I hate paying fee, so don't rave about Sapphire or AMEX Platinum. I just like to get as much cash back or statement credit as I can. So I think these are the best travel credit cards: #1 in the US, Costco Visa. Yes you can claim membership is a fee but I'm already a member anyway. 4% on gas, 3% on restaurants and travel really beats even the fee cards. But only for spending on them inside USA due to foreign fee. Outside the US is a combination of two: Bank of America Travel Rewards. Gives 1.5% back on every purchase with no foreign fee. You get a statement credit for travel items but since even parking counts as travel it's basically cash back. You can get 1.67% back just by having a BoA bank account and even more if you have investments there. That's a good general card outside US but you can beat 1.5% in some important travel categories: Amazon Chase Visa has no foreign fee and gets 2% on gas and restaurants, two big ticket travel expenses. Also gets it on drug stores but who cares. You actually don't need prime to get this travel benefit, prime just juices your reward shopping on Amazon from 3% to 5% and non prime member still gets the 2% on restaurants and gas. So buy your ticket and pay US restaurants with Costco (3%), US gas with Costco (4%), foreign hotel and misc expenses with BoA travel (1.5 or 1.67%), and foreign meals and gas with Amazon visa (2%). Can you do better?
Chase Sapphire Reserve, of couse, at 3x the points on travel/dining, 1.5x multiplier and $300 travel expenses coverage it is hard to beat.
Agreed if you travel a lot and eat out a lot go with the Chase and you net out ahead when using the multiplier + you have the bonus offer. I basically got enough rewards from the sign up bonus to pay for 6+ years of fees (accounting for $300 statement credit)
I can't stand wasting my time trying to find the best points deal, my time off work is worth more than that. So I value points at one cent each and the Sapphire is then not as good as the Costco card.
Citi double cashback... Flat 2% back... Simple
But it's got a foreign fee so no good outside the US and inside the US Costco beats it for travel, restaurant, and gas. It's my go to daily spending card, but not great for travel.
Amex platinum
Get over your fear of the fee. Paying $150 a year to get hundreds or thousands in additional cash back is a no brainer.
Can you explain the math here? How much would you have to spend for the $150 to be worth it? A quick back of the envelope calc suggests that if you spend 10K on travel, using CSR including 1.5x for Chase portal gets you 45k points equivalent. If you accept 1:1, that's $450. Minus $150 for the AF. $300. With a 2% cash back card like Citi or CSP spending 10k gets you $200 (slightly more $250 with csp). That's a gap of $100 (50) which might get made up with your sign up bonus. Of you spend 20k in a year, that gets you to a gap of $350 (300), which also seems like it would be covered by the sign up bonus. I suppose if you have a large family, it's easier to spend 20k than if you're single and so the more you spend the more likely it is to be useful, but I don't see a great way for it to be a no brainier unless you spend 40k or so.
3% back on travel and dining so delta is 1%. If you redeem for travel the point bonus is 1.5x so total cash value back is 4.5%. If you travel or dine out often you break even at 3,333 in yearly spend.
PayPal just launched a 2% cash back card
Foreign fee?
3%
Did you type all of that on your phone? π€π€
Boa travel card. No annual fee. No foreign tx fee and you get 2.25% travel rewards
You need to invest via Merrill to get that rate I think, I only get 1.67% since I invest through Vanguard. Even at 1.67 it's a good card and only beaten for restaurants and gas by the Amazon visa for foreign tx. If you invested with Merrill then this seems the best you can do for foreign tx.
I have some cash, thats the reason for 2.25
CSR practically pays its fee with yearly travel credits. The rest of the perks more than make up for the remainder IMO.
If you're ok with churning, Chase Sapphire preferred will waive fee for thefirst year and 2x points on travel and 1.25 using chase portal. Aside from that one, which I m on my second of, I regularly churn airline cards: United, Delta and Alaska so far. Planning a big one with Southwest and their travel companion thing soon.
Wait, were you able to get the CSP sign up bonus twice? How does that work?
I m not sure what the timeout is but you can apply for a card X months after you did originally. I was under the impression that that number was 24 but I forget. But yes, I have applied for and gotten the sign up bonus twice for csp.