Just like the title says, this is a spinoff on the vacation budget thread. I would like to get a travel credit card, and am wondering which card people use and love. We currently use a cash back card with no fees, and love it, but I’d like to get a card that offers travel rewards to cut the cost of airline tickets. We can only travel during peak times due to my job as a teacher, so airline tickets are $$$.
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I just signed up for the chase sapphire card for this reason! We got the 60000 bonus points but have not redeemed yet. I was looking at Phoenix over spring break to visit family and one ticket is like 50,000 so we would need 200,000 to cover everyone
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@gotkimchi: We have family in Phoenix too, and the flights there are always so expensive over break! Even if we could cover a couple of tickets with rewards, it would make it seem less painful.
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We’ve had a chase sapphire and freedom for a while and like the benefits a lot. All of our friends who travel have them both too.
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This may only apply to people in the west, but we have Alaska airlines credit cards. Once a year, you get a companion ticket for $99+fees. We’ve never had trouble with blackout dates (if there are any). We just flew all three of my kids for free (my parents flew with us) to Hawaii. And in down years, we use them on flights to my in-laws (usually cheap-ish anyway, but anything helps). Plus you get a free checked bag. Annual fee is $75, but that’s pretty much a baggage fee both ways on a round trip flight.
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@Jess1483: I have one too! We were able to save up enough miles with it (we put evvvvvvvvvvvvverything on it, including daycare) that we were able to get business class tickets on Emirates to Italy. It took three years, but we did it. I like that I can use the miles on their partner planes. We also used companion fares to cut prices to Mexico this winter. Saved us hundreds of dollars.
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@LemonJack: you can use the points on hotels too and apparently there are ways to transfer them and make them worth more so that might be worthwhile too, I haven’t checked out their value that way though
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I have Chase Sapphire too; I am a loyal Chase customer so didn't really want to open yet another card. I've been accumulating for years and I like that the points are super flexible. I'm hogging allll the points for a big international family trip down the line.
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@graceandjoy: I’m glad to hear it’s flexible. Are there blackout dates for flying?
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@Jess1483: The companion ticket sounds amazing!
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My husband and I both have Southwest Chase Visas (priority cards). I loooooovvve them. We have a lot of options for flying SW, so this card really works for us since we can actually use all the points we accumulate on flights and they roll over year-to-year.
They have excellent opening bonuses (50-60k), and give great annual bonuses (7k for the priority card I believe). We also get 3 priority boarding upgrades and $75 in SW travel credited back annually each which covers our taxes and fees for flights which are never covered by points, and lets us board in the A1-15 group almost every time. And if you actually use these benefits fully, they more than cover the annual fee.
Round-trip flights are often between 18-30k points, depending on the airports/flight length. I don't think we've paid out-of-pocket for flights in the last 4 years as a family and we've taken 3 trips with DD1 (DC, Nashville, NYC), 2 trips together (DC, Chicago), and I bought DH a ticket to come with me on a work trip with points still saved up waiting.
We put everything on them that we can and I take advantage of bonus points offers as they come along too. You can use the points for hotels or cars or other things, but if you use the card to book a hotel stay through their site there are often bonus points offers (I've seen up to 10k in bonus points which can sometimes cover one leg of a trip for one person alone).
Of course, if you don't fly Southwest this wouldn't be the best option. So just think about what carrier you like best, where you travel to/from, and what fits your needs.
I've heard tons of great things about the Chase Sapphire, but since we've had our cards for years and SW works well for us I haven't been motivated to change or split the benefits by having both.
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My husband flies Delta exclusively for work, so we have a Delta co-branded Amex. We use it for everything, and redeemed our miles on flights and hotel to Hawaii over the summer. We just built our points balance back up so now we are thinking about where to go this summer (I'm pushing hard for Disney, ha!).
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My husband and I got the WestJet World Elite card this year, basically just to subsidize a trip to Disney World. We got $250 WestJet dollars as a sign-up bonus and every year we each get a companion fare for $99, plus no fee for checked bags. So far so good.
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@erinbaderin: I got that one last year. The free checked bag and annual companion flight is worth it for me.
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