So, you want to get a credit card with travel rewards. Where to start?
First off, think about what your goals are. Do you want to get perks for a particular airline? Do you want to get free stays at a certain hotel chain? Or do you want travel points you can use on flights and hotels from different chains/airlines? Do you want to get a travel credit card, or would straight cash back make more sense? You will have to put in some effort to get the most out of a travel rewards card.
(Just to define a term I use below, “status” refers to a rewards program status like Marriott Platinum Elite that offers you certain perks – free upgrades, more points per stay – because of your status.)
You want to get status and free stays at a certain hotel chain. Get that hotel chain’s credit card. Often, the card helps you get status faster. For work, we mostly stick with Marriott, so I am a Platinum Elite. Sometimes the benefits do not really get me all that much (I mean, Fairfield Inn is a Fairfield Inn, it’s not glamorous typically), but I have gotten some nice freebies and upgrades at international hotels with my status. I have also used points at some really nice hotels including the St. Pancras in London and Ritz Carlton Tokyo.
You want status/perks and miles/points on a particular airline. Usually a credit card for a particular airline will get you some perks (boarding in an earlier group, for example), and can help you get status, although you will have to do a lot of flying on that airline as well. My first rewards credit card was Southwest, which I like a lot. Points are flexible and easy to use to purchase flights, and you get annual bonus points. You can also cancel a flight and get points right back to your account!
You want points you can use on different airlines or hotel chains. Consider a travel rewards credit card. My main credit card is the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It has a $450 annual fee, which sounds crazy, but one perk is that you get $300 back annually in travel expenses reimbursed – flights, hotel, rental car, even Uber/Lyft count. With my spending for my job, I earn that back immediately every year.
For me, this card makes the most sense. You earn Chase Ultimate Reward points, which are worth the most by redeeming through the travel portal. Not every airline/hotel is included, but most are, and so rewards are flexible. I’ve even booked hostels and “activities” through the portal, such as tours or a historic castle pass in Scotland. You can also transfer points to a number of rewards programs like Southwest.
I could go into a lot of detail about the various perks and cost benefit analysis of this card, but it is covered in great detail elsewhere on the internet. There are a number of similar travel rewards cards that you can research as well (Amex, Barclay, etc.).
Get that bonus. All of these cards have a sign-on bonus. Spend $X in X months to get a points bonus. This is easy if you can expense travel for work like me. If not, plan your spending around earning the bonus. Save a large purchase, like car maintenance, furniture, a computer, or other items for this spending period. Do your seasonal clothes shopping during this period. Put everything on the card that you can during that period – paying bills, Amazon purchases, all online spending. Track in Excel so you can ensure you will reach your spending goal.
And a few closing comments: I pay off my cards regularly and never carry a balance, which is my recommendation to make these worthwhile. And hey, credit cards might not work for you and your spending habits and money management. That’s fine! These rewards cards make sense for me, and supplemented by my earned miles/points through travel alone, credit card travel rewards allowed me to travel to Japan and the UK at a low cost.
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