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Choosing a Good Travel Rewards Credit Card Applications• Click here to view all Articles... • Click here to view Credit Card eZine Archive... |
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Very few credit card deals these days offer just credit. Most also have rewards programs of some kind, along with other gimmicks and promotions designed to get your attention. This makes it hard to choose which new credit card offer to take. Which perks are best for you?
In a way, all this competition is good. It means that you’re more likely to find a travel rewards program that perfectly matches your needs. The only trick is to figure out what perks are most important to you, so that you can find the right program.
The first factor to consider when looking at travel rewards programs is this: Are you a buyer or a flyer?
Frequent fliers find themselves on airplanes often, either for work or pleasure. If that’s you, a credit card connected with an airline might be best for you. Those give you points for airmiles flown, and after you’ve accumulated enough of them, you can redeem them for tickets, generally just on the issuing airline.
On the other hand, if you don’t fly regularly, but you do use your credit card often (and who doesn’t?), you’d want to stay away from travel rewards programs that only work with air travel, and find one instead that applies to all purchases. In the industry, they’re known as “cash back cards,” and the points you earn can be used on travel-related things like rental cars and hotels, and sometimes even as plain ol’ cash.
Once you’ve determined whether you’re a flier or a buyer, you can start looking at the specific details of the new credit card applications and determine what’s best for you
- Look out for annual fees! The airline-related credit cards are notorious for having annual fees, often starting at $70 and going up. You usually have to spend several thousand dollars a year to earn enough rewards points to compensate for the membership fee.
For the most part, cash-back cards have no annual fee. In addition, they usually have connections with lots of airlines, not just one in particular, making their rewards points more useful.
- Watch that interest rate! With any new credit card offers, you should see what the introductory interest rate is, how long that lasts, and what the new interest rate will be when the introductory term is over. Zero-percent rates are great at first - but when they shoot up to 16.9% six months later, the party’s over.
- Look for restrictions! Many cash-back cards, while working with many airlines and being fee free, also sometimes have “blackout days” - times when you cannot redeem your points for travel. Know up front what those restrictions are so you don’t get stuck.
- How many points are you getting? Every card has a different system for determining how many points you must earn in order to get a free plane ticket. Sometimes it’s 25,000 points, though many cards give you a bundle of points up front just for joining. Then there are systems where you get double points for certain purchases, and points that match the dollar amount, and so on. Look at the various programs and figure out which one seems best for your situation. It may be different for everyone, as everyone has different travel and spending habits.
Finally, there may be other factors that don’t fit these categories. Are you already partial to a particular airline for some reason? If you’re getting a credit card related to a specific airline, does that airline fly regularly out of your nearest airport? Is the airline in good financial health? If it goes bankrupt, as has happened often with airlines, your travel rewards points will be useless.
Now that you’ve established the particulars of what you’re looking for, you can start to compare credit card offers. You might even make a chart. Down the left-hand margin, write the attributes you’re looking for, in order of importance. Across the top of the chart, write the credit card offers you’re considering. Put a check mark in the corresponding squares to indicate when a particular card meets a particular qualification. The card with the most check marks is probably your best credit card offer — and you can start reaping those travel rewards points.
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