 TITLE: How Credit Card Issuers Classify Purchases for Bonus Rewards CONTENT: How to Maximize Bonus Rewards\n-----------------------------\nTracking the categories where your credit cards may earn bonus rewards is important for earning the most points, miles or cash back possible on every purchase. Here's how to maximize your credit cards' bonus rewards categories.\n### Focus on Cards With Good Bonus Categories\nThe first thing to do is make sure you have cards that offer bonus earning on the types of things you spend the most money on, whether that's groceries and gas or travel and dining. At least one of your credit cards should earn extra rewards in one or two of your major expense areas.\n### Use Multiple Credit Cards\nIf you have more than one main credit card, pair your products so you earn bonus rewards at even more types of merchants.\n### Leverage Limited-Time Opportunities\nDuring the pandemic, we saw certain credit cards begin to offer limited-time opportunities to earn bonus points on new or changing categories. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card usually earns 2 points per dollar on travel, 3 points per dollar on dining, and 1 point on everything else. For a few months, though, it also earned 2 points per dollar on up to $1,000 per month in purchases at grocery stores.\nOther cards, like the Chase Freedom Flex℠, regularly earn bonuses on quarterly rotating categories. From July to September 2021, for instance, its bonus categories—which earn 5% back—include:\n*   Grocery stores (excluding Walmart and Target)\n*   Select streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, Netflix, Sling, Vudu, FuboTV, Apple Music, SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify and YouTube TV\nThat's in addition to the card's regular rates of 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase and 3% at drugstores and dining at restaurants. You'll also earn 5% cash back on grocery store purchases (not including Target or Walmart) on up to $12,000 spent the first year. You'll earn 1% on all other purchases. By paying attention to the card's temporary categories and hitting that spending threshold, you can earn as many as five times the rewards as on other everyday purchases. END