Travel credit cards?

[basil]

Do you have a credit card you use for rewards, travel or otherwise?

DH and I have had 2 credit cards for years and years. One is a Fidelity card...we get I think 1% that my DH auto adds to one of the kids' 529 plans. The other is a Costco Visa card and we get Costco cash back rewards from that.

For some reason, DH started down the road of looking at Chase Sapphire cards - I think someone at work must have mentioned it to him. Now I'm down in a rabbit hole of all sorts of different travel rewards cards.

The kids' 529 accounts are pretty full and I'm not convinced we need to be further contributing to them.

Do you have a travel reward card (chase or capitalone or Amex or ??)? and is it worth going to a card with an annual fee?

[gymnbomb]

We keep one airline credit card for all of our family expenses. When we lived near Detroit it was Northwest/Delta, now it is Southwest. It has a fee but we've always gotten enough perks from the card to fully offset the fee. Otherwise we each have a personal credit card with no fees. Mine is Capital One and I think it has 1.25% cash back.

[Dcclerk]

Do you have a credit card you use for rewards, travel or otherwise?

DH and I have had 2 credit cards for years and years. One is a Fidelity card...we get I think 1% that my DH auto adds to one of the kids' 529 plans. The other is a Costco Visa card and we get Costco cash back rewards from that.

For some reason, DH started down the road of looking at Chase Sapphire cards - I think someone at work must have mentioned it to him. Now I'm down in a rabbit hole of all sorts of different travel rewards cards.

The kids' 529 accounts are pretty full and I'm not convinced we need to be further contributing to them.

Do you have a travel reward card (chase or capitalone or Amex or ??)? and is it worth going to a card with an annual fee?

It all depends on how you spend, but if you are someone who likes to travel, the Chase Sapphire card is fantastic. We use the vast majority of its benefits, and really love it. The travel benefits are surprisingly good, from insurance to lounge access to Global Entry credit, etc. And we use points for a ton of hotel rooms and vacation rentals. I always start by trying to book through with points when we travel and since they are through Expedia, you are not limited just to a certain brand of hotel. We usually can find something that works for us. We also use the Chase ink for our businesses so we can connect the points which is a great value. The only other card I’ve considered is the American Express platinum so that we could have the centurion lounge access since the airport lounges through the Chase Sapphire became very skimpy after Covid.


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[AnnieW625]

I have the Costco Citi Visa which has no international transaction fees so that is an added benefit at no extra cost. It was the only card we used in Europe (2019) and it was accepted everywhere and I didn’t even have to get cash at a currency exchange. I also like the high percentage rebate on gas and still try to fill up at Costco most of the time so the extra rebate for filling up at Costco pays for itself. I am an executive member so if you figure the cost is $110 and I need it to shop at Costco it pays for itself. I cash out my Costco rebate yearly (and generally come within $5 of the cost of the executive upgrade with the executive rebate….mine is generally between $60 and $125 (being the highest in 2020-2021 because we got a massive amount of % back on a fridge and tv purchase due to promos) so even though I pay an additional yearly fee to be a Costco executive member the card is a nice no cost bonus (and the executive membership helps).

I have the American Express Everyday Cash Card, which has no annual fee. I have used the points for travel and it is fine for that, but I have never had enough points to pay for an entire airline trip for my whole family using points. I did use points to pay for four one way tickets on American from LAX to Philadelphia, but didn’t cover enough for the return trip from Pittsburgh to LAX. I did get two round trip tickets from LAX to SFO through Alaska in 2019 as well….so I overall I have bought about $1500 worth of airfare with points. I probably could get a whole trip of round trip air free at some point if I charged every little thing for a few months, but I still try to buy things like groceries, all trips to Target (via debit card), and utilities out of my checking account so for stores I pay cash or debit card. I get offers for the Blue Cash Preferred and Blue Cash Everyday cards all of the time, but both have $95 a year fees and iirc both offer better points if you buy your groceries on credit. We used to have the JetBlue AmEx as well when we lived in an area where Jet Blue was our main carrier, but we got at least one round trip per year or enough to discount tickets for four people a few times a year. Our card then was equivalent to the current Jet Blue Plus card as the fee was $90 or so (there was no free option then). Dh got rid of it when they switched to Master Card and that was around the same time that Jet Blue was limiting the amount of flights in California. Thankfully it happened when we had little to no points on the card so it wasn’t a loss in points.

In regards to the AmEx Platinum card the one family I do know who has it has family in England (and pre Covid) the Dh did a fair amount of business travel through his big 5 accounting firm so for him it was worth it because even if it was a down year in travel for him he still almost always saved the fee in cost of airfare to England because he bought it with points. I don’t travel that much to need it and although I have watched numerous YouTube reviews and highlights of the card for me it just isn’t worth it right now, and would be quite a frivolous buy imho.

American Express also has rental car protections so I always use my Amex for those transactions. I think the Costco card may have them as well, but I am not 100% sure.

A lot of credit card sites like Nerd Wallet like the Chase and Capital One brand of cards for benefits. If I didn’t already have the Costco Visa it would probably already be a no brainer for me. I have considered the Chase Southwest Airlines Visa many times over the last 20+ years as Southwest gets me 99% of the places I tend to travel to, but it just never seems to be the best value for me. For $26 more I think I get better value and no foreign transaction fee for the Chase Sapphire card or Capital One Venture cards.

I do need to renew mine and DH’s Global Entry in the next two years (before June of 2024) so I may consider, plus we have to get global entry for my girls so I may look at one of those cards that offers that as a benefit as well, but the cheapest annual fee is $395 for one of the Capital One Venture cards; if it covered $200 instead of $100 in Global Entry fees then I might consider it.

When comparing credit cards I have found sites like Nerd Wallet to be helpful as you can compare cards from all different companies.

ETA:

We keep one airline credit card for all of our family expenses. When we lived near Detroit it was Northwest/Delta, now it is Southwest. It has a fee but we've always gotten enough perks from the card to fully offset the fee…...

Can you comment on this? Like I said above Southwest gets us to 99% of the places we need to go but I have never found much external value in their card. This year however I will be going on at least 6 round trips myself all on Southwest (Dh and Dd1 just one full round trip, and DD2 just two one ways so far), plus took another one way over New Years (so even though it was round trip the first leg doesn’t count for 2022) and if that travel pattern continues I wonder if it will be worth it. If it included lounge access at LAX I might consider it for the few times we have to fly out of LAX and aren’t flying on Southwest. PM me if you would prefer.

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[basil]

It all depends on how you spend, but if you are someone who likes to travel, the Chase Sapphire card is fantastic. We use the vast majority of its benefits, and really love it. The travel benefits are surprisingly good, from insurance to lounge access to Global Entry credit, etc. And we use points for a ton of hotel rooms and vacation rentals. I always start by trying to book through with points when we travel and since they are through Expedia, you are not limited just to a certain brand of hotel. We usually can find something that works for us. We also use the Chase ink for our businesses so we can connect the points which is a great value. The only other card I’ve considered is the American Express platinum so that we could have the centurion lounge access since the airport lounges through the Chase Sapphire became very skimpy after Covid.


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We use our CC for most purchases, I don't have a debit card and I actually lost my ATM card when we were first married and never bothered to get another (DH has one but I can't remember the last time I carried more than $20 in cash).

I'm not too fussed about airport lounges but I've also never experienced them, maybe I would like it.

Do you have the one that's like $95 or the one that is $550? The $550 one has a $300 travel credit which I know we could use, so it doesn't seem like the price difference is huge. Just not sure if we would make it up or not on points/etc.


Annie - I think that Costco Citi Visa is the same one we have. We use it for gas always, and good to know it has no international fees.

[AnnieW625]

We use our CC for most purchases, I don't have a debit card and I actually lost my ATM card when we were first married and never bothered to get another (DH has one but I can't remember the last time I carried more than $20 in cash).

I feel like I overspend if I don’t pay cash for things like grocery and Target. I admire those who can pay for everything on credit and be okay with it.

I'm not too fussed about airport lounges but I've also never experienced them, maybe I would like it.

Me neither but the few times I have had to fly out of LAX on airline other than Southwest (which has it’s own smaller east to navigate terminal at LAX….it is like the small regional airports closer to our home so no need for a lounge and no need to be there 2 hours pre flight like with the other terminals there because they are so massive) I have thought it would be nice to pick up even just a soda and some snacks for the kids before a flight. As it gets closer to our Europe 2024 flights I might look into the Capital One cards because they have a network of lounges. But with AmEx you can also buy one day passes so maybe that will be an option.

Annie - I think that Costco Citi Visa is the same one we have. We use it for gas always, and good to know it has no international fees.

Costco only has the one card. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to use the card in Europe. No questions, no issues and even in Russia where I wasn’t 100% it would work (and due to not having decent internet I couldn’t easily convert $ to rubles) there were no issues, no fees, and when was able to I used an internet calculator to convert what I bought in Russia everything on my credit card statement matched. It is truly a great card without a fee.


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[SnuggleBuggles]

My friends are all about the Chase Sapphire one.


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[gatorsmom]

We use Marriott Bonvoy Visa and try to only stay in Marriotts so it has some benefits. Otherwise, Dh insists we use his American Express which connected with his business accounts. We were able to use the Visa all over in France and most places took our Amex.

ETA- Dh just told me we get points and miles credit for purchasing any airlines’ tickets on Amex plus the credit for the airline purchase so essentially you double up on miles. We’ve stayed several free nights at Marriott by using their Bonvoy card.

[AnnieW625]

…..

ETA- Dh just told me we get points and miles credit for purchasing any airlines’ tickets on Amex plus the credit for the airline purchase so essentially you double up on miles.

Yes and now to think about I have been using my Amex to book more flights because of this perk. The AmEx travel site is soo easy to use. I have no experience with other sites though. I am not always tied to one airline with this option, which is nice because even though Southwest gets me most places there are some times when it does pay to shop around for airlines and airports (sometimes my lovely small regional airport isn’t the best deal and we get a better deal through LAX and another airline (Delta, Alaska, and American have worked for us in the past)
) and it is nice to have those AmEx points in times like that when I can get a deal through AmEx.


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[Zansu]

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is the $550 card, plus there's a charge for each additional card. However, the $300 rebate on travel expenses, primary car rental insurance, cell phone insurance, stranded traveler insurnace and Priority Pass lounge access (which can also be used for food credit at airports) make up for the high price tag. You also earn more points per dollar spent with this card.

You can then get the free Chase Freedom Unlimited and eard points with it for whatever the bonus category is for that quarter, transfer them to the Sapphire card, and earn a better value for redemption.

I love using Chase points because they spend like cash. So if I buy an airline ticket for Chase points, the airline considers it a cash purchase and I earn miles (vs no miles for airlines points).

Check out The Points Guy for more strategies to maximize your credit card spending.