I’m often emailed by readers to list what I feel are the best reward credit cards currently available. I personally think that “best” is such a subjective term, the best set of reward credit cards really depends on your spending profile. If you spend a lot in a particular category, you’ll want to get the best card for that category and make sure it has a place in your wallet. If you don’t know what you spend a lot on, you might as well save yourself the hassle and get one that works in all scenarios.

The best cash back credit card is the one that maximizes your reward earnings and converts those rewards into cash or products that you would buy at a favorable exchange rate. Many cards offer high reward points on the front end and then effectively reduce your rewards by converting them at a horrible exchange rate when you redeem them. It’s important to look at both sides of the equation.

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With the price of food and gas where it is, everyone’s looking for an edge and for more and more people, myself included, that edge is in maximizing what you can get out of credit card cash back reward programs. Credit card companies charge vendors a hefty percentage to process credit card transactions (AMEX and Discover charge the most, that’s why they often have the best cashback programs), so doesn’t it make sense that they pass along some of that to you? Of course it does!

So here are eight tips I use to ensure I get the most cash back out of credit cards, hopefully you will find them useful as well.

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