Best Travel Credit Cards

Travel rewards credit cards allow consumers to earn points or miles with each dollar they spend with the card. Some cards are associated with specific airlines or hotels, meaning any miles earned must be spent exclusively with that carrier. Other cards offer points or generic miles that can be redeemed through the card issuer's website for travel across multiple airlines or hotels.

Airline Credit Cards

Airline credit cards earn frequent flyer miles or points with their co-branded airline for regular card spending; cashback, miles or points can be pooled with those you receive when you fly. In addition to earning miles, cardholders usually earn elite status with the carrier's frequent flyer program to allow for higher priority boarding. The best rewards rate is typically for spending with the airline itself, although you may also be awarded extra points for spending in categories like dining or hotels. However, you won’t have much flexibility in where you can redeem or transfer your points.

The United Explorer Card is a great example of this. While everyday purchases earn just one point per dollar, points are doubled when you use the card to book United flights, eat at restaurants, and stay in hotels. Cardholders also enjoy priority boarding and two single-use United Club passes every year.

Hotel Credit Cards

Hotel credit cards award points with the co-branded hotel’s loyalty program on spending at the chain, and sometimes with brand partners, too. Like airline cards, there are often additional spending categories that earn bonus points to be redeemed with the hotel. Many hotel cards automatically confer elite status within the loyalty program, entitling cardholders to special privileges. 

For example, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card returns six points per dollar spent at Marriott hotels, plus an impressive three points per dollar spent at any U.S. restaurant and flights booked directly through the airline. Cardholders are given complimentary Gold Elite status with Marriott.

Fixed-Value Credit Cards or General Travel Credit Cards

General travel credit cards earn points or miles on purchases from any brand in select categories that might include flights, hotels, restaurants, and more. These points can be redeemed for travel, merchandise, and gift cards through the issuer’s rewards portal. Some provide automatic statement credits for specific travel-related purchases, such as incidental airline fees and TSA Pre-check or Global Entry application fees. Cardholders might also benefit from perks like rental car insurance and airport lounge memberships.

For example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers three points per dollar spent on all travel and dining. While points can be converted into cashback or transferred to partner airline and hotel programs, they’re worth 50% more if you use them to book travel through the Chase Ultimate Reward portal.

While there’s no specific credit score threshold that will guarantee approval for a travel card, most issuers expect to see impressive numbers. Each of the travel credit cards on our list has a minimum recommended score of 670 or higher. Some, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card, may require an excellent credit score of at least 800.

If you need to improve your credit score before applying for a travel card, there are credit cards that are best credit for bad credit.

Travel rewards credit cards can be an excellent tool to earn discounted trips to vacation destinations or help pay for essential travel. But they’re not for everyone. Weigh these upsides and downsides to decide if this card type works well for you:

An annual fee is not a given, and the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card is a travel credit card with no fee. But since many travel credit cards carry annual fees, it's important to determine if you'll derive sufficient value from a card to justify the expense. That requires understanding the card’s rewards, analyzing your spending patterns, and assessing the appeal of any luxury benefits to decide if the card is financially worthwhile for you.

If you travel rarely and don’t spend much on other potentially bonused categories each month, a no-annual-fee travel card might be a better option. A travel rewards card may neither earn you enough in rewards to justify its cost nor be justifiable on the basis of luxury benefits you may seldom use. For example, airport-lounge access certainly enhances waiting for flights, but may not be worth paying for if you fly infrequently or if you rarely arrive at the airport early enough to check-in at a lounge.

Alternatively, for some road warriors, the higher rewards rates of a premium card may easily justify a sizable annual fee. The extra luxury benefits you enjoy with the card then might essentially seem to be free, though in reality they are subsidized by the annual membership fee itself.

Ask yourself the following questions before deciding which travel rewards card best suits your goals and spending:

Welcome Offer

• Can you realistically meet the spending requirements to earn the one-time bonus, if one is offered?
• Would you be able to comfortably repay that spending without incurring interest charges?

Rewards Program

• Are you loyal to a particular card issuer, such as Chase or American Express, including having a points balance in their loyalty program?
• To what extent are you willing to concentrate your spending on a particular card in order to maximize its potential to earn you travel rewards?

Travel Benefits

• Are you looking for special card features like airport lounge access or rental car insurance?
• Is elite status with a particular airline or hotel important to you, or do you book flights and hotels based on the least expensive option regardless of brand?

Fees

• What level of annual fee are you willing to pay, knowing that higher fees can bring a higher risk that the fee will not be justified by the card’s rewards and other credits and features?
• Do you plan to travel to international destinations?

There are plenty of strategies to gain the most value possible from a particular card:

• Put all of your spending on the card.
• Qualify for one-time bonuses. Spending a certain sum within a particular time frame can earn you a cash bonus or tens of thousands of bonus points or miles worth hundreds of dollars or more.
• Time major purchases with one-time bonuses in mind. It can be well worth buying planned big-ticket items a little early or late in order to include them in the required spending for a card you just received or plan to receive soon.
• Take advantage of bonus-spending categories. If your card offers a higher-than-standard number of points or miles on certain types of spending, avail yourself of such opportunities whenever possible.
• Redeem points/miles for airline tickets or hotel nights during shoulder seasons. Peak travel seasons usually bring higher ticket prices and correspondingly worse redemption values for points or miles. If you can, plan trips to avoid popular seasons and holidays in order to maximize the return on your rewards.
• Redeem miles with the card issuer. Several general travel cards offer opportunities to get a bonus multiplier when redeeming miles through the card issuer's rewards portal.

The key difference between travel credit cards and cash-back credit cards is the type of "currency" earned. Travel cards earn miles or points that can be redeemed for travel through the card issuer or with airlines or hotels. Cash-back cards earn a percentage rebate on purchases, most often paid in the form of statement credits, gift cards, or checks payable to the cardholder. Travel cards also tend to carry an annual fee while the majority of cash-back cards do not.

If earning award travel appeals to you and your spending patterns justify paying an annual fee, you may get more value out of a travel rewards card. However, if you don't spend much on credit cards or simply don't like the financial risk involved with paying an annual fee, a cash-back card with no annual fee can be a safe choice.