Best Rewards Card for Lots of Travel Expenses?

sugarygoodness · October 2014

I am currently investigating what credit card would be best for my situation. I would be putting all business expenses on the card--hotel, meals, and airfare (traveling M-Th frequently, but destinations will vary). Any suggestions as to the best card for this? Company will be reimbursing. I am ok with an annual fee if it would be worth it. Thank you!

als1982 · October 2014

Really, this depends on a lot of factors. Are you wanting free flights or free hotel rooms? Or want the flexibility of either? For flights, are you planning on traveling within the US/Mexico or across the pond?

For domestic trips, IMO Southwest is hands down the best. The "redemptions" go on sale, when regular flights go on sale. Plus you get double miles when you use your card for other travel-related purchases, such as hotel stays and cruise bookings. Their Chase card comes with a $100 annual fee but you'll get a 50,000 mile bonus for signing up (either after spending $3K or $5K within the first 3 months, I can't remember which). Also, if you add a second user and they make a purchase, you'll also get a 6,000 bonus. We love Southwest, and are super excited with their new additions of flights to the Caribbean and Mexico, plus Costa Rica coming in 2015!

For international trips, we like United. You should be able to get the same bonus, but know while their Chase card has the same annual fee, you won't get the double miles for hotels, etc. You will get a free checked bag on every flight you book, plus two business class lounge passes though (which can be nice, and we always take advantage of!) United miles can also be earned through other cards, like the Barclay, etc. but we like having all our Chase cards linked to see them at once.

Free hotels are a little more difficult in our experience. For this, we just use our no annual fee Capital One card (they also have an annual fee version with a higher mile earn rate). This card offers the flexibility of using the points for hotels or flights, or you can redeem for cash/credit to your account, however the value of redeeming for cash/credit is about half of what you can get toward a hotel or flight.

Some good resources to check out would be boardingarea.com, milepoint.com and my favorite, mommypoints.com I will warn you, the points and miles game can be very addictive, but fun!

ETA: Of course, the first thing to consider is the airline you most frequently fly. Southwest and United just happen to be our personal choices, as well as the airlines our employers use to send us on business trips. If you're near an American Airlines or Delta hub, those would be better choices for you.

hoffse · October 2014

PP is correct. I work credit cards for rewards, and I keep trying to talk myself into a travel card but we do not travel enough for it to make sense for us. Travel rewards tend to accrue most quickly if you stick to the same one or two airlines and hotel chains (check the starwood card for hotels). My personal rule is that I have to be able to redeem points at least once a year for a rewards card to be worthwhile to me, and it would take us 5 or 6 years to accrue enough points on a travel card to redeem them for anything substantial. If we traveled more frequently (and we might in the future), then I would have an airline or card for my preferred brands.

Keep in mind that many cards give you additional rewards for business class flights. If your employer permits this, that's a good way to rack up points.

People who are really good at this spend a lot of time chasing sign-up bonuses. Those are usually the best way to get a boatload of points for not much spending.

Generally, H and I put travel expenses on our Fidelity credit card. We get a flat 2% back on all purchases with it, and it automatically gets deposited as cash in our fidelity account every time we hit $50 of rewards (which is $2500 of spending). If we always used the same airline or hotel chain, it wouldn't be the best bang for our buck. But honestly, we like the flexibility of not being tied to a brand. We especially like being able to use priceline to get deals on domestic hotels and we love to stay in boutique hotels when we travel overseas.

Xstatic3333 · October 2014

I'll give a little plug for the Capital One Venture/Venture One cards. We don't travel as much as I'd like, but I like this card because it gives us the flexibility of shop around deals between airlines. There are no blackout dates or restrictions; you just make a travel purchase with the card and then use miles to "erase" the purchase through the website. It took us about six months to have enough for our first redemption (two one way tickets to Florida) but if you have big work expenses it would happen way quicker (mine are only around $500/month).

Is it our best dollar-for-dollar points card? No. But we like it since it helps defray the cost of a "want" for us.

maple2 · October 2014

Do you want travel rewards or do you just want to maximize the value of the rewards you get when spending money on travel? I know Citi used to have a card that would give you 5 points for every dollar you spent on travel, 3 points for grocery and gas purchases and 1 point for other types of purchases. The reward points could then be redeemed for travel or in any number of other ways--cash back, amazon purchases, etc. I don't know if they still have this card, but I'm sure there are similar cards out there that would allow you to get more points or whatever for money you spend on travel but would not require you to use the rewards for travel.

sugarygoodness · October 2014

Thank you so much for the responses. I am flexible as to the form of the reward. DH and I love to travel, but I am pretty good at finding deals so I wouldn't mind rewards in the form of cashback (which I would then use as vacation money). If it was a great deal to get the award in the form of points or miles I would be open to that as well.

hoffse · October 2014

Something else to know about (that I just learned about): if you have an AmEx of any kind you get walk-away insurance coverage for car rentals for $25 per rental period (valid for up to 42 days). It's the best deal I've been able to find. Here it is:

https://www295.americanexpress.com/premium/car-rental-insurance-coverage/home.do

H and I are planning our next trip, which will likely involve renting a car in a foreign country. Insuring ourselves this way will save a bundle over the crappy car rental insurance and it will prevent us from having to file a claim on our own auto insurance if something were to happen. We will also use a relatively low-limit card (our gas card) so that the car rental company can't tie up funds on one of our primary cards if they were to place a hold on the card for some reason.

That's not directly related to your question, but I would make sure to have an AmEx available to you if you travel a lot.

Best Rewards Card for Lots of Travel Expenses?

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