Travel Credit Cards

One tip to make the airport and travel experience much more enjoyable is to obtain a credit card with travel benefits. When you travel so often, the annual fee pays for itself. Many cards offer benefits to travelers, including lounge access, shopping credits, Uber credits, entertainment credits, travel coverages, hotel discounts, airline discounts, grocery delivery, extra points on travel-related charges, bonus sign-up points, TSA PreCheck/Global Entry, Clear and others depending on the card.

Having a card of this nature has turned travel time into vacation time and has even benefited us in our day-to-day life at home. TSA pre-check is convenient, especially for someone who dislikes waiting in line. When traveling home from Costa Rica, PreCheck helped us get through the airport quickly to transfer to our final flight home. Without it, we would have been nervous about making our layover. Clear is becoming increasingly popular. It is even quicker than pre-check, so it is nice to have this benefit in addition to move through the airport quickly.

Lounges

Lounge access is helpful for the times you do not get a seat and are stuck at an airport. The seats are much more comfortable, and there is food and beverages to enjoy, which saves you money on expensive airport food. The quality of the lounges varies, but they are a definite upgrade from sitting at the gate. On our way home from London, I could lay down in an airport lounge and rest before our last flight home. Depending on the card, lounge access varies. We typically use priority pass lounges. Centurion lounges are restricted to confirmed seat holders (though if your seat is confirmed early enough, this is still possible!) Others are specifically for specified airlines that you have to fly for access. Be aware of what lounge access you are gaining from the card to assess what makes sense with your airline of employment.

Perks

Uber credits are very useful for city travel. For a quick day trip, you can Uber into the city from the airport using your credits, enjoy the city on foot or public transit, and Uber back. If you do not use the Uber credits on a trip, use them at home to order Ubereats. Another perk that is useful at home is the Walmart+ membership. I use this during busy weeks for grocery delivery because there is no delivery fee. The entertainment credits cover some of our streaming services at home. We get a $50 credit biannually to shop at Saks, an expensive store. If you select the appropriate search criteria at Saks, you can find things around the $50 price point.

With our American Express credit card, we also get $200 in hotel credits and airline fee credits. Credits and points gained from the bonus offer and travel expenses help keep our travel expenses down. It’s crucial to read the fine print on deals like this to check that your purchases apply to the credits. Most card perks involve an enrollment process, so do not fail to sign up to get the most out of your benefits. Because we don’t pay for our flights, the extra points per dollar spent on flights and airline fee credits aren’t a huge benefit. Sometimes when we need a confirmed ticket, however, these benefits can be beneficial. They could also be helpful if you need to purchase a ticket home due to being stranded as a non-rev.

Insurance

Use the appropriate credit card to pay for your vehicle rental, as some offer car rental insurance. You can also get trip cancelation/interruption insurance and trip delay insurance when purchasing the trip with the appropriate card. Baggage insurance is another perk offered to card members. There is an international helpline to call if something goes wrong on a trip. Having these options in your wallet helps ease travel worries. It’s nice not having to purchase these things separately for your trip.

It should go without saying that with any credit card, it’s critical to keep on top of paying your balance to avoid high-interest rates. If you keep your purchases in check, cards can be an asset. Unlike ‘travel hackers’, airline employees’ motivations for card ownership are more about the perks than the points. Points are transferrable to hotel partners for redemption for further savings. ‘Travel hackers’ boast about the points they redeemed for a flight. While that’s a cool concept, remember that they did have to spend a lot on the card to get the points. So even though people can use credit cards to ‘hack’ a purchase on a cheap/free confirmed seat, being an airline employee is the best way to obtain truly free flights.

*Apply for an American Express Card with this link. With your new Card, you could earn a welcome bonus (125,000 points!) and I’ll earn a referral bonus. Terms Apply.

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Apply for an American Express Card with this link. With your new Card, you could earn a welcome bonus (125,000 points!) and I’ll earn a referral bonus. Terms Apply.