Best Rewards Credit Cards for Travel

We found the following cards the most beneficial for earning points and cash back for us. These cards may not suit everyone’s lifestyle but we wanted to share our favorites. If you’re a frequent traveler, you may find other travel cards more rewarding. Our family goes on one or two trips per year and the following cards make it easy to earn points and cash back toward our vacations.

The Chase World of Hyatt Visa Card has a lot of perks but the main reason we love this card is that Hyatt is our favorite brand of hotels. Or is it our favorite brand of hotels because the rewards program is so great? It is hard to tell exactly what came first but we’ve been very happy with our Hyatt stays and the rewards program benefits make staying at Hyatt properties very cost efficient.

Here are the highlights of the Hyatt credit card we find most appealing:

• Receive a free night award, valid at any Hyatt Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel, every year after cardmember anniversary
• Earn up to 9 points per $1 spent at Hyatt
• Receive World of Hyatt Discoverist status for as long as your account is open.  This includes the following:  Premium internet upgrade, Bottled water and 2:00 PM Later check-out

Many of the Hyatt brand hotels offer free breakfast included with your stay. If you book with points, you avoid paying resort fees. Since the card comes with Discoverist status you can get free upgrades when available and even 4:00 PM check out at some locations if they’re not sold out the next day.  It's not difficult to find standard rooms at 5,000-12,000 points per night. Visit the World of Hyatt website to find out more details about their program:  https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/program-overview.html

The current sign-up bonus is 30,000 points after you spend $3000 in your first 3 months. ($95 annual fee) Find out more details on this offer here.

The Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Visa card helps get us to our destinations efficiently and at a low cost. Our favorite benefits of traveling Southwest are the family boarding policy, “Bags Fly Free” policy (2 free checked bags per ticket), no change fees, and non-expiring rewards points. Southwest is great for families traveling with young children because Southwest’s family boarding policy allows families flying with children under the age of 6 to board between Groups A & B, regardless of assigned boarding numbers.

 The Southwest Airlines credit card has the following added benefits we like:

• Receive 3,000 points every year on cardmember anniversary
• 2 EarlyBird Check-In each year
• Earn 2 points per $1 spent at Southwest and other travel partners
• 25% back on inflight purchases

The current sign-up bonus is 50,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. ($69 annual fee) Find out more details on this offer here.

If we ranked our favorite travel cards the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card would definitely be first. The card pairs with our World of Hyatt and Southwest Rapid Rewards accounts perfectly since Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer on a 1 to 1 basis to both of these rewards programs.  We provided instructions on transferring points here. In addition to those partners, you can transfer points to another 12 hotel and airline programs from the Chase Ultimate Rewards site.

Here are the highlights of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card we like the most:

• Earn 3x points on dining
• Earn 3x points on select streaming and online grocery purchases
• Earn 2x points on travel
• Transfer points to select travel programs at 1:1 value
• 6-month complimentary Instacart+ Membership and $15 in statement credits per quarter on Instacart purchases
• Complimentary DashPass Membership through 12/31/2024

The best part about the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is their current sign-up bonus. You can earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. ($95 annual fee).  Find out more details on this offer here.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers the most value for casual travelers. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card does have a $95 annual fee, but it also offers a sign-up bonus of 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 in the first three month, earns an unlimited 2x miles on every dollar spent plus 5x miles per dollar on hotels booked through the Capital One travel portal, and offers a number of additional travel-related perks.

Capital One miles can be redeemed to erase travel purchases made in the last 90 days at the rate of one cent per mile. Once you spend $4,000 in the first three months, you will receive the 75,000-mile sign-up bonus. You’ll also receive another 8,000 miles on the initial $4,000 because the Venture Rewards card earns 2x miles on every dollar spent. The sign-up bonus plus the earned miles comes to 83,000 miles, which is worth $830 that you can use to erase travel charges from your account.

Here are some other highlights we love about the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card:

• Capital One’s travel portal is one of the few portals where cardholders can book stays at official Disney hotels directly through the portal.
• $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck
• Capital One Lounge access - 2 visits per year
• CreditWise - Get alerts when your TransUnion or Experian credit report changes.

We know this is really not a travel card but the Capital One SavorOne Credit Card has a $0 annual fee and a great sign-up bonus of $200 cash back once you spend $500 on purchases withing the first 3 months. The $200 appears as a statement credit as soon as you spend your first $500 so it’s a quick way to cut costs of travel if you get it specifically for use at the start of your vacation.

The Capital One SavorOne Credit Card has the following benefits:

• Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining, entertainment, popular streaming services & at grocery stores
• Earn 10% cash back at Uber & Uber Eats
• Complimentary Uber One membership through 11/14/2024
• $0 annual fee

Find out more details on this offer here.

Bonus Tip to Earn an Extra $350
Once you reach the $500 minimum spend, you can refer another member of your household to the same card for an additional $150 bonus. When your family spends another $500 on the second card, you will get another $200 statement bonus.  The combined total of the two sign-up bonuses and the referral bonus comes to $550 back on $1000 spent. If you know anyone else that may be interested in the SavorOne you can also refer them for more $150 cash bonuses for each person that gets approved (up to $500 per year). Capital One makes referrals easy by using their refer-a-friend site.

We recommend you meet the $500 minimum spend on the first SavorOne Card before referring someone because the $150 referral bonus will appear as a statement credit on your account and will decrease the amount you’ve already put toward the minimum spend. This means that you would need to spend $650 before you receive your first $200 bonus.

Just remember that you may owe taxes at the end of the year for these “refer a friend” bonuses.  An explanation from Forbes.com can be found here: Are Credit Card Rewards Taxable?