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Introduction

I can’t tell you of a single product advertised as heavily as credit cards are. We get flyers in the mail, billboards on bus stops, and we’re inundated with a seemingly infinite supply of limited-time offers over email and on the web.

Think you could avoid it on vacation? Think again! Even in first class you have to listen to the airline pitch their credit card.

Buying a gift for your special someone and want 10% off this purchase? Here’s another card they’ll try and sell you!

Couple that with the fact that [almost half of Americans](https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/credit-card-debt-statistics/#:~:text=Federal Reserve data showed that,when that rate was 50%25.) carried a balance on their credit cards sometime last year, and it’s no wonder there’s so much misinformation going around.

This article is one small attempt to call out that misinformation, so we can better understand what credit cards actually are and aren’t

Myth 1: You Should Avoid Credit Cards to Prevent Debt

This is the most common critique of credit cards, and it’s great advice for lots of people. If you’re someone who struggles controlling your spending, who thinks your credit limit is your checking account, or who just isn’t disciplined enough to pay off your cards in full every month, then you should listen to this advice.

For everyone else, it’s total bogus, and all you’re doing by avoiding credit cards is costing yourself thousands of dollars a year in valuable rewards.

The reason I’m calling this a myth, instead of just advice that’s good for some people and not for others, is that far too often, the people who say this don’t limit it to some people: they say nobody should get credit cards.

Dave Ramsey’s the most famous perpetrator of this myth, and I wrote an open letter to him debunking this advice of his in more depth here.

Myth 2: Your Credit Limit is How Much You Can Spend

Your credit limit is not how much you can spend - it’s how much the bank can afford to lend you, given your risk profile. It has nothing to do with how much money you have or what’s in your budget.

Your checking account has everything to do with how much money you have, and it’s important you only spend money that’s within your budget and can be paid off from your checking account every month.

Myth 3: You Can’t Earn Lots of Credit Card Rewards if You Don’t Travel

While it makes sense why people would think this, since many of the most valuable credit card rewards are related to travel, there’s an entire half of the credit card world devoted just to cash back!

There are countless popular cash back credit card strategies ranging from simple Robinhood Gold Card (3% back on all eligible purchases) setups to more complex Bank of America setups that take advantage of their Preferred Rewards bonus earning rates and so much more.

Having a preference for cash back shouldn’t scare you away for credit cards, and you can probably earn thousands of dollars a year in cash back without changing your spending habits.

If you want help doing that for free, you can check out Pointwise, our app that tells you which credit cards to get and when to get them, based on your actual spending and preferences.

Myth 4: Your Credit Score is The Most Important Thing

Your credit score is important, but it’s not the be-all end-all. As long as your credit score is in the mid-700s or higher, it’s unlikely you’ll be denied for a credit card based on your credit score being too low.

It’s much more likely that you’ll be denied because of a lack of credit history, which can happen even with a credit score over 800!

Myth 5: Your Credit Card Friend Knows Which Card is Best For You

We all have that one friend or family member who’s super into credit cards that everyone goes to for advice, and while they probably know more than you do about credit cards, they almost certainly don’t know everything.

There are more than 4,000 credit cards available to US consumers, and each one has different bonus categories, benefits, credits, annual fees, and welcome offers, and each credit card issuer has their own application rules and criteria, and it’s almost impossible for a single person to know it all.

Even if they did manage to know it all, in order to know which card is best for you, they’d need to know exactly where you’re spending and cross-reference that to the terms of every card that’s out there. And that I’m fairly certain is impossible.

That’s why we build Pointwise, a free app that makes it quick and easy to figure out which credit card is best for you, by comparing your actual spending and preferences to the benefits offered by every major credit card.

Pointwise is that friend or relative who knows everything about credit cards, if that friend or relative actually knew everything about credit cards.

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Editors Note: The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author's and do not reflect the views of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by any of the organizations mentioned.