There are a lot of options available when it comes to travel credit cards, which can make the selection process daunting. I’ll guide you through my choice for the best travel credit card for beginners.
How to Find the Best Travel Credit Card for Beginners
There are dozens of credit cards available that provide benefits for travelers but how do you find the best travel credit card for beginners? For someone new to the world of earning points for travel it’s best to start off with a card that has a low annual fee but high value benefits.
Best Travel Credit Card for Beginners: Fee or no fee
There are very few travel rewards credit cards that come with no annual fee. Often cards without a fee will be specific to a hotel chain. While this can be beneficial if you know you have an upcoming trip to an expensive destination, or plan to be loyal to a specific brand, the hotel cards are limiting as to how much you can get out of them.
A generic travel card (not tied to a hotel or airline) however will give you the most flexibility when it comes to redeeming the points you earn with the card. These cards often come with fees, some as low as $95 and some as high as $695. While paying an annual fee to use a credit card seems counter intuitive, between the bonus offers, card spend, and card benefits, you can easily offset the cost.
Best Travel Credit Card for Beginners: What are points and how do you use them?
How to earn points
When it comes to finding the best travel credit card for beginners, you want to find one that will earn you maximum reward points. With travel rewards cards there you can earn travel rewards through points (or miles for airline cards) one of two ways. The first is by spending money on your card. Each card will typically have categories where you can earn additional points than your standard 1 point per dollar. For example some have 3 points for every dollar spent on travel, restaurants or groceries. It’s best to know the categories and other benefits to use that card for those purchases to get the most points in return on your everyday spend.
The second way you earn points is with the initial offer upon opening the card. The offer will have a value of points that you will earn upon spending a certain amount of money within a designated time frame. Many lower tier travel cards will have a 60K bonus if you spend $4-6K in a 3-6 month period. Premium cards will usually have a higher card spend, but also higher bonus. This is the same with a travel business card, many of which have elevated offers for 100K bonus points, but require a card spend of $10K or more in a set time period.
Learn how to earn more points: How to Earn Airline Points without Opening a Credit Card
Credit Card Disclaimer!
Before you open a travel card, always make sure you can spend enough to earn the bonus, otherwise you’re not getting the full value of the card or the annual fee. Always make sure you can pay off your card monthly. Do not put yourself in debt just to get credit card points.
Chase also has an unofficial policy known to travel hackers as the 5/24 policy. This means if you have opened more than 5 credit cards (with any bank) in a 24 month period, Chase may not approve you for a new card. If you have excellent credit, you may be able to appeal a rejection notice.
How to use credit card rewards for beginners
Once you’ve earned your bonus you’ll have a stockpile of points. You can use your points through your credit card portal to purchase flights or hotels, but generally speaking this is not the best way to maximize your points.
All (non-airline or hotel) travel cards will have a transfer portal. This means you can transfer your points to a partner airline or hotel. Many of these banks also have different monthly transfer bonuses, so you may get a 20% bonus when you transfer points to a specific airline for that month. Meaning you can transfer 10K miles, but end up with 12K in your airline or hotel account. Also, in many cases you will find better deals with points for airfares and hotels than the cash value. For example: A flight might cost $400 but only require 25K airline points (roughly $250). With points you basically get credit to travel for free.
Travel Hacking
One thing you hear in the travel hacking world is “earn and burn” when it comes to points. Points can devalue over time depending on what happens with airlines or hotels and their point structure. So the general thought is, unless you have a high value trip coming up in the future where you are trying to stockpile your points for a business class transatlantic flight, or a hotel in the Maldives that typically runs 150K points per night, use your points. As long as you are using your card and maximizing the bonus categories, you’ll continue to earn points.
I am by no means a points hacking expert. I consider myself to still be a novice when it comes to when and where to use points. There are many different sites and newsletters devoted to travel hacking and points. I subscribe to the free Daily Drop newsletter. They have short daily (or weekly) updates on ways their team has traveled, different transfer bonuses, and ways to get the best use of their miles.
The Best Travel Credit Card for Beginners: Chase Sapphire Preferred®
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® card is often rated the best travel rewards credit card for beginners by major travel websites. As someone who signed up for this card in the fall of 2023 I can say it has been a fantastic gateway travel card.
As someone living in Seattle I’ve had an Alaska Airlines and Delta Airlines credit card for years now. While those cards are great for free baggage and companion fares, the benefits are mostly specific to use with the airline. While a general travel card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred lets you use your points towards flights, hotels and car rentals.
What’s the cost
The Preferred card has an annual fee of $95/year. The initial bonus is typically 60,000 miles earned after spending $4,000 in a 3 month period. These types of cards also have a higher APR, usually 20% or higher, so again make sure you’re financially capable of opening a new card.
What are the benefits
This card has a ton of benefits, and it’s quite easy to earn back well beyond the $95 annual fee. At a minimum you can earn close to $700 between credits and point redemption. But once you get more savvy in the way of points, you can redeem a higher amount of travel. The travel protection benefits alone make it one of the best travel credit cards for beginners.
Standard benefits
- $50 annual hotel credit on hotels booked directly through Chase travel
- Built in travel protection, including rental car insurance, when you use your card to book travel
- Purchase protection and extended warranty protection on purchases made with the card
- 1 point per dollar spent except in bonus categories
- No foreign transaction fees! This is important to save money while traveling in a foreign country
Bonus points
- 5x hotel and rental cars booked directly through the Chase travel portal
- 2x on any travel purchases made outside the travel portal
- Points redeemed in travel portal are worth 25% more
- 3x points on dining
- 5x on all Lyft rides through March of 2025
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on select online grocery services
- 10% anniversary points based on your card spend for the previous year
An extra bonus is if you already have the Chase Freedom card, you can combine your Ultimate Reward points and transfer those to the travel portal.
What I’ve redeemed with my Chase Sapphire Card
I think that this card is the best travel credit cards for first timers you can get, and here’s why.
In November of 2023 I earned 60K points in my welcome bonus, on top of what I earned with my card spend. Here’s what I’ve redeemed and earned since that time:
- Approximately 30K miles to book hotels through the Chase portal for hotels in Cambodia. This saved me around $300 on hotels
- I now know that I could have probably gotten a better redemption of these miles outside of the portal
- $50 hotel credit by booking a hotel directly through the Chase travel portal
- 5K points to Hyatt to book an airport hotel for an overnight layover in Atlanta. The nightly price for the hotel is around $120
- 75K on way from Seattle -> Vancouver -> Melbourne, Australia in peak season (just before Christmas) which would have cost around $1200 in cash
Since December of 2023, I’ve used 35K points towards hotels, but earned back 37K points from January – July of 2024. This is why this card is my pick for the best travel credit card for beginners. Through every day purchases, you can easily earn and accumulate points for future travel.
In 18 months with this card I’ve saved roughly $1700 in travel compared to the $95 annual fee. I still have more points than what I’ve redeemed to date, meaning I’ll be able to save even more on travel in the future.
This is the best beginner travel credit card with low risk and incredible benefits for the average traveler.
Find additional travel tips here:
- How to Earn Airline Points without Opening a Credit Card
- How to Use Your Phone while Traveling Internationally
- Where to Book Your Travel Needs
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