Travel Cards 2018

[Anonymous]

Travel card with highest rewards for family international travel? Would like to attempt to run everything through ($3000 month presently) to gain at minimum one round trip flight a year for family of four (1 adult, 3 children) internationally to visit family in Easten Europe. Suggestions?

[Anonymous]

It depends on your type of spending. Do you spend a significant amount on airfare? Do you have significant money/funds with BoA? My recommendations will depend on your spending patterns to better determine point accrual.

Cards that immediately come to mind are:
Chase Sapphire Cards (P/R)
BoA Premium Rewards (if you qualify for Preferred Rewards)
American Express Platinum Card

[Anonymous]

I bank with NFCU and Chase. No travel by plane or hotels usually (camping within state is it). Direct deposit to NFCU and Chase monthly from different sources. Main reason we don't travel more is cost of tickets for 3 children and 1 adult! But I would like to be able to start visiting family who live across the pond. They have yet to meet each other outside of skype or messenger and for Grandparents/etc., that is hard on them. And they are getting older as we are the younger of 13 and 6 so traveling for them is taxing especially at these distances.

[Anonymous]

And I don't care about lounges, uber, expensove restaurants, etc. I want flights, for four. RT ticket are usually $1500+ each for value reference.

[Shadowfactor]

Since you siad you dont care about all the travel perks of premium cards

I would suggest

BOA Travel rewards 20K point SUB (NO AF, 1.5X rate) Book travel how you want and redeem for statement credit

USB Flex Perks Visa 20K SUB, 25K targeted ($49AF, 2X gas,groceries, or airlines) Booked through Travel portal powered by expedia. Flexperks are worh 1.5 cents

Chase CSP 50K SUB ($95AF, 2X Travel&Restaurants) Points are transferrable to partners or the travel portal for 1.25 Cents

Provided you plan to do most of your spending in the US and have a Visa/MC with NO-FTF.

I'd suggest

Amex PRG 25k or 50K SUB ($195 AF, $100 AIrline credit, 3X airlines, 2X gas,groceries, and restaurants) Transfer points to partners or Travel portal

USB FlexPerks Amex 30k SUB ($85AF, $100 TSA credit, 3Xrestaurants, 2X gas) Travel Portal powered by Expedia. Flexperks worth 1.5 cents

Minor Childern can go in the TSA precheck lines with an adult provided they are under a certain age. Makes life a little easier when traveling with kids.

[NRB525]

With only $3k spend per month, it could be a challenge. 

One sequence to consider is the US Bank Altitude Reserve. You earn 3 points on mobile wallet spending, which translates into 4.5% when redeemed for travel. The US Bank travel portal can book Norwegian Air flights, which are low cost flights to Europe. 

This will require alignment of several factor:

Willing to spend any AF amount. The $400 AF has a $325 travel credit, net fee $75 per year.The $325 can be considered “prepaid travel”

Access to a phone to put the card on, for mobile wallet either Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Dilligent use of the card for Mobile wallet everywhere to max that 4.5%.

Access to a Norwegian Air airport such as New York. 

Some NA flights are $250 one way. 

Any other option is not going to get you enough points to get four people on a plane each year. You can make a dent in the cost, but will probably need to figure how to save the extra necessary funds. 

[Anonymous]

Not sure of your scores or where you stand with number of cards in 12/24 months.

If I understand correctly, you’re looking at about $6K for total airfare costs.

How do you feel about bonus chasing? That would give you the most bang for buck.

For example:
Chase Sapphire P/R - 50,000 points with one month of $3K spend
BoA Premium Rewards - 50,000 points with one month of $3K spend
Capital One Venture - 50,000 points with one month of $3K spend
Barclaycard Arrival + - 40,000 points with $3K spend
Barclaycard Red Aviator - 60,000 points with one purchase + $95 annual fee.

It possibly sounds outrageous but it’s doable. I essentially did this last year and racked up near half-million (rounding on a curve) in points.

The alternative doesn’t net much. For example:

Barclaycard Arrival + - 40,000 point SUB ($400) + $3K per month spend (for 12mo) at 2 points per $1 spent (on anything) would amount to only about $1120.

Without strategic bonus chasing alongside points transferring and statement credits, I only see you being able to offset cost but not fully pay for the trip.

[UpperNwGuy]

If you rarely travel, but want to save for that one big trip, perhaps your best solution is NOT to get a travel card but to get a couple of good cash back cards and save the cash rewards to use towards the trip.  A great combo of cash back cards would be one that gets 2% on everything supplemented by cards that get 3% on gas, groceries, and dining.

[longtimelurker]

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wrote:

With only $3k spend per month, it could be a challenge. 

One sequence to consider is the US Bank Altitude Reserve. You earn 3 points on mobile wallet spending, which translates into 4.5% when redeemed for travel. The US Bank travel portal can book Norwegian Air flights, which are low cost flights to Europe. 

This will require alignment of several factor:

Willing to spend any AF amount. The $400 AF has a $325 travel credit, net fee $75 per year.The $325 can be considered “prepaid travel”

Access to a phone to put the card on, for mobile wallet either Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Dilligent use of the card for Mobile wallet everywhere to max that 4.5%.

Access to a Norwegian Air airport such as New York. 

Some NA flights are $250 one way. 

Any other option is not going to get you enough points to get four people on a plane each year. You can make a dent in the cost, but will probably need to figure how to save the extra necessary funds. 

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Yes, if the only choice really is $1500 per ticket, then you want $6K back on $36,000 spend.   That's not going to happen in a repeatable fashion (i.e. without some one time bonuses).  And even with $500 RT tickets, 4.5% isn't going to cover it all, but will certainly help

[iced]

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wrote:
And I don't care about lounges, uber, expensove restaurants, etc. I want flights, for four. RT ticket are usually $1500+ each for value reference.

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Your spend is $3000/month ($36000/year) and you want to earn enough rewards each year for $6000 in tickets? Not going to happen without resorting to churning sign-up bonuses.

Best-case scenario is if all $36000/year is dining/travel, you'd get 108k UR points on CSR which would put you in the ballpark for 2 economy tickets, but not 4.