Category: Finance

The Best Travel Credit Cards

The right combination of credit cards can provide lucrative benefits, or even pay for your next trip. Our focus here isn’t deep optimization of the points and miles game; there are plenty of websites out there that’ll help you there if that’s your goal. But we can still provide some advice on how to pick the best credit cards for you.

Summary

If you don’t want to read the entire article, here are our top-line recommendations:

  • Our recommendation for frequent travelers: get “Chase Trifecta” of the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Chase Freedom Unlimited, and the Chase Freedom. You’ll have to be ready for the Sapphire Reserve’s $550 annual fee, but its benefits over the Sapphire Preferred are worth it, especially if you spend a lot on travel and dining. It earns 3 points per dollar on travel and dining purchases. The Freedom earns 5 points on rotating quarterly categories, so use the Freedom for those. Then use the Freedom Unlimited for everything else, as it gets 1.5% back on all purchases. You can combine the points you earn from all three accounts into your Sapphire Reserve account, where you can transfer them to frequent traveler programs or redeem them in other ways.
  • If you’re new to the points and miles game, get the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Freedom Unlimited cards. The Sapphire Preferred carries a $95 annual fee, but earns 2 points per dollar on travel and dining expenses, and you can transfer points to frequent traveler programs including United, Southwest, Marriott, and Hyatt. Use the Freedom Unlimited to get 1.5 points per dollar on all other expenses, and combine your points.
  • If you want the simplest option, get the Citi Double Cash card. Earn 2% on all your purchases, redeem for cash and statement credits, and don’t look back.
  • If your travel is generally flexible and you’re willing to spend a lot of time maximizing your points redemption, consider the American Express Gold or Platinum cards. These cards earn points at different rates, but they both earn MembershipRewards that can be transferred to several valuable partners.
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Airline and Hotel Credit Cards

If you’ve read our article on the best travel credit cards, you know that you can usually get the best value from a points-and-miles card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve or the American Express Platinum. Credit cards associated with a specific airline or hotel brand—known as co-branded credit cards—generally should not be among your primary credit cards. However, these cards can still provide useful benefits, so we’ll break some of the best ones down here.

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