Credit Card that's good for traveling

[lamplight2012]

Hello, all.

I'm just starting to get my credit report cleaned up. At this point my next step is secured credit cards, but I'm trying to see what CC I should be shooting for in the future.

Here's my situation. Currently, my son(2 years old) is 2,000 miles away in California. His Mom is conisdered the move-away parent, and she has to pay half of my airline ticket, but the hotels out there can be expensive.

Is there a CC that allows you to build points for hotels?

Thanks!

[lamplight2012]

Also,

I should add that I usually stay at Best Western or Marriot when I go.

[kdm31091]

How often will you be flying out there? Depending on that, you may do better with cash back cards, unless you are loyal to a specific airline. At this point, the airline/hotel cards are going to be generally out of reach for you, as you seem to know.

Airline cards are good for a sign up bonus, but you'll notice many people end up downgrading/cancelling/wanting retention offers later because they can be difficult to justify unless you devote all of your spend to them and fly basically that one airline very often. Again, it just depends how often you're traveling. Ditto for hotel specific cards. They just don't make sense unless you are nearly always going to stay at Marriott etc. Many hotel cards do offer a free night every year which basically compensates for the fee, though.

[CreditDunce]

There are travel cards that earn points (e.g. Amex MR).  You can then transfer the points into a hotel chains loyalty programs.  Then use the hotel points to pay for your stay.  However, in most cases, you end up getting a crummy return for your MR (etc) points.

If you want a card for hotel stays, your best bet is getting that chain's hotel card.  

I don't know anything about the Best Western program.  However, they do offer a secured MC ($40 AF) that will graduate to a unsecured card.  They advertise a 10% discount on hotel stays.  It would require a good sized deposit to make the card useful. 

https://www.firstbankcard.com/bestwestern/landingpage/card/index.html

In the future once your credit score is a little higher, the Marriot card is issued by Chase.   You should also look at the ChoiceHotel chain (Comfort Inn, Sleep Inn, Quality, Clarion, Rodeway, etc) card.  Also, check out IHG (Holiday Inn, Staybridge, etc).  They are not as popular as the various Hilton, Hyatt and SPG cards.  However, the hotels are much cheaper to stay in for someone spending their own money.   Note, the Marriot is a popular card, it shouldn't be hard to find information on the various programs.  It will take some research to find the ones that will work best for you, though.  Cash back credit cards are much easier to value.

To get an idea of the credit score you will need before applying, google the credit card pull database.  You can also search these forums for post on the cards you are interested in.

[taxi818]

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@lamplight2012 wrote:

Hello, all.

I'm just starting to get my credit report cleaned up. At this point my next step is secured credit cards, but I'm trying to see what CC I should be shooting for in the future.

Here's my situation. Currently, my son(2 years old) is 2,000 miles away in California. His Mom is conisdered the move-away parent, and she has to pay half of my airline ticket, but the hotels out there can be expensive.

Is there a CC that allows you to build points for hotels?

Thanks!

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Well looks like you answered your own question. Of course Marriott or any otherone. I prefer the Marriott as they have more hotels than any other. But it takes a lot of spend to earn the points other than the Bonus points from signing up. The Cheapest Marriot per night i saw was a Low cat 3 or something for 7500 points a night. I think it was a fairfield inn. So if you get 50k bonus. that is enough to stay at a place like that for about 6 days on the house.