Bottom Line<\/span><\/h2>\nMeeting a spending requirement to earn a credit card's sign-up bonus can feel daunting. However, if you break the spending requirements into monthly pieces during the earning period and then shift all of your recurring expenses onto the credit card during that time, it might be less difficult than you originally imagined. $4,000 sounds like a lot \u2014 but broken down, that\u2019s about $1,333 per month.<\/p>\n
If you have additional expenses that can't be paid by credit card without a fee \u2014 and the fee-free options won't be enough to earn the welcome bonus \u2014 consider which is worth more: the card's bonus or the fee you'll pay to complete the spending. If the bonus is worth more than the fee(s) you pay along the way, it can make sense.<\/p>\n
The most important rule: Don\u2019t spend extra just to earn a welcome bonus. It won't make sense to go into debt for some extra airline miles. The goal here is simple: Earn a credit card's sign-up bonus by using your existing expenses to meet the card's minimum spending requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s a hesitation I see regularly about applying for travel rewards credit cards. Some people feel the spending requirements are too high for their income levels. Others think that much spending sounds rash \u2014 as if it’s a surefire way to get into credit card debt. Thankfully, there are ways to put spending on a new credit card without increasing your overall spending. Here are our tips on how to meet minimum spending requirements to earn a new bonus without busting your budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":249857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":null,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"default","_google_business_share_type":"default","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12055],"tags":[12519,12655,12621],"coauthors":[36386,36518],"class_list":["post-29708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-credit-cards","tag-application-strategy","tag-beginners","tag-earning-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29708"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256361,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29708\/revisions\/256361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29708"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Person](\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/pexels-karola-g-4968391-scaled.jpg\")
![\"Capital](\"https:\/\/cdn.nextinsure.com\/imaging\/opt\/dfed8cb4-d376-4c8b-aed4-1997afa3d66a.png\")
<\/div><\/div>![\"American](\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/CardArt-AmexGoldCard.png\")
<\/div><\/div>![\"United\u2120](\"https:\/\/cdn.nextinsure.com\/imaging\/opt\/2f4559e9-ec54-463f-a2a2-40c399feb8de.png\")
<\/div><\/div>