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Travel Credit Card Thread

10,714 Views | 73 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by permabull
Ragoo
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Just started a new job and thinking about opening a dedicated card for my work expenses instead of using their T&E card.

Suggestions?

My goal would be to simply acquire as many points for travel as possible.
BQ2001
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First question would be do they allow that. I know we have to use our provided card. Same with my previous job too.
Ragoo
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BQ2001 said:

First question would be do they allow that. I know we have to use our provided card. Same with my previous job too.
i Have been told yes. But will absolutely confirm before I start making purchases. Just planning ahead with my research.
Killin Me Smalls
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It depends. Check out ThePointsGuy.com.

I travel weekly for business and carry 4 travel cards. Chase Saphire Reserve is the best all around card. It has good bonuses on travel spend, $300 yearly credit on travel purchases, priority pass access, and rebate for TSA precheck/global entry.

I also carry a Marriott and Hilton card to maximize points on my hotel stays, and I carry the AA executive card for Admirals Club access (my company reimburses the fee for this one, otherwise i would probably cancel it).
sts7049
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i use my sapphire reserve for all things travel
Gordo14
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If you have status at united and only plan to travel on united get the united mileage plus explorer card. In every other scenario, the chase sapphire reserve card is superior. I actually have both, but only use the united card for united purchases due to my status at united. I get 7x, soon to be 8x, miles for every dollar I spend on united airlines.

The new southwest airlines card sounds like a pretty sweet deal too, but i fly internationally enough where I typically try to fly united unless southwest is significantly cheaper. Chase sapphire reserve gives me a good amount of miles from southwest tickets (3x dollars) that I can then apply to united or southwest.
ORAggieFan
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Chase Saphire Reserve!
IrishTxAggie
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My CC cycle:
AMEX Platinum for airline purchases except SWA and non-Hilton hotels
AMEX Hilton Aspire for Hilton stays (95%)
UBER for meals/bars (4% back on restaurants and bars)
SWA Priority for SW purchases

I pay over $1K in yearly fees between all of them, but the money is completely recouped.
Joe Exotic
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I just use a Capital One Venture for everything under the sun.
_lefraud_
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Bayside Tiger Ag said:

I just use a Capital One Venture for everything under the sun.

Eastern Bloc hookers accept Capital One?
IrishTxAggie
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_lefraud_ said:

Bayside Tiger Ag said:

I just use a Capital One Venture for everything under the sun.

Eastern Bloc hookers accept Capital One?


They'll take anything on your wallet.
GarlandAg2012
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Generally speaking, the more "locked in" to a certain service provider the better the benefits will be.

If you're happy to always fly the same airline or always stay at the same hotel chain, I would get a brand specific card.

If you want some options but are willing to deal with the limitations of reward bookings via airlines and hotels I would go with a Sapphire Reserve or AMEX Platinum.

If you want your points to be super flexible and basically as good as cash I think the best is the Citi DoubleCash is the best but I'm not positive on that. CapitalOne Venture has a little higher point earning potential but points are for travel expenses rather than any expense.
TXTransplant
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Quote:

CapitalOne Venture has a little higher point earning potential but points are for travel expenses rather than any expense.


Venture gives you 2 points for every dollar spent (10x points if you book a hotel through the hotels.com Venture website). You can use the points for other purchases, but you only get the full value if you apply them toward travel expenses.

Basically, you have 90 days from the date of a travel purchase to redeem points to get a credit back on your card for the cost of the travel purchase.

For example - you buy a plane ticket for $300. You have 90 days to "cash in" 30000 points and get a $300 credit on your statement.

The nice thing about this card is you can double dip...I just booked a cruise, which will earn me X-number of points. I can then use those points (along with any others I have) to then get reimbursed for the cost of the cruise. You can also do partial reimbursements. Say the cruise costs $2k; you can apply 100,000 points to get a $1000 credit for that cruise purchase. I've had the card for over 3 years and have gotten $1000+ back (in the form of a credit to my bill) every year.

I also love the "Visa Signature Hotels" perk of this card, and CapOne just recently started offering a promotion where they will reimburse you full for Global Entry and TSA pre-check fees.

I've been very happy with the Venture card, especially considering the cost ($95/year). I've heard great things about Chase Sapphire Reserve, but I can't bring myself to pay that much in annual fees.
sts7049
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you do get the travel credit though so that cuts into the cost of the annual fee.
Hoyt Ag
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Love the Sapphire Reserve card. Just booked another trip to Thailand and Indo using points. The 50% bump sure is nice.
Zemira
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Ragoo said:

Just started a new job and thinking about opening a dedicated card for my work expenses instead of using their T&E card.

Suggestions?

My goal would be to simply acquire as many points for travel as possible.


In addition to checking of you can bypass the company T&E card make sure you are not required to place reservations through a certain travel company. The prices you see from the travel companies are high but usually the company you work for will get a big rebate yearly if they book you for preferred services.

Now if they don't have a stringent travel policy and you aren't required to use a specific travel company and the company issued T&E card I would definitely get a cc travel rewards card.

A lot of larger businesses with frequent international travel will make you book through their travel program and use their T&E card as part of their travel policy. I would get a copy of the travel policy and read it a few times.
diehard03
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Quote:

If you have status at united and only plan to travel on united get the united mileage plus explorer card. In every other scenario, the chase sapphire reserve card is superior. I actually have both, but only use the united card for united purchases due to my status at united. I get 7x, soon to be 8x, miles for every dollar I spend on united airlines.

I am probably going to dump mine in favor of a straight cash back no annual fee card because it's been harder and harder to find flights that use a reasonable amount of miles.

Maybe if you flight enough and get enough of the x7/x8 stuff it's not an issue.
ktownag08
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Uber Visa
jaggiemaggie
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I have the Chase Sapphire and the Chase Southwest Card and was thinking of upgrading it to the SW Priority Card. But now, I'm thinking of cancelling SW card since I don't travel for work as much as I used to.
gougler08
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diehard03 said:

Quote:

If you have status at united and only plan to travel on united get the united mileage plus explorer card. In every other scenario, the chase sapphire reserve card is superior. I actually have both, but only use the united card for united purchases due to my status at united. I get 7x, soon to be 8x, miles for every dollar I spend on united airlines.

I am probably going to dump mine in favor of a straight cash back no annual fee card because it's been harder and harder to find flights that use a reasonable amount of miles.

Maybe if you flight enough and get enough of the x7/x8 stuff it's not an issue.
Agreed, it only makes sense to have it when you have decent status and fly enough with them...I'm 1K on United so the Explorer (we actually have club this year as they gave us a year with the fee waived) card makes a lot of sense for us
OldArmyBrent
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Definitely check what the policy is, not what someone told you. The biggest reason for a company to go to a specific card for business expenses is to control expense reimbursement. You'd be surprised how many expenses get reimbursed twice in a system where you use your own card and get reimbursed later. If the company went to Amex to avoid that but some employees still use their own cards against the policy, I doubt they'll be happy when a new guy does it.
62strat
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nevermind.
arrow
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I like my new Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

I've used the Luxury Hotel & Resort program through the card and was given all the perks associated with the card without having to ask (free room upgrade, breakfast for two, hotel credit, late check-out, etc.).

I also had to experience for the first time using a credit card for rental car insurance. Sixt car rental in Germany billed me around $1700 for a scratched bumper. I rented the car with my CSR card so it acted as primary insurance. Through a very simple process, the card's rewards program negotiated with and paid Sixt on my behalf.

The card also covers Global Entry and automatically credited my account $300 for travel after the first month of use.

So the annual fee ($450) has been more than covered for a few years.

I use CSR exclusively for travel and restaurants so it earns me 3%.
I use my Capital One card to get 2% back on everything else (and now 10% back on hotels). I haven't used Chase Ultimate Rewards yet so I can't comment on how well it works. Capital One purchase eraser I've been using for years and really like it.
TXTransplant
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arrow said:

I like my new Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

I've used the Luxury Hotel & Resort program through the card and was given all the perks associated with the card without having to ask (free room upgrade, breakfast for two, hotel credit, late check-out, etc.).

I also had to experience for the first time using a credit card for rental car insurance. Sixt car rental in Germany billed me around $1700 for a scratched bumper. I rented the car with my CSR card so it acted as primary insurance. Through a very simple process, the card's rewards program negotiated with and paid Sixt on my behalf.

The card also covers Global Entry and automatically credited my account $300 for travel after the first month of use.

So the annual fee ($450) has been more than covered for a few years.

I use CSR exclusively for travel and restaurants so it earns me 3%.
I use my Capital One card to get 2% back on everything else (and now 10% back on hotels). I haven't used Chase Ultimate Rewards yet so I can't comment on how well it works. Capital One purchase eraser I've been using for years and really like it.


I was looking at the Reserve card again the other day, specifically because I was interested in those hotel perks. As good as the Visa Signature perks are, the Chase perks seem to be even better ($100 resort credit at many hotels!).

But running the numbers from my last couple of years purchases, I couldn't make the point totals work. I spend about $60k on my card per year and anywhere from $10-$15k of that is travel. At 2 points for every dollar spent, I still come out ahead points wise if I stick with Venture (vs three points for travel and one point for everything else with Chase).

The question I have is, how valuable are the points on the Chase travel portal? I know it says 1.5x, but what does that really mean? Right now, I'm just trading in points for credits. I've never used points to book travel - is the portal really that good in terms of options (for flights and hotels) and "bang for your buck" when using points to book?
Hoyt Ag
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Say you have 100k in points, that is good for $1500 to use when booking travel on their site. You won't always find the best deals with they are really really close. I just booked 10 nights in Thailand at $2 more at night from the best deal I could find online. But the fact that I could use my points and not cost me a single dollar out of pocket was worth it to me.
arrow
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I have a Capital One card that is from the pre-Venture days. I get 2% back on everything without a $95 annual fee. It has been a terrific rewards card. Now add the hotels.com 10X miles, Global Entry refund, and purchase eraser and it's really hard to justify another card.

All that said, I was looking to increase my available credit and boost my credit score this year. So I started looking at what other cards were available. When I did the math on how my rewards would stack up based on how my family spent money the last few years I ended up with:

Capital One (2% on everything, no annual fee)
Chase Sapphire Reserve (3% travel and dining, $450 annual fee)
Amazon Prime (5% from Amazon, part of Amazon Prime fee)

Using these three cards is slightly better for me than just using Capital One for everything. But it is better. (Excluding sign-up bonus and hotel perks it was only about $225/year better for me. CSR has a $750 sign-up bonus right now.)

I can't comment on how effective the 1.5X Chase Ultimate Rewards are because I haven't used them yet. Though I can say the few times I've compared pricing through their portal is was close to other websites.

The CSR perks I mentioned in the previous post (Chase Luxury Resorts and Primary Rental Insurance) are the ones that have convinced me it's worth using multiple cards.
Diggity
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I've booked travel several times through the Chase UR portal, and it's a breeze.

If you travel a lot, you should really think of the restaurant and entertainment category being 4.5% because that's the redemption value with UR travel.
TXTransplant
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Hoyt Ag said:

Say you have 100k in points, that is good for $1500 to use when booking travel on their site. You won't always find the best deals with they are really really close. I just booked 10 nights and tile in at $2 more at night from the best deal I could find online. But the fact that I could use my points and not cost me a single dollar out of pocket was worth it to me.


I think I understand...the travel on the portal is not sold by point values. It is still sold by cost, but if the cost is $1500, that will only require you to use 100k points to book it, correct? I was thinking it's like airlines, where every flight has a different point value associated with it.

That is a better return than Venture, as I currently "trade" 1k points for a $1000 credit.

I do like the ease of the Cap One travel eraser, though, as I'm not worried about the value of my points when shopping around for trip components. I just book what I want (sometimes I shop for the best deal, other times, I know exactly what I want and there are no "deals" to be had). Then the credits sort themselves out after the charges hit my bill.

I already spend SO much time planning trips, I'm concerned the travel portal will just make that worse (as I will want to get the absolute most bang for my buck if I'm paying $450 a year for a card vs $95). I already tried using a Hawaiian Air MC to collect points for flights to Hawaii - I actually was able to get two ~almost~ free tickets out of it, but it was such a PITA that I cancelled the card after redeeming my points. I just used some Southwest points of mine and my son's to book two flights to Orlando, but because neither of us had enough points for a full round trip ticket, and SW charges for points transfers, I wound up with four one-way tickets instead of two round-trip. I enjoy saving money, but it was twice the effort. At some point, diminishing returns kicks in.

I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't go for the CSR when they had the 100k point bonus, though. I didn't realize at the time just how much that was worth.
Aggie09Derek
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I have a chase saphire reserve and just got this Capital One Savor Rewards card:
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/savor-dining-rewards/

4% back on entertainment/dining & $500 cash back were the main reasons why I got it.
Diggity
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Nice card if you don't want to pay for the sapphire but I wouldn't see the need to carry both.

You planning on keeping both of them?
GarlandAg2012
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If you're booking travel directly through the UR portal you are likely leaving a lot of value on the table. My inlaws needed to get home from Amsterdam immediately due to a family emergency and I was able to get them each a ticket that would have been $3500 retail ($7000 total) for 115,000 points, which comes to over $.06/point. I also booked my honeymoon flights on points in Business class for saver rates and I believe I was in the $.05-$.07 per point range there too.

I've also gotten companion pass via dual SW airlines cards and transferred points to SW for that. Two RT tickets to Napa for 22,500 points is pretty solid.

If you're willing to do the legwork and be a little flexible with travel plans or willing to travel last minute, there are some stellar redemption options via transferring points.
Aggie09Derek
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Not long term, but will be nice to get 4% on entertainment related stuff and $500 back. Will cancel one of the cards I'm sure long term.
Diggity
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Really depends on the situation.

I have miles on united and American and they black out about every useful flight I would ever want. I always check those flights first but UR can be a great deal in many cases.
Hoyt Ag
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Agreed. I told United to F off years ago and will never use them. But UR seems to always come through when I need to book something.
HawthornAggie
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Another vote for chase sapphire reserve. Love this card.
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