I admit it… Alec Baldwin sold me on the Capital One Venture card. I’ve had reward cards before, but I found, as many of us have, that it was difficult to cash in on the travel rewards. I moved away from the rewards for a while because I just didn’t feel like the rewards were very high.

I have been pleasantly surprised to find that utilizing the rewards on my Venture card really is as easy as Alec Baldwin promises. I’ve found it easiest to just use the purchase eraser instead of using the booking system.

I’m now putting everything on my Venture card so my points can wrack up. It averages a 2% return so for every $5000 I put on the card I get about $100 back.

But there is a trick to maximizing rewards……YOU MUST PAY THE BALANCE EVERY MONTH. As long as you are charging items that you know you can pay off at the end of the month it’s great. If you do not pay the balance then the interest will take away from your benefits.