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Get the City National Crystal® Visa Infinite® Credit Card only if you bank with City National and will use its airline fee credit and Priority Pass lounges every year. Used in full, its $350 airline fee credit cuts the $400 annual fee to a net $50 for the lounges and triple points on travel and dining.
Get the Citi Strata Premier® Card if your household spends heavily at restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations and you’ll transfer points to airlines. For $95 a year, it pays triple points in those categories and on airfare and hotels. If you’d rather not manage points, a flat-rate cash back card is simpler.
Get the Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card if you want a no-annual-fee card with no foreign transaction fee for trips abroad. It pays the most to Bank of America customers, because BofA Rewards adds 10% to 75% to its 1.5 points per dollar as your bank and Merrill balances grow.
Open the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card if you’ll charge $12,700 a year, enough for 2X miles to beat the no-fee VentureOne’s 1.25X after the $95 fee. If you’d book $300 a year through Capital One’s travel site anyway, choose the Venture X, whose $300 credit and 10,000 anniversary miles, worth $100, cover its $395 fee from year two.
Get the PenFed Pathfinder Rewards® Visa Signature® Card if you fly a few times a year and qualify for Honors Advantage through military service or eligible PenFed checking. You’ll earn 4 points per dollar on travel, and its $100 yearly airline fee credit, used in full, covers the $95 annual fee. If you rarely pay airline fees, skip it.
Open the Capital One VentureOne Business if you want travel miles on modest business spending without paying an annual fee. Every purchase earns 1.5 miles per dollar, and you can use the miles to pay for travel you charged to the card in the past 90 days, with no portal or airline program to learn.
Get the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card if you want travel miles with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee, since its miles also transfer to airline and hotel programs. If you’ll run most of your spending through one card, look at the $95 Venture instead, which earns 2 miles per dollar.
Get the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card if you’ll use its $300 yearly credit on trips booked through Capital One Travel, the issuer’s booking site. That credit plus 10,000 bonus miles each anniversary is worth $400 toward travel, more than the $395 fee, so you get lounge access and 2X miles on every purchase at no net cost.
Open the Truist Enjoy Travel Credit Card if you bank with Truist and take a few trips a year. Its 2 miles per dollar on flights, hotel stays, and car rentals come with a 10% to 50% bonus on travel redemptions, set by your Truist balances. Otherwise, pick a national no-fee card with bonus points on dining and gas.
Get the Amtrak Guest Rewards® Mastercard® if you ride Amtrak regularly and will spend your points on train tickets, since redeeming them for Amtrak travel returns 5% of the points. It has no annual fee. If you rarely ride, pick a 2% cash-back card or a general travel card instead.
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