Although every issuer sets its own policies, you typically cannot qualify for cash back, miles, or rewards points on balance transfers. Credit card issuers almost always include language in their agreements that exclude balance transfers from earning rewards or qualifying for a signup bonus and instead limit rewards only to new qualifying purchases. You typically cannot qualify for cash back, miles, or rewards points on balance transfers. If you think about it, you likely received some form of credit card rewards when you first incurred the debt. Getting rewarded for it again, without making a new purchase, doesn’t really make sense for the new issuer. If you want to qualify for rewards and signup bonuses, you will likely have to rely on new purchases rather than balance transfers to earn such perks from your card issuer. Not all credit card transactions qualify for rewards. A cash advance is an example of a transaction that does not qualify because a cash advance is a withdrawal from your credit limit — you’re not making a qualifying purchase.