Travel Credit Cards

Sitting in a lie-flat business class seat flying over the Atlantic enjoying good food, free-flowing wine, and some surprisingly comfortable napping is an undeniably great way to start a trip. Even better when that seat is completely free.

One of our favorite ways to get our travel to ay us back is through credit cards. Now, we’re not financial experts or anything like that, so please don’t take any of this as financial advice. This is purely our strategy to utilizing travel credit cards for points, protecting our purchases, and reaping other benefits you might not think of.

Below, we’ve included credit cards we actually use, along with how we use them. We provided some links to apply for these credit cards if you’re interested. They’re referral links. They don’t cost you anything, but if you do apply through them, we both get bonus rewards for it.

Some of Our Favorite Cards

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card

• $550 annual fee
• $300 travel credit annually
• $100 Global Gobal Entry/TSA Precheck Credit
• Earn 10X points per $1 on hotels and cars specifically purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards (after you spend/use your $300 travel credit). 
• Earn 5X points per $1 on air travel on Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Earn 3X points per $1 on dining.  
• Earn 3X points per $1 on other travel expenses
• Earn 1X point per $1 on all other purchases. 
• Priority Pass Membership
• Primary rental car insurance
• Trip delay insurance
• 60,000 bonus points (equivalent to $,1000) if you spend $4,000 within the first 3 months of opening an account. 

Check out the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card Here

Why We Like It and Tips

This is our go-to Travel Card. First of, yes, the $595 annual fee seems steep. But if you actually use this for travel, that $595 fee is more than worth it.

First off, Ultimate Reward Points are super useful. There are a ton of partners who accept these points. We do most of our flying with Star Alliance airlines. In particular, we have status with United Airlines. I’ve transfer almost all my Ultimate Rewards points to United’s MileagePlus program. I love this program because it lets me book award flights on multiple Star Alliance airlines.

Recently, Katarina and I flew from Chicago to Tbilisi (with a stop in Istanbul) on Turkish Airlines in business class. It was awesome to get that flight completely free by strategically using this card. We’ve got a couple other business class flights planned using our reward points as well.

Now back to the annual fee. First off, you get $300 travel credit automatically applied when you purchase basically anything related to travel. So that knocks off $300 from the annual fee quick, bringing it down to a value of $295.

Do you need Global Entry or TSA Precheck? Super awesome to have to skip through security and customs lines. You’ll get a $100 credit each year for these as well. Now we’re at $195 if you use this benefit.

And even if you don’t, the Priority Pass Membership gives you (and up to two guests!) free unlimited entries into Priority Pass lounges at airports around the world. That’s more or less equal to the Priority Pass Prestige membership ($495) if you purchased it outright. Bam. That’s value.

We’ve loved visiting the lounges wherever we travel, though we found the Priority Pass lounges do vary in quality. International ones tend to be better than domestic. We’ve also been in some lounges where you can get free sodas and chips–and others where you get all-you-can-drink alcoholic drinks plus buffets and full meals. It all really depends on the airport and location, but it’s always nice to have an oasis to escape to when you’re waiting for a flight.

Finally, the travel insurance and primary car insurance benefits are great. You have all the standard protections like trip delay and lost baggage protection. But primary rental car insurance is great to protect yourself when you’re driving a rental on some crazy unfamiliar road in a foreign country.

Check out the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and benefits here if this sounds cool to you.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

• $95 annual fee
• $50 annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit
• Earn 5 points per $1 on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards. 
• Earn 3 points per $1 on dining.  
• Earn 3 points per $1 on select streaming services and online grocery purchases. 
• Earn 2 points per $1 on all other travel purchases.
• Earn 1 point per $1 on all other purchases. 
• 60,000 bonus points (equivalent to $1,000) if you spend $4,000 within the first 3 months of opening an account. 

Check the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card here.

Why We Like It and Tips

We don’t use these card ourselves, but it’s got a lot of the bonuses and benefits of the Reserve, just scaled back a bit. Again, great for travel. But there’s no travel credit and no Priority Pass membership. While it has standard rental car protections, it doesn’t have primary car insurance. This is definitely a solid value card though for many of the reasons we stated above for the Reserve. But for our purposes, the Reserve edges this one out.

Check the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card here.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card

• Earn 3x points on Southwest purchases
• Earn 2x points on local transit and commuting, including rideshare
• Earn 2x points on internet, cable, phone services, and select streaming
• Earn 2x points on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partners
• Earn 1x points on all other purchases 
• Earn 6,000 points each year after your Cardmember anniversary
• Qualify for A-List status with 35,000 points and get priority check-in and boarding
• If you earn 125,000 points during a calendar year, you qualify for a Companion Pass, which allows you to choose one person to fly with you for free.  

Check out the Southwest family of cards here to see if this one or another fit your needs.

Why We Like It and Tips

I love flying Southwest for domestic flights. Plus, I dig the Central America and Caribbean flights they have. They’re often super cost-effective and their loyalty points really rack up quickly. And those points tend to go far. You can get a bunch of free flights if you use this card and fly Southwest strategically.

Getting A-List quicker is awesome, too. You get priority check-in and boarding, which means you get to pick your seat before most everyone else boarding.

The $95 annual fee ain’t bad either. Especially given you get 6,000 points each year, which nearly makes up for it alone.

However, if you’re going to be spending most of your flying abroad, the Southwest card may not be as useful. So save it until you’re spending more time traveling domestically, because the real trick is getting the Companion Pass.

Companion Pass

The real key to making the Southwest card (and Southwest in general) work for you is if you can get the Companion Pass. I’ve had it for the past six years–which means whenever I fly with Southwest, Katarina flies completely free with me! (Well, you got to pay taxes/fees depending on where you’re flying, but this is negligible)

The trick to getting the Companion Pass is figuring out how you’re going to earn 125,000 points. First, you make sure you get that initial bonus of 50,000-75,000 points by spending a certain amount in the first few months of having the card. These amounts vary, so make sure you check it out when you apply.

The second part is to use the Southwest card when you fly Southwest. The bonus points will stack up quick.

And third, to really amp it up, get a business card with Southwest (you can’t get two sign-up bonuses on two personal Southwest cards, but you can get a sign-up bonus on a person one, then get a separate bonus on a business one). This definitely helps! For me, I got the sign-up bonus on my writing business. Most side-hustles qualify as a business, so check out 10X Travel (linked below) for more insight on this.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

• $95 annual fee
• Earn 2 miles per $1 on every purchase. 
• Earn 5 miles per $1 on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.
• 75,000 miles bonus if you spend $4,000 within 3 months of opening an account, equal to $750 in travel.
• Receive up to $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck.
• No foreign transaction fees

Check out the Capital One Venture card here.

Why We Like It and Tips

This is basically a backup travel card for us. While we generally use Chase Ultimate Reward Points, we wanted a second credit card in case the unthinkable happens when we’re traveling. Should someone steal our Sapphire Cards and we’re forced to cancel them while abroad, it’s nice to have another card readily available for us.

Plus, CapitalOne points can be used with airlines that Ultimate Rewards Cards don’t. You might want to check their transfer partners because it could be that the Capital One Venture card is more useful to you than the Chase Sapphire family of cards.

Check out the Venture Card here if this sounds up your alley!

BONUS RECOMMENDATION: United MileagePlus Cards

With the United MileagePlus family of cards, you have tons of options. I personally have the United Business card. These cards are fantastic if you are loyal Star Alliance flyer, like we are. Like the Chase Ultimate Rewards, we use the bonus points here to reserve award business class flights. Earning points via the MileagePlus cards can also help you earn status with United, which offers a bunch of other benefits. Like with the Southwest cards, you might qualify for both a personal and business card to help you expedite your bonus points.

Check out the United MileagePlus cards here.

Final Tips

• The bonus points, fees, and all these other fun numbers tend to change throughout the year. We do our best to try to keep this updated, but make sure you read everything carefully when you follow the links.
• We’re not experts at the travel-hacking and credit card point game, though we’ve made great use of them. We do like 10X Travel if you want to get deeper into the weeds of utilizing credit card rewards. Definitely worth your while if you’ve got the time.
• As always, we’d be remiss not to say pay attention to your own financial situation. We pay our entire credit card bills off every month; going into debt just to earn rewards is the opposite of what you want to do. So when in doubt, consult some real financial planners or managers or avoid credit cards if you aren’t comfortable with them.
• That being said, it’s good to have a foreign-transaction fee-free card when you’re abroad. Then you don’t have to rely on cash and ATMs, plus sometimes you have no choice but to make a cash-free purchase anyway. You don’t want to have to pay extra money on a card that has foreign transaction fees if you don’t have to.