Credit cards have long been deemed a double-edged sword, with their remarkable convenience, offers, and rewards, often contrasting with the sky-high interest rates and fees.
For a discerning consumer, however, a credit card can very well be a godsend, given the sheer scale of benefits that they can extract from it. This includes cashback offers, reward points, free insurance, and innumerable travel hacks, among other things.
In recent years, a slew of apps and services have come to fore, particularly catering to such users, and helping them manage multiple credit cards, and their fees, interest and payments, while making the most of their respective offers and rewards.
In this article, we cover a handful of these solutions, their core features, and how users can use them to take back control of their personal finances.
1. Mint
The ultimate financial sentinel for those who struggle with piles of receipts and keeping track of expenses, Mint remains one of the most trusted and popular apps when it comes to personal finance in both the leading app stores.
The service does an exceptional job when it comes to categorizing and analyzing your spending habits via its expense tracking features, in addition to a host of other features that make it one of the most versatile options on this list.
For a simple solution to handle multiple cards, and keep a watchful eye on the transactions, balances, interest, and fees accruing from the same, there are few better solutions than the renowned Mint Budgeting App.
2. AwardWallet
Consumer finance has been flooded with points, rewards, offers, and bonuses in recent years, all aimed at disguising the daylight robbery, that is credit card interest rates. This is often done in the hopes of users not realizing, or making the effort to unravel the complex web of award systems to make use of it.
With apps such as AwardWallet, however, it is very much possible for consumers to one-up the credit card companies at their own game.
The app essentially integrates rewards and loyalty programs from over 670 partners, and since it was launched in 2004, it has grown to 700,000 regular users nationwide.
It has a free version, which is sufficient for most people, along with a paid version starting at $30 per month, with additional features such as the ability to export data onto a spreadsheet or PDF file, for added convenience.
3. MaxRewards
A relative new-comer in this space, MaxRewards has been around since 2019, and takes the credit card rewards management game a step further, with highly sought after features such as suggesting ‘the best card to use’ for a particular purchase, location, or merchant, in order to maximize benefits.
It offers an all-in-one suite to manage your credit cards, their balances, your credit utilization rate, payment dates, and more, along with the coveted credit card welcome bonus tracker. This feature essentially tracks your spend on each card, and how much more you need to spend in order to collect the bonus.
The app uses its 700+ integrations and partnerships to clearly categorize your cards, based on their suitability for different expenses such as gas, groceries, travel and entertainment, etc.
It further tracks ancillary fees and expenses incurred via card usage, for example, not a lot of people realize that investing with a credit card often comes with a different set of fees and interest structures, unless when done with the likes of the SoFi investment credit cards. With MaxRewards, such expenses and added fees that often go unnoticed, are reported bright as day.
4. Clarity Money
It’s easy to get lost in this wormhole of discounts, offers, and reward-hunting, eventually leading to a mountain of credit card debt with an interest rate that can reach as high as 2% to 3% each month.
As such, it is essential to have an app whose sole purpose is to keep users abreast with their overall financial situation, particularly in regards to their credit card balances, fees, interest, and more. Owned by Goldman Sachs, Clarity Money helps you take end-to-end control of your finances seamlessly.
Since launching in 2016, the app has received awards and recognitions across the board, including being named the ‘Best New App’ by the Google Play Store, as well as the Apple App Store, followed by a Webby Award for being the ‘Best Finance App.’
Final Words
Consumers today no longer have to let credit cards take control of their finances and run their lives for them. With the right tools and apps, it is very well possible to take the upper hand.
Credit card rewards and bonuses often tend to be too good to be true, mainly because very few people actually make use of them. With the above-mentioned apps, however, you can become one of the few, and use your cards to fundamentally enhance your financial position.
