BEST Travel Credit Cards 2023 - Cards from Chase, American Express, Capital One etc - how to choose?

hey Madam Jessica from problematic.com in this video we are going to look at the best travel credit cards on the market before we do gonna ask you to please subscribe to this YouTube channel if you have not already and if you have already hi thank you for doing so so if you are interested in a travel credit card there could be a number of reasons that you're thinking about it maybe you are going to make a big trip sometime within the next year maybe you're getting married and it's a honeymoon but maybe you just got a new job where you know you're going to travel a lot or maybe you're just someone that spends a lot on your credit cards and you want to accumulate points for travel so there are a lot of different reasons which means when the question comes up what is the best travel credit card the answer always of course is going to be it depends but that said if you put me on the spot and I was trying to satisfy as many desires for as many people as possible when it comes to travel credit card I'd start you off with the Chase Sapphire preferred because of the flexibility in Redeeming the points you earn on the card the low annual fee and the ability to pull points with other cards and even get a bonus on those points that you may have earned on other Chase credit cards the Chase Sapphire preferred 95 annual fee as I make this video you've got a new card holder bonus opportunity of 60 000 points if you spend at least four thousand dollars with the card in the first three months of having it those sixty thousand points going to be worth at the very least 750 worth of travel so 750 worth of travel on a 95 annual fee and that first year looks pretty good in terms of the everyday rewards three points per dollar on dining two points per dollar on travel except for five points per dollar when you book your travel through Chase's Ultimate Rewards travel portal you've got uh three points per dollar on most streaming services three points per dollar on online grocery purchases which is sort of a strange category and then one point per dollar everywhere else now when you go to redeem those points if you redeem them through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal you'll get a 25 bump in the value of the points so that bonus of sixty thousand points normally we might think of that as being worth six hundred dollars a penny per point however in this case if you use them through the portal 750 dollars of value is what you would get now I said that this card has flexibility you don't have to use your points through that portal you also could take your points and redeem them for travel by transferring them into one of the frequent flyer or hotel rewards programs of one of Chase's travel Transfer Partners names like United Southwest Marriott Hyatt and there are more as well so you have the flexibility say you find something on United it's a great deal and you want to be able to move your chase points over there to take advantage of that deal you can without committing completely to the United program or committing to the Southwest program or Marriott or Hyatt or any of the others so it gives you that flexibility so and one more point to make about flexibility if you decide for whatever reason that the points you have you're not going to use tour travel you still can cash them out through Chase Ultimate Rewards at a penny per point which is an advantage Chase has over most of the other travel programs out there which usually are going to give you the best deal on travel but give you kind of a worse deal if you decided that you wanted to cash your points out now when I recommend the Chase Sapphire preferred in my head I am thinking that you would not get only the Chase Sapphire preferred I am thinking that you would also get at least one other Chase card maybe two and take the points that you earn from these other cards and transfer them into your Chase Sapphire preferred account so that you can either use them with the travel Transfer Partners or get that extra 25 percent when you redeem through the portal so you have other Chase cards where you can earn enhanced rewards on different categories than what the Chase Sapphire preferred has Chase Freedom Flex for example has five percent categories where you can earn five points per dollar so if you have that card and you earn five points per dollar in certain categories throughout the year well then you could take the points from the Chase Freedom Flex transfer them into the Chase Sapphire preferred account and then get that extra 25 boost which now means those five points per dollar are 6.25 points for a dollar or six point two five percent you might think of them as or you would have even more points with the travel Transfer Partners so it's almost like you might have two or three cards three cards being what they call sometimes the chase Trifecta and getting all that extra value on all of those cards because you have the Chase Sapphire preferred so anyway before we get off of the Chase Sapphire preferred two things to know number one is the chase 524 rule Chase says if you have gotten five credit cards or more in the last 24 months from any credit card issuer they aren't going to give you a new credit card so you should take that into consideration if you're going to apply for this Chase credit card or any other also with the Chase Sapphire preferred it has a minimum credit limit of five thousand dollars so you have to be able to qualify for at least five thousand dollars worth of credit all right now let's look at other options that maybe would fit you better a common question is should I go for an airline specific are Hotel specific credit cards something from American Airlines United Airlines Southwest Delta Hilton Hyatt Marriott all the big names have one or many times more than one credit card that you might choose and these cards oftentimes are going to have big bonuses you're going to get enhanced rewards so when you fly those Airlines or stay at those hotels oftentimes there's going to be a bump in status maybe you're going to get free checked bags early boarding all of those kind of things so there's a lot to like about these cards the thing you do give up though is flexibility because in most of the cases these uh points or miles are only going to be good on one Airline or maybe if there's some sort of Alliance you can use them on more than one Airline but still you're somewhat restricted in terms of how you can use those miles or points so if you have a ton of miles on one Airline and you find a great deal on a different Airline well you can't use those miles obviously with a different Airline where if you have a car that has flexible points and you can use them with different airlines well then really can find the deal and put those points wherever you want to so that's how you get restricted but if you are always flying the same airline or always staying at the same Hotel chain maybe you have Airline Hub near you and that's like almost the only choice you're going to have for almost all your flights well then these cards definitely can make sense that said I don't know if there's any particular credit card that I would say is better than another when it comes to specific Airline or Hotel chain credit cards because of the fact that to a certain extent you're actually weighing the different airlines and hotel chains versus the other and then you're choosing a card that fits the one that you think is right for you but usually the car that is going to be the best from whoever you do choose is going to be sort of the crowd pleaser card that they offer which oftentimes is going to be something that has like a 95 or 99 annual fee it's gonna have a nice bonus it's going to have pretty good rewards versus like a no annual fee card that's going to have very paltry rewards which usually I would say stay away from no annual fee travel credit cards even though they sound good on the surface or you might have have a card that has a huge annual fee that is offering people that are only the very most extreme Travelers a really good deal so usually if you find a airliner hotel that you want to get specific with go for that sort of middle just right credit card I talked about the Chase Sapphire preferred being used in combination with other Chase cards in order to maximize your rewards people that are very into credit card rewards will sometimes call this an ecosystem there's the chase ecosystem that combination of cards being used together probably the biggest competitor to chase when it comes to an ecosystem is the American Express membership Rewards program now for me I find American Express's membership Rewards program a little less user friendly especially to sort of the beginner who isn't sure what he or she wants out of maybe their travel credit card but some people really really love American Express and their membership Rewards program especially people love their travel Transfer Partners which include Delta include Hilton and a lot of International Airlines if you are someone that loves the idea of maybe aspirational travel where you're going to get a free flight and business class to some International destination that seems to be the place where people who love American Express really go to find their fix now you can get some of that with Chase through their travel Transfer Partners as well but American Express seems to be the place where people really feel like they can find Great Value out of their points however takes a little more work in order to get to the place where you can find those different uh values that outsize value and so you have to decide how much work you want to do and then there is the fact that the entry point sort of into the American Express ecosystem is a little more expensive all of the cards are sort of the cards that I would say if you want a travel card you would consider are going to have higher Annual fees the gold card is probably the best entry point I guess I would say to some extent that is a 250 annual fee platinum's card has a 695 dollar annual fee the green card right now can't remember 150 195 somewhere in there so all of them are going to be a higher annual fee in order to get into that ecosystem now all of these cards are going to have certain travel credits and other credits with them where if you have the card you can use that to sort of justify in your mind why you're paying that annual fee because you're sort of getting paid back from them but again if you're someone that is getting travel credit cards for the first time you might be looking at it and saying well why do I want to pay that much for this credit card when I go somewhere else and not pay as much of an annual fee to still get a lot of value and then Capital One also has its own sort of ecosystem with the Venture miles cards a couple years ago I wouldn't have even talked about Capital One but the launch of the Venture X however long ago that was now kind of changed things a nice higher end travel card but with a little bit lower annual fee than some of the other high-end cards out there that gave you airport lounge access nice big bonus easy to understand travel credits a pretty nice package is sort of put Capital One into the conversation now they still don't have quite as good of redemptions as you might get from Chase or American Express in particular when it comes to travel Transfer Partners they have some but they aren't as good they aren't the uh you know names you're going to know from the U.S travel companies it's more International Airlines for the most part however Capital One into the conversation now which brings us to a discussion of airport lounges is that something that is important to you to access airport lounges when you travel do you travel often enough where that's really something that is high on your list the Venture X made kind of a splash because of the fact that at a 395 dollar annual fee versus 500 plus 600 plus of other cards it competes with it gave you that airport lounge access as well as the other things I just talked about so you get access to the priority pass Network which is the same network for the most part a lot of other cards use which gives you access to a thousand plus airport lounges around the world Capital One starting to build their own Lounge Network their own branded lounges as I make this video they only have one but they are trying to increase that as well but you have access to airport lounges here at a much lower price point so that is something where Capital One has done a good job now you can also get access to airport lounges through the Chase Sapphire Reserve which is the higher annual fee card that is sort of the sister card to the Chase Sapphire preferred which we talked about earlier this one's got a 550 annual fee it's going to give you more in rewards than the preferred it's going to give you a 50 boost on the value of your points when you use them through the Ultimate Rewards portal it's got a big travel credit so it has a lot more going on but a much higher annual fee for people that travel often it is a car that they might use as the centerpiece to a Chase Trifecta instead of the Chase Sapphire preferred but it is certainly not for everyone but if you want airport lounge access this is another option for you but at a higher annual fee than when you look at that Venture X card but of course the most dominant of the airport lounge networks is going to to come from American Express and the American Express Platinum Card which includes all of the priority past lounges that you can get from the other guys but also includes American Express's own Centurion lounges so most people if they really really want lounge access American Express is probably going to be the most attractive especially from cards that offer sort of the flexible points versus being cards from a particular Airline so even at a 695 dollar annual fee with the American Express Platinum people that travel an awful lot that is worth paying because of the fact that those airport lounges are very important to them and all the rest of the things that are on the card whether it's Rewards or whether it is travel credits those are secondary especially if the company's paying for it and then some of the airlines do have higher end credit cards where sort of the biggest feature is the access to the airport lounges from that particular Airline American Delta United come to mind so you can see that as you start to weigh different variables and think about things that are of high importance and things that are of low importance with the best travel credit card is for you may be different than it is for someone else and then another topic that I haven't discussed yet is the fact that with a lot of travel credit cards you may or may not have travel insurances and protections and you may weigh those highly or low some people really care about those some people never even think about them things like trip delay insurance or trip cancellation insurance or baggage delay or lost baggage reimbursement all of those sorts of things you've got car rental insurance on a lot of cards so for some people they're going to use the card that has those insurances especially if they travel often because they assume that sooner or later they're going to come upon one of those problems for other people that's not even going to weigh into the whole discussion and then there are a few other cards I want to mention because they haven't necessarily fit into the discussion that we've been having so far number one is the U.S Bank altitude Reserve card which is one of the higher end travel credit cards with a 400 annual fee but it has 325 dollars potentially in travel credits you have limited airport lounge access with it you have three points per dollar on mobile wallet purchases which is something that a lot of people really love about it I put this card maybe a step down from some of the other cards that we've talked about that are on sort of the higher end in terms of Annual fees but some people really love it the Navy Federal Flagship rewards card is a very simple card with a 49 annual fee that gives you three points per dollar on travel purchases two points per dollar on everything else and has some other features also that can make it a decent travel card if you don't need all the bells and whistles now for the most part what we've talked about is earning travel rewards on your cards but if you're someone that travels to a certain extent and you don't care so much about earning travel rewards but you'd like to get something extra on those travel purchases you might look at a card like the Wells Fargo autograph Visa that has no annual fee and it's going to give you three points per dollar or three percent cash it back on most of your travel purchases you have the Bank of America customized cash rewards card where you can choose to get three percent back in one category that you can choose travel as that particular category so if you're new to travel credit cards and aren't quite sure what you're doing or what you want exactly yeah I'm gonna put you in that Chase Sapphire preferred and get you into the chase ecosystem to see how that works for you and then all the rest of the things we talked about if you want to go further or if you don't don't like what you're getting out of that don't like that as an option you can look at the specific Airline cards the specific Hotel cards go into the American Express ecosystem and see if that is something that works for you in terms of your spending patterns and how you want to redeem points and Miles that is it tell me your circumstances in the comments and I'll tell you what I think the right travel credit card is for you or leave me any other comments that you want to in the comments section below otherwise I thank you for watching and as always please go to proudmoney.com where we do credit card reviews we talk personal finance we talk deals and all sorts of other fun stuff too if you're not going to leave a comment or go to the website you might want to watch this video

Channel: ProudMoney - Credit Cards & Personal Finance

Views: 18,662

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Id: z9tcIAZudQ4

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 17 2022