Our top 5 credit cards for travel hacking
Story time:
On my first flight to Europe, I spent $1600 for a round trip ticket to Rome and home from Vienna. I was 31-year-old teacher, had student loan debt, and was lucky enough to be given a grant to study abroad for the summer. $1600 was less than the total amount of the grant, so I thought I was doing just fine.
If only 40-year-old me could go back in time and yell at my 31-year-old self. Now I would NEVER, and I mean, NEVER spend $1600 on a single flight. My husband and I spent our 30s building our credit, buying a house, and having a kid. And since new houses and toddlers are quite pricy, we’ve learned how to leverage our everyday expenses to fuel our travels.
Over the past few years, we’ve earned around 1 million points, and we’ve redeemed them in Iceland, Canada, the United States, and all over Europe.
Here are the 5 cards that are in our wallets right now:
Capital One Venture (and Venture X)
Chase Sapphire Preferred
IHG by Chase
Marriott Bonvoy by Chase
American Express Gold
(Each of these cards comes with a link; if you click on that link and are approved, we will be compensated with points at no additional cost to you. Read more below to see how we’ve used these points to save money.)
#1: Capital One Venture/ Venture X
The best travel credit card for beginners / those who do not want to spend time thinking about brands and transfers. This was our first card ever for both of us- we began with the Capital One Venture, and one of us has upgraded to the Capital One Venture X.
If you’re just dipping your toe into the points and miles world, we would recommend the Capital One Venture card.
Caveat: Capital one points can ONLY be used for items that they decide are categorized as travel (rental cars, trains, hotels, etc). They will not work on state parks, etc. There is no cash back option here, but you can get gift cards from them or use the points to pay on Amazon, though the points are not worth as much.
How we use our Capital One Points
We’ve used Capital One points to cover: seat upgrades on flights, hopper flights in Europe (like Ryan Air) trains across Europe, and hotels in Canada. We love how versatile they are. They can also be transferred to many airlines and hotels. We’ve also transferred our Capital One points to KLM/ Flying Blue to help cover our costs of flights to Europe.
And, during the pandemic, Capital One was one of the few banks that allowed you to use your points for anything since travel was off limits. We also use the Capital One card to get reimbursed for Global Entry- which means we get to reenter the country through the speedy lines and we have TSA precheck every single time we fly. Let me tell you, when you have a 7am flight with a toddler, TSA precheck is a lifesaver.
Our best Capital One Insurance Story
During our honeymoon in Iceland, we parked our rental car on the streets of Reykjavík for one night. During that night, someone swiped our rental car and when we woke up on our last day in the country, the mirror was hanging off the side. I held it on the entire ride back to the airport. We returned the car, and put a lot of money on the Capital One Venture card. Luckily, this card comes with car rental coverage. Once we had the receipt from Blue Car rental, we were able to submit it to Capital One, and the cost of repairs disappeared. Money saved: $650
These 75,000 bonus miles are worth $750, so you won’t necessarily get the most bang for your points here, but with transfer bonues to hotels and airlines, you can maximize these points.
Since the redemption for Capital One is so simple and easy to use , you can use these points when you’re not traveling with a name brand airline or hotel. For example, after we got home from Scotland, we “erased” multiple purchases on trains and buses with these points. In the past two years, we used our Capital One card to pay for our rental car in Moab, and an Easy Jet flight in Switzerland.
#2: Chase Sapphire Preferred
The best travel credit card for transferring to hotels and airlines
Bonus- 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in first 3 months (this goes up to 80,000 points sometimes- and we would recommend waiting for that)
Annual cost: $95
Caveat: Chase Sapphire points only get the most money when you use them for travel. So, 60,000 points can be worth $750, but only if you exchange them properly.
Story time: We used one of our Chase sign-up bonuses to pay for 3 round trip flights from NY to Europe. We flew into Amsterdam and home from Vienna. Because Chase points can transfer to 11 different airlines, it’s easy to tailor your Chase points to work for different types of trips. In this case, we used points for KLM Flying Blue. Major airlines like British Airways and United wanted 30,000 points for a one-way ticket to Europe. KLM (and their loyalty program Flying Blue) only wanted 15,000 points for a one-way ticket. KLM also flies all over Europe, so we could have flown to Florence for 16,500 miles. Bonus- Kid tickets are 25% cheaper AND they pass this discount onto points– you need 25% fewer points to fly with kids.
We used our other Chase sign-up bonus to transfer to Hyatt and then book a few nights for free in the Bahamas.
Chase Tip #1: Make sure to set up the rewards account with the airline/ hotel BEFORE you attempt to transfer. You are transferring the miles from one rewards company to another, so you have to have accounts on both. Also, miles are transferred in 1,000 increments, so do the math before you transfer.
Chase Tip #2: They run special bonuses with their partners. At one point, you could transfer Marriott points with a 50% bonus. So, 10k Chase points becomes 15k Marriott points. These sort of deals usually happen 1-2 times a year.
#3: Chase IHG One Rewards
IHG may not be on your radar for points and miles, but in one year with this card, we have saved ourselves $1800. Most recently we stayed at the Kimpton DeWitt in Amsterdam and at the Holiday Inn near Lucerne, Switzerland. In total, we had 6 free nights on our summer trip to Europe due to this card, which saved us over $1500.
The IHG card allows you to book 3 nights, and get 1 free, which means you can spend 4 nights on points for the price of 3.
We love that IHG offers a wide range of hotels, and that in Europe, many of them will allow you to have larger rooms that accommodate children when you travel. We’ll also be using our IHG points to stay for free in Belfast this summer.
#4: Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless
Marriott is the largest hotel brand in the world, so we feel it’s essential to keep not one, but two Marriott cards in our wallet at all times.
Bonus: Earn 75,000 Marriott points after using your card to spend $3,000.
Annual fee: $95
Note- the bonus on the Chase Marriott Bonvoy card changes multiple times a year. Sometimes they offer 3 nights free; one time in 2022, there was an offer of 5 nights (250,000 maximum points. If the deal does not seem great, they feel free to wait!
What we love about this card: It’s worth keeping because each year you get a free night certificate which you can easily redeem for a hotel room that will likely cost $250-$300 to make up for spending the $95 each year.
We try to keep a small stash of Marriott points, and have had great success booking hotels at the last minute during our road trips in the U.S. and Canada.
As national park lovers, we’ve also found that Marriotts are often one of the only brands that will give us consistent access to the parks without camping. We used Marriott points on our trip to Glacier National Park and Banff when we needed a break from the rain or needed to do laundry.
Card #5: American Express Gold
The American Express Gold card has been in my wallet for over a year. One of the reasons we gave it a try, is you can see if you are approved without any credit inquiry; so if you are worried that you’ve opened a few too many accounts lately, this is a great way to get a new card without risking a credit pull just to get declined.
Annual fee: $250 (read on to hear why we think it’s worth it)
Bonus is usually around 60,000 points, but you can find higher offers; when I signed up, the offer was 90,000 points. This card also earns 4X at grocery stores, so it’s easy to rack up additional miles at places you regularly spend money.
90,000 points is enough to transfer for a week at a Marriott hotel, or 3 round-trip tickets from the East Coast to Europe using budget airlines (like KLM), or local flights on many airlines.
One of the perks with the American Express Gold card is that it comes with Priority Pass, which gives you access to airport lounges around the world.
(While some people do not believe the Priority Pass is worth it, we were in 3 airports recently, and were able to access a lounge in each one. That means we had free drinks and food for every single leg of our round-trip flights, and never paid a dollar for coffee, soda, water, or food. That alone is worth $100+ for a family of 3 who had an 18-hour travel day.)
Redemption story: We have used our AMEX points for flights to Europe and transferring to Hilton hotels. We’ll be using these points to stay in Dublin and Stockholm in 2024.
