Stop anyone on the street and ask if they have a rewards credit card and the answer will probably be, yes.

“It is a great incentive to bring on more customers, bring on new customers,” said Will Eve of Finder.com.

But a new survey by Finder of 1,200 Canadians found that three out of four are using their rewards credit cards solely to chase those rewards points. 

The average amount spent is $3,735 and men tend to spend more than women to get those rewards, even on shoes.

“They might be splurging a bit more just to reach that spending cap,” said Eve.

The survey found consumers living on the West Coast are more likely than the rest of Canadians to spend for the rewards.  

And who’s splurging more?

“The age bracket of 45 to 54 was spending almost double that of those in the category of 18 to 24 which was interesting,” explained Eve.

 

 

 

Websites likes Finder, RateSupermarket and Ratehub will help you sort through all the rewards cards and help you to compare annual fees and interest rates, but there is a downside to all of this.

One merchant CTV News spoke with said that merchants tend to pay more to the credit card companies when those premium rewards cards are used to pay for goods and merchandise.

And rewards cards may cost credit cardholders more too, depending on how they use them and the rewards they get. Some questions that you need to ask yourself:

  • Are you spending too much to get the rewards?
  • Are the benefits outweighing the annual fee?
  • Are you paying off the balance each month to avoid interest charges?

Also make sure to review the cards you have every year to see if the terms and conditions have changed or if the annual fee has gone up.