American’s are hooked on credit card rewards and while those that give consumers free airline miles are pretty old hat, lenders are constantly coming up with new ways to lure the plastic addicted to switch accounts.

Two of the newest variations involve mortgages and both are rather creative.

In May American Express announced a new program, the first in the nation, that allows cardholders to say “charge it” to their mortgage lender. In the past the holder of almost any card could take a cash advance to make a mortgage payment, but mortgage companies were not usually willing to pay the sizeable merchant fees required by the credit card companies to process loan payments directly. Under this new American Express program cardholders can even out any cash-flow problems involving mortgage payments or effectively shift the due date and can earn reward points for doing so.