I rarely travel, but next year I'll be doing quite a bit of domestic travel and am looking into travel rewards cards now. I am currently a student, but will have ~$20k net income starting in February 2014.
Looking for some guidance from you all!
Edit: Some details that I think are relevant after reading a bunch of threads on this same topic.
Domestic travel, flying coach (sometimes just driving), staying in tier 1-2 hotels like Hampton Inn (won't be staying in hotels that cost more than ~$120/night). I'd like it to be a no AF card, or an AF card that I can downgrade before the AF is due.
I'm looking right now at Blue Sky or Hilton HHonors Amex, but I can't figure out how much each point equates to in dollar amounts.
Sidenote: Hampton Inn's are tier 7 (of 10) in Hilton 
(I work for a Hampton )
But I'd recommend the HHonors Amex (no AF), assuming you have other reward programs. it's 7/dollar spent at hilton hotels. Citi has been running a promo giving their cardholders a bonus 2,500 a stay and additional ppd, but I believe that ends 1/31. (that card is normally 6/dollar). Both cards give you auto silver status
@longtimelurker wrote:
@w003ptr wrote:I rarely travel, but next year I'll be doing quite a bit of domestic travel and am looking into travel rewards cards now. I am currently a student, but will have ~$20k net income starting in February 2014.
Looking for some guidance from you all!
Will you get reimbursed for travel or is this personal? Are you going to be flying mainly on one airline/staying at one hotel chain?
If you are mainly on one airline, and it's personal, getting that airline's card might save money by avoiding baggage fees, and having things like priority boarding etc
It's personal travel so no reimbursement unfortunately. I'll be flying on whichever airline has the lowest rate and whichever hotel is cheapest and available. I did a similar run of traveling this past year and stayed primarily in Hampton Inn's though (big fan).
Depends on the airport you're flying out of.
The airport near me is essentially all AA and all the places I fly have AA flights inbound so that's the card I chose.
Citi AAdvantage Platinum. 50K point offer.
Now the hotels I stay at are mostly Marriott.
So my card of choice was the Chase Marriott Rewards card. 70K points offer.
Now with that said. Those are my personal choices.
I feel that AA and Marriott haven't devalued their programs to the point that Hyatt and Hilton have.
My father is a die hard Hilton & United fan, and I'm a die hard Marriott & AA fan.
You'll have to look at the point programs and flights in/out where you fly to make a proper decision.
I also have the AMEX Green which allows me to get MR points that I can transfer over to British Airways for Avios which I can inreturn book on AA.
Same with my Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Prefered. I move them over to British Airways as well. Those two bonuses netted me 60K points. At 18K points a pop with BA that's a bunch of free flights!
Look at your options.
@H4LO wrote:Depends on the airport you're flying out of.
The airport near me is essentially all AA and all the places I fly have AA flights inbound so that's the card I chose.
Citi AAdvantage Platinum. 50K point offer.
Now the hotels I stay at are mostly Marriott.
So my card of choice was the Chase Marriott Rewards card. 70K points offer.
Now with that said. Those are my personal choices.
I feel that AA and Marriott haven't devalued their programs to the point that Hyatt and Hilton have.
My father is a die hard Hilton & United fan, and I'm a die hard Marriott & AA fan.
You'll have to look at the point programs and flights in/out where you fly to make a proper decision.
I also have the AMEX Green which allows me to get MR points that I can transfer over to British Airways for Avios which I can inreturn book on AA.
Same with my Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Prefered. I move them over to British Airways as well. Those two bonuses netted me 60K points. At 18K points a pop with BA that's a bunch of free flights!
Look at your options.
Thanks, and yeah I just realized how devalued the Hilton points are for hotel stays. Gotta keep searching I guess, thanks!
@FastForward wrote:Have you taken a look at the Barclay Arrival World MC? This one's on my "short-list" of potential travel-related CC, along with the the CSP or AmEx SPG & PRG. What I do like about this card is that you essentially earn 2 points on anything (I believe) and the redemption value is equivalent to 2.2% toward any qualifying travel-related expenses. It appears to offer a lot of flexibility too - so you're not necessarily tied to any certain airline or hotel program.
Take a look - it has some really good sign-up bonuses right now, too, along with no AF for the 1st year: http://www.barclaycardarrival.com/premium-travel/?campaignId=1729&od=bcarrival&cellNumber=24&referre...
Can you downgrade to a non AF version?