available for purchase, which are normally used as gift cards. However, both these places take Amex, so if you've got a hefty spend to meet, you could pay for the gift card now and spend the balance later.
9. Pay your property tax and hydro bill through a bill payment app
✔ 1.75%-2.5% fee for MasterCard/Visa
✔ 2.5%-3% fee for Amex (2.29% if through Paypal on Paysimply)
We're getting into the non-free ways to meet minimum spend, so this should only be done if you've already used up the options above. Property tax and hydro tend to be bills that are typically paid through your bank, but many apps have shown up in the last few years that allow you to pay with credit card - for a fee.
Plastiq: With Plastiq, there is a flat 2.5% fee no matter what type of card you use. Note that you can also pay your mortgage with Plastiq, but it only accepts MasterCard. This is one of the best ways to meet American Express minimum spends, as the fee is lower than PayTM and they are more widely accepted than PayTM And Paysimply. You can potentially lower the cost paying through Plastiq by signing up via referral.
PayTM: PayTM charges a 1.75% fee for MasterCard/Visa, and 3% to use Amex. The app is meant to streamline all your bill payments, so in addition to property tax and hydro, you can pay the CRA, your Internet bill, and more. You can collect points that go towards gift cards, but it'll take a while before you can even have enough for a $5 Amazon gift card.
Paysimply: Paysimply is specifically for paying taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency, municipalities, utilities and tuition. Like Plastiq, they charge a flat 2.5% fee on credit card payments, but you can circumvent that by using PayPal, which has a 2.29% fee.
Note that all of these methods assume you can actually pay off the credit card bill even if you're accelerating some of your normal spending. Always ensure you can actually pay off the balance of your credit cards each month - that's how you make travel rewards a part of your lifestyle!
