What is the best Credit Card for travel lovers?

When it comes to travel, there is plenty of opportunity to capitalize on what you will already be spending for travel, and tremendous bonuses that can help pay for your travel.

We have multiple credit cards that offer benefits for travel, but we have found there is one that stands out as the best.

The Chase Sapphire series is truly the best option we have found for bonuses to help pay for travel, and rewards when purchasing it. Let’s start with the surface of what bonuses this card offers.

The Chase Sapphire Series has two cards, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Chase Sapphire Reserved. We personally use the Preferred, but are looking to acquire the Reserved asap.

The Preferred has one of the highest initial bonuses of any card out there. Within the first 3 months of acquiring the card, if you spend $4,000 you will receive a bonus of 60,000 points. More on how those points stack up in a second, but first I want to encourage you. I know $4,000 seems like a lot of money to spend, but most of us can simply review our monthly budget and conclude that in 3 months, spending $4,000 is not far off, and even easier if you want to purchase some of your initial travel bookings with the card.

The Preferred also offers great point accruement, even outside the initial offer bonus. You will get 3x points on Restaurants, 5x points on hotels and rental cars, and 2x points on all other Travel purchases.

How much are these points worth?

Well I am glad you asked, cause this brings us to a couple travel hacks.
First, the points are obviously redeemable for cash, but where there biggest payoff lies is in the way you can have a multiplier when purchasing travel directly in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program with your points. When you use points in that system, the value of the points is worth 25% more than just cashing it out. 50% more with the Chase Sapphire Reserved!

So how much are they worth??

Let’s go back to the bonus offer. We used this card to help pay for our Honeymoon to Hawaii. I completed the spending requirement, and received the 60,000 points. That would normally carry a value of $600. (100 points = $1)
But when using them in Chase Ultimate Rewards for travel, they were worth $750! (25% more).

This reward system is unmatched for pure value of the points. In that example the Reserved card would have been worth $900. Crazy!

Another benefit offered by the Chase Ultimate Rewards program is the 1:1 point transfer to travel partners.

Hyatt is a good example of a Chase Travel Partner, so I will provide an example of the next travel hack by transferring my points 1:1 to their reward program.

When booking a hotel, you can start by searching in the World of Hyatt app, in the place of your destination. I can easily find a hotel that maybe costs $200 a night. Booked in Chase Ultimate Rewards this would be 20,000 points a night. But often on Hyat, these hotels may only be 12,000 per night in their program.
Since I can transfer my points 1:1 from Chase, lets say I had 24,000 points ($240) I could only get 1 night through Chase, but if I transferred them to Hyatt, I now can have two nights in this hotel. I just instantly added $200 of savings!

The credit card points game does take some time to get the hang of, but the benefits are extremely helpful and worth the little bit of extra strategy in the end.

Ready to get the card already? Go back up to the picture of the card you scrolled past and apply now!

Other card details:

It’s worth noting that the Preferred card does have a $95 annual fee after the first year, and the Reserved has a $300 annual fee. $300 in Annual Fees?? booooo. Well, here’s a fun fact about the Reserved Card. It has a yearly $300 travel credit that is rewarded to you after spending in the travel category with the card. So that will essentially wipe out that fee each year. Plus the sheer maximization of the 50% more value when booking travel through Chase, and this card will give you 10x points on Hotels and Rental Cars!! Cha Ching!

One last hack for you:

Because we’re cool like that and love to share what we’ve learned, here’s one more hack that my wife and I utilize.

Not every time will you find the flight you want, or the hotel you love in Chase. So normally with the Sapphire series you will only get 2x points on all travel purchases.

Chase has another card (one with no annual fee, and a nice smaller initial bonus offer) The Chase Freedom Unlimited card. This card has 5% on all travel (booked anywhere), 3% at Restaurants, and 3% at drugstores. Which for yourself obviously the goal is pairing this with a Sapphire series card to make sure just about any purchase you make is maximizing the points you receive. For couples, you can actually set your points up so you can transfer the points earned by one card to your spouses Ultimate Rewards balance. Hannah and I are set up this way, and it proves very helpful!

You can use the link here to apply for the Freedom Unlimited card, but we recommend starting with the Sapphire card in the link earlier in the article with the picture.