I understand why some people have this opinion, but I don’t feel this is proper advice without a caveat. My brother lived this way for a long time because he had poor financial discipline. It helped him most to just not play the game.

I’ve not payed a cent in interest for 20 years, while I have gotten hundreds of dollars in rewards for paying for things I’ve just had to pay for anyway. The best bet was my BOA Better Balance Card (RIP, you were too good for this world!) It paid $25 cash every quarter if you made more than the minimum payment every month. I put my internet bill on autopay on that card and nothing else. (It was a backup for the handful of places that don’t accept Discover, my preferred card.) By paying that bill I had to pay every month anyway, I got a free $100 per year, and probably had that card maybe 10 years. So if you want to see people fuck banks over, they paid me and I never paid them. They didn’t care because they got the merchant fees. That was too good to last, but Discover still gives good cash rewards and I’ve only ever had stellar customer service with them. Again, hundreds in rewards over the years at no cost to me.

Both cards used to offer free extended warranties too, which I’ve used to fix my bass amp once and I bought TVs and other more expensive things on those cards for the free warranty extension. Discover has dropped that, but my new BOA card has brought it back.