A travel credit card is one of the most common types of credit cards, and it’s one of the credit card types that many people are interested in the most. However, if you’ve never had a travel credit card before, you might not know what you should be looking out for in terms of a great credit card. There are typically four extremely important things to pay attention to if you’re looking for a great travel credit card.
1. Affordable Yearly Fee
The first and potentially most obvious thing to look for is an affordable yearly fee. However, just having a $0 annual fee isn’t necessarily indicative of a better card. It’s most important that the fee is affordable for your family. It can be helpful to think of it in terms of the monthly cost – a $95 yearly fee is about $8 per month, while a more premium $500 yearly fee is over $40 per month. Choose the fee that works for your family.
2. Great Rewards Rate
Rewards are the reason that you would get a travel credit card instead of a different type of credit card. Therefore, it’s important that you’re thinking about the rewards rate that you can achieve with your travel credit card. Most credit cards start with a 1x rewards rate on most purchases, then offer extra benefits on certain categories of purchases. See what the highest rewards rate is that you can get, then make sure you’re using your card for those purchases.
3. Useful Sign-Up Bonus
Many credit cards offer sign-up bonuses nowadays. These bonuses typically come with certain requirements, so it’s important that you look at not just the bonus, but also the requirement. The Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, for example, has a sign-up bonus of 60,000 points, worth $750 or potentially more, and requires that you spend $4,000 within three months of opening the card.
4. General Benefits
There are always going to be a whole host of general benefits that a card provider will offer as a way to try and encourage new people to sign up for their credit card instead of a competitor’s card. Read through all the benefits associated with your card so that you know how you can use your credit card overall. These are the types of benefits that you’re going to use to significantly increase your card’s value, so they’re important elements to be actively looking for.
Conclusion
A travel credit card may be a great way for your family to cut back on travel costs while still traveling essentially the same amount. If you’re looking for the best travel credit card out there, however, there are a lot of things to think about before you actually sign up for a card. The four things you need to look for are an affordable yearly fee, a great rewards rate, a helpful sign-up bonus, and overarching benefits. With these four things, you’ll be well on your way to rewards.