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Flights, hotels, points and miles, and the cost of the whole trip. Go further on the same budget.
Get the Wyndham Rewards Earner® Card if you stay at Wyndham hotels a few nights a year. With no annual fee, it gives you Gold status, which otherwise takes five nights a year, and cuts the points a free night costs by 10%. If you’d use a free night every year, compare the $95 Earner Plus.
If you bank with TD and spend on travel and dining, open the TD First Class℠ Visa Signature® Credit Card for 3 miles per dollar and no annual fee the first year. Before the $89 fee starts, compare no-fee national cards that earn the same rate, and keep it only if you want a TD rewards card for trips abroad.
Open the Commerce Miles® Credit Card if you already bank with Commerce and will deposit your cash back into a Commerce myRewards Savings account, where it earns a 25% bonus. Without that bonus, a national no-fee travel card will usually earn you more than this one.
Many credit cards repay prepaid, nonrefundable costs when illness, severe weather, or another covered reason cancels or cuts short a trip you paid for with the card, and some cover meals and lodging during a long delay. Check your card’s guide to benefits before you buy travel insurance, and book with a card that carries the coverage.
If you can arrive a few hours late, volunteer your seat when an airline oversells your flight, and treat its first offer as an opening bid. Before you accept, get a confirmed seat on a later flight and ask what the travel credit is worth, when it expires, and whether you can take cash instead.
Get the Miles & More® World Elite Mastercard® only if you fly Lufthansa from the U.S. at least once a year and can use its companion ticket, which covers a second traveler’s airfare on Lufthansa’s own flights. Otherwise, pick a card whose points transfer to several airlines, since Miles & More award tickets carry steep fuel surcharges.
Open the JetBlue Business Card if you fly JetBlue for work and check bags, since the free first bag for you and up to three companions can repay its $99 fee on one trip. If most company spending falls outside JetBlue, restaurants, and office supply stores, a 2% cash back business card earns more.
Open the JetBlue Card if you fly JetBlue occasionally with only a carry-on, since it charges no annual fee and its TrueBlue points never expire. If you check bags, choose the JetBlue Plus Card, whose free first bag saves $45 or more each way on domestic flights you buy with it and covers its $99 fee within two round trips.
Open the U.S. Bank Altitude® Connect Visa Signature® Card if you spend heavily on travel and gas. It pays 4 points per dollar on travel and on your first $1,000 of gas each quarter, and it adds four free airport lounge visits a year and a credit toward faster security screening, all with no annual fee.
Get the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® Elite Credit Card only if you’ll use its $450 a year in airline and lifestyle credits and you keep $100,000 or more with the bank and Merrill. That balance earns you at least 50% more points through the bank’s BofA Rewards program, and the credits cover all but $100 of the $550 fee.
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