Selecting a credit card designed specifically to enhance travel rewards or save you money can increase your travel rewards or help reduce airfare and hotel costs. Miles-based cards tend to work best for airline loyalty while general travel cards provide greater flexibility in redeeming points.
Dependent upon your preferences, additional add-ons could include access to airport lounges or automatic elite status with hotels and airlines.
1. Choose based on your spending habits
Travel-themed credit cards often offer attractive reward rates on purchases such as airfare, hotel stays and car rentals. Additional bonus categories might include dining out, grocery shopping and drugstore visits; plus many cards provide cardholder benefits like airport lounge access and travel insurance coverage.
Your ideal credit card depends on how often and to whom you travel, as well as any loyalty to particular airlines or hotels. Co-branded cards tend to provide frequent travelers with an early start in earning points to qualify for elite status status.
Other cards provide more flexible redemption options, such as transferring rewards to partner airline and hotel loyalty programs or redeeming them through the card issuer’s travel portal. Selecting cards that earn transferable miles allows the greatest flexibility when booking award travel; some function more like cash back cards by providing you a fixed value per point or mile regardless of which redemption option you select.
2. Check the underlying rewards program
Travel credit cards typically provide rewards in the form of points or miles that can be redeemed for airline flights, hotel stays and other travel-related items; the specifics vary widely by card. Some even provide co-branded rewards with airlines and hotels while others have general travel programs.
No matter the program, it is always advisable to strive to get at least 1 cent in value from every point or mile you redeem. Booking travel directly through your card issuer’s travel portal often provides higher redemption values compared to gift cards or merchandise purchases.
Many travel cards offer additional perks, like free checked bags, hotel upgrades and airport lounge access – making the annual fee worthwhile in your case. Be sure to consider comparing each card’s roster of add-ons against its annual fee before selecting one to use for travel purposes.
3. Read reviews
Travel cards typically charge annual fees, although some offer more generous perks and rewards programs to offset them. When considering which card best meets your needs, be sure to read reviews to ensure it can truly meet them – program devaluations is common so rewards you get today may become worth less tomorrow.
Travel credit cards require you to possess good to excellent credit to qualify, which usually entails having at least a FICO score of 670 or higher. If your FICO score falls short, however, it may be beneficial for you to improve it before applying. Furthermore, beware that many travel cards charge annual fees of $695 or more; these should also be considered carefully before pursuing this path.
4. Don’t choose a card based on the number of points or miles you stand to earn
Travel cards offer generous reward earning rates that can help you save on airfare, hotels and other travel-related purchases. Many also feature cardmember perks like airport lounge access or TSA PreCheck/Global Entry credits that could make the experience more rewarding for cardmembers. Selecting the ideal travel card depends upon how often and which features are most important to you based on how often you travel and which perks matter the most to you.
Some travel cards offer cash back, while others earn points or miles that can be redeemed for statement credits, gift cards and travel purchases (although their redemption values tend to be lower). Some cards with the latter earning structure also partner with specific airlines to offer priority boarding or free checked bags as incentives for using it.
Flat-rate reward cards like Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (view rates and fees) may be an ideal solution for individuals who don’t wish to keep track of bonus categories, earning caps or redemption values – plus their annual fees tend to be significantly less than many co-branded cards.
