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Top 10 Best Credit Cards for Travel in 2019 - YouTube
Channel: Yellow Productions
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- The 10 best credit
cards for travel in 2019.
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I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
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I do travel guides that are
fun, informative, entertaining
[7]
and if you like to travel for free,
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well you are in the right place
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because I'll be counting down
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my 10 favorite cards, credit
cards to use for travel
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to redeem for free travel, free awards.
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The cards that are on this
list, they'll be on this list
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for one of three reasons or
maybe three of three reasons.
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It depends on the card,
but the first one could be
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that it earned a really good signup bonus.
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The second one is that it
can earn really good points
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or mile per spend and the third is that
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there could be some really
great ongoing benefits
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for having the card.
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At the end of the video, I'll count down
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some of the other cards
I have in my wallet
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that didn't make the
top 10 and I'll conclude
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with some bonus tips for helping
you meet your minimum spend
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so you can get those signup bonuses.
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The 10th best card for travel in 2019
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is the CitiBank's Citi Costco card.
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This card is a cashback card.
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It earns a percentage cash back based
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upon how much you spend.
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This card is on here because
of the earn per spend.
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You get 4% cash back on
gas, 3% cash back on travel,
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2% cash back on Costco and 1%
cash back on anything else.
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There's no annual fee.
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There's no signup bonus, but
if you're doing a lot of spend
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on Costco, travel and gas,
this card could be pretty good
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for you because you don't
have to worry about miles
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and points and where you can
redeem it and where you can't.
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CitiBank also offers a Sam's
Club version of the same card.
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It's just the Sam's Club variant.
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The ninth best card for travel in 2019
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is the Fidelity Cash Back card.
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This is another cash back card.
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It's pretty simple.
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It earns 2% cash back on
everything everywhere.
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No categories, no dates,
no time and no gimmick.
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Just 2% cash back on
everything that you buy.
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I mention this one because
I think it's the simplest.
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There's a bunch of other
2% type cash back cards.
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You could take a look around
and see which one you like.
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The other one I'll mention
is the Citi Double Cash Card.
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It earns 1% cash when you buy something
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and then 1% cash back
when you pay off the bill,
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but it works off to be 2% either way.
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I prefer the Fidelity just for simpleness.
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These are the only two cash
back cards I have on this list.
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All the other cards that I'm
gonna talk about on this list
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earns some form of travel currency,
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being it membership
rewards, ultimate rewards,
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United Miles, Marriott
Points, things like that.
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So on with the list to number eight.
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The eighth best card for travel in 2019
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is the American Express Gold Card.
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This is a new Gold Card
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and so we'll start with the signup bonus.
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It has a pretty good one.
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You can earn 25,000
membership rewards points
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by spending $2,000 in
the first three months.
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Plus they have another
bonus where if you spend
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at restaurants, you'll
get 20% back of your spend
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at restaurants in the first
three months of card ownership
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up to $100 of the statement credit.
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Some perks for just having the card,
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it comes with $100 airline credit.
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You pick your airline at
the beginning of the year,
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say like American Airlines, SouthWest
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and then if you buy incidental
things like baggage fees,
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seat upgrades, it'll credit $100 back
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to your card for those purchases.
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The American Express
Gold card also includes
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$120 dining credit that is
given to you $10 per month
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that can be used on
certain restaurants like
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Ruth's Chris, Shake Shack,
Cheesecake Factory or Grubhub.
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Basically you buy something
from one of those restaurants
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and up to $10 per month is
credited back to your statement.
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From an earning perspective
based on dollar spent,
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this card is best at restaurants,
supermarkets and travel.
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It earns 4X membership
rewards points on restaurants
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and supermarkets and then it
earns 3X points on travel.
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It earns 1X points on everything else.
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By the way, when I use
the term 4X, 3X, 1X,
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that's the typical frequent flyer speak
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for just how many points you get
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per dollar spent on the card
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and the points earned in
this card are membership
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rewards points, the typical
currency that's earned
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on most of the basic
American Express cards
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that you can redeem and transfer
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to a lot of different programs.
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Now just a caveat on the travel,
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you can get the 3X points
only if you book the travel
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directly through AmexTravel.com.
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This card does have kind of a
middle of the pack annual fee.
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$250, but if you take
a look at those perks
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with the airline credit
and the dining credit,
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you pretty much make that back right away
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and the signup bonus, well then
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you're way above that annual fee.
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The seventh best card for travel in 2019
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is the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card.
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This card has a lot of great perks.
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Let's start with the bonus.
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It's a tiered bonus.
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You can earn up to 60,000
World of Hyatt points,
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40,000 World of Hyatt
points after spending $3,000
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in the first three months
and then if you spend
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$6,000 in the first six months,
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you can get another 20,000
World of Hyatt points.
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This card also has some
pretty good ongoing benefits
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of having the card if
you stay at Hyatt Hotels.
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The first one and a lot
of hotel credit cards
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are rolling out is a free
night at Hyatt Hotels
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every year that you have
the card and if you spend
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$15,000 or more on the card each year,
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then you actually get another free night
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at Hyatt Hotels so that's
a pretty good benefit
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of just having the card and putting
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a little bit of spend on it.
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Also it comes with five
elite nights that count
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to your Hyatt status and you
get two more elite nights
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to your Hyatt status per every $5,000
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that you spend on the card
and just by having the card,
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you get a little bit of
elite status in Hyatt.
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It comes with Hyatt Discovery Status
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which is the basic status at Hyatt.
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The earn on this card, you get four points
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on every dollar you spend at Hyatt Hotels.
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You get two points in kind
of a bunch of odd categories
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like restaurants, cafes,
airline tickets, fitness clubs,
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gym memberships and then
$1 on everything else.
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The annual fee on this
card is $95 every year.
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That's a pretty low annual
fee for all those benefits,
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particularly if you're
regular at Hyatt Hotels
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which is one of my favorite
chains to redeem points for.
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The sixth best credit
card for travel in 2019
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is the CapitalOne Spark
Miles for Business card.
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This is a new card that was just released
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at the end of 2018.
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It is a business card so
you have to own a business,
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be part of a business
to apply for this card,
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but why is it interesting?
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Well because it potentially offers
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a 200,000 point signup bonus for getting
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the card and meeting the minimum spend.
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Now this signup bonus
is another one of these
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two-tiered signup bonuses.
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You get 50,000 points if you
spend $5,000 in three months
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and then you'll get another 150,000 points
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if you spend $50,000 over six months.
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If you have a lot of
spend that you can put
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on the credit card, well then
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that will be worth about $2,000.
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That's what those points will be worth for
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if you redeem them for flights.
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Now this earns the CapitalOne's currency
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which transfers two CapitalOne point
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to 1.5 miles in a variety
of different programs
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which include 11 different airlines.
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None of the big US carriers,
but there is a carrier
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in Star Alliance, OneWorld and SkyTeam.
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So you could transfer there to book
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with most of your
favorite airline carriers.
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Then from an earn perspective,
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this card earns two points for
every dollar that you spend.
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No categories, none of that stuff.
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The annual fee is $0 the
first year you have the card
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and then it's $95 every year after.
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The fifth best card for travel in 2019
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is the Chase Ink Business Preferred.
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This is another business card.
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This is with Chase.
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It earns points in my
favorite travel currency,
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Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
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We'll talk more about Chase
Ultimate Rewards points later
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when I get to number one and two cards,
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but Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers
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to what I consider to be the
most widest variety of partners
[489]
including Hyatt Hotels, United Airlines,
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at least, the places that I like to go
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and the things I like to travel a lot in
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so I find Travel Rewards
to be the most flexible
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and valuable currency.
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The Chase Ink Business Preferred card
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earns a pretty good signup bonus.
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80,000 points if you spend
$5,000 in the first three months.
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From an earn perspective, it
earns three points per dollar
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spent on travel, internet, phone
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and an interesting category,
social media advertising.
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If you do a lot of advertising
on places like YouTube
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or Facebook or things
like that, you could earn
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a lot of points on this card.
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There really aren't any ongoing bonuses
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for having this card and
the annual fee is $95.
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I'll point out this one
is also business card
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so you have to have a business
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to apply for it, but you know what?
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If you have a blog or a
YouTube channel or anything
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that earns a little bit of revenue,
[543]
well you might consider that a business
[545]
for when you apply for these cards.
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The fourth best card for travel in 2019
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and this one's a mouthful
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so I'm just going to read
it so I get it right.
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It's the Citi Business AA Advantage
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Platinum Select World MasterCard.
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Wow, that is a mouthful.
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American Airlines and CitiBank have a ton
[562]
of different American Airlines cards
[564]
so it's this particular one.
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It's also new for this year.
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It has quite a generous signup bonus.
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It has 70,000 American Airlines miles
[573]
after spending $4,000 within
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the first four months of account opening.
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Some of the benefits for this card include
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a free check bag if you're
flying on American Airlines
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and a free companion ticket
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if you spend more than $30,000.
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It also comes with no
foreign transaction fees
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and by the way, most of
the cards on this list
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that have an annual fee come with
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no foreign transaction fees
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so I'm actually not
mentioning it on every card
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because it's actually
such a common benefit.
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If you travel a lot and
you don't have at least
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one card with no foreign transaction fees,
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you should make sure you have
at least one in your wallet
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for when you travel internationally.
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You earn two miles per dollar spent
[610]
on American Airlines
flights, telecommunications,
[613]
cable and satellite providers,
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rental cars and at gas stations.
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The annual fee is $99.
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It's waived the first
year you have the card.
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The third best card for travel in 2019
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is the Platinum card by American Express.
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This card comes in a lot
of different variants.
[630]
It comes in a lot of different countries,
[632]
so if you're not a US listener,
like you're in Canada,
[634]
the UK, Australia, chances are,
[636]
you can still get this card.
[638]
Though the benefits might be
[639]
a little bit different
in your own country,
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the reason you get this
card is for the benefits.
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The benefits are really
good, but it also has
[647]
a pretty good signup bonus too
[648]
so let's start with the signup bonus.
[650]
The signup bonus is 60,000
membership rewards points
[653]
after spending $5,000 in
the first three months.
[657]
Membership rewards points transfer to
[659]
17 different transfer partners.
[662]
I talked about this
earlier about the value
[664]
of having a flexible currency.
[666]
It's one thing to have points
in United or American Airlines
[668]
and you have to fly with that
airline or that alliance,
[672]
but it's so much better
to have your currency,
[674]
your travel currency or your points
[676]
in something that transfers
to a lot of different partners
[679]
so when you're going to
some place like Fiji,
[681]
you can find that you can transfer points
[684]
into the alliance that you
want to redeem flights for.
[687]
I won't read the whole list of 17.
[689]
I'll just put them right here
[691]
so you can see what those
17 transfer partners are.
[693]
And in addition to airlines,
[695]
it also has three hotel transfer partners.
[696]
It'll transfer to choice hotels,
[699]
Hilton hotels and Starwood
hotels, but I will point out
[703]
that I think the airline transfers
[705]
for membership rewards are a better value.
[707]
With earn perspective, the
platinum card earns 5X points
[711]
on air travel and prepaid hotels
[714]
booked through American Express's website.
[716]
One point on everything else.
[718]
Okay but now let's talk
about the benefits.
[720]
The benefits are really amazing.
[722]
Starts with a $200 airline
credit, similar to the
[725]
American Express Gold card
that I mentioned earlier.
[728]
The way this works, you pick your airline,
[730]
Southwest, American, United, whatever,
[732]
and then your incidental expenses
[735]
get credited back via American Express
[737]
up to $200 per calendar year.
[741]
It also comes with a credit for Uber.
[744]
It's a $200 annual credit for Uber
[747]
and that's parceled out per month.
[750]
So you get $15 per month to basically use
[752]
on Uber rides for free.
[754]
You have to use it or lose
it, but you can also use
[756]
it on UberEats if you're
not a big Uber rider
[760]
to get Uber for free.
[761]
It comes with a Global Entry credit,
[762]
$100 that you could use
[763]
for Global Entry membership
or TSA Pre-check.
[767]
Some of the other cards on this list
[768]
have that too that I didn't mention.
[771]
A new benefit that they've added is
[772]
$100 annual credit with Saks Fifth Avenue.
[776]
You can buy free stuff
on Saks Fifth Avenue
[778]
on their website or on their stores.
[781]
It comes with a bunch of
different status perks
[783]
like Hilton Gold, Hertz, Avis,
national rental car perks
[788]
so you get better
treatment at those places,
[791]
but my favorite perk is the lounge access
[793]
and you get this in two different things.
[795]
One, it comes with priority pass.
[798]
This is a value of $99 per year
[799]
and it gives you basically access
[801]
into the priority pass network of lounges
[804]
which is thousands of
lounges around the world,
[806]
but my favorite favorite perk
[808]
is the Centurion Lounge access.
[811]
American Express runs its
own collection of lounges
[813]
at a number of airports.
[815]
They're called the Centurion Lounge.
[817]
The Centurion Lounges are great.
[819]
By having this card, you have free access
[821]
into the Centurion Lounges
[822]
where you get lots of really
great food, places to rest
[826]
and if you're flying
domestically in the US,
[828]
I go through San Francisco a lot.
[830]
Getting my meal at the Centurion Lounge,
[832]
coming and going, I look at that
[834]
as about a $20 value each way
so that can really add up.
[839]
Now this card does have a big annual fee.
[841]
It's $550 a year is the annual
fee, but if you take a look
[845]
at the Uber credit, the travel credit,
[848]
the earn, the lounge credit,
it can really be worth it
[851]
and American Express purchase
protection is amazing.
[854]
If you buy something on this
card and you basically break it
[857]
in the first months, American Express
[860]
will replace it for free.
[861]
My wife, OCGirl, she
actually dropped her iPhone
[864]
after having it for just a few weeks
[866]
and we submitted a claim and
American Express credited us
[869]
back the entire purchase
price for the iPhone
[872]
so we could buy a new one
after we broke that one.
[875]
The second best card for travel in 2019
[877]
is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
[880]
This is number two, but it's
kind of tied with number one.
[884]
Both these cards kind of go together.
[886]
It depends how much you spend on a card,
[889]
but I consider the Chase
Sapphire Preferred card
[892]
to be the best all-around card
[893]
if you're just getting
started in this whole game
[896]
of miles and points for travel
[899]
and if you're gonna get one card,
[901]
you don't spend a lot yet,
[902]
this is probably the
one card you should get.
[903]
It has all around a good signup bonus,
[904]
all around good spend and all
around pretty good benefits
[907]
with not too high of an annual fee.
[910]
So first let's talk
about the signup bonus.
[913]
You get 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points
[915]
for spending $4,000 in
the first three months
[918]
of card ownership and if
you add an authorized user,
[921]
you can get another 5,000
Ultimate Rewards points.
[924]
The annual fee is waived on
this card for the first year.
[927]
It's $95 every year after.
[929]
The earning spend, you
earn two points per dollar
[932]
on travel and restaurants,
one point everywhere else.
[935]
Now this is earned in the
Ultimate Rewards currency
[938]
that transfers to a lot
of great travel partners
[941]
including Hyatt Hotels,
one of my favorite hotels,
[943]
which is not a transfer partner
[946]
for American Express
that I mentioned earlier.
[948]
That's one reason why I like these.
[950]
I earn a lot of my Ultimate Rewards points
[952]
ultimately to redeem at Hyatt Hotels.
[954]
The number one best
card for travel in 2019.
[957]
It's another Chase
Sapphire card, but this is
[960]
the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
[962]
This is a card they've introduced
[964]
recently in the last two years.
[966]
This is Chase's premium card.
[969]
It does have a pretty high annual fee,
[970]
but it can earn more points
and so if you spend a lot,
[973]
then you can earn even more on this card.
[976]
But I should mention you can only have one
[978]
of these Chase Sapphire cards.
[980]
You can't hold both of them currently.
[982]
If you currently have both, you can,
[984]
but Chase is not allowing you to sign up
[986]
for one and the other.
[987]
You can switch between the two products,
[989]
but you can't get both
as new card holders.
[992]
The Chase Sapphire Reserve
[993]
has a similar signup
bonus to the previous one.
[995]
50,000 Ultimate Rewards points for spend
[998]
in the first three
months of card ownership.
[1000]
Now where this one differentiates itself,
[1002]
the annual fee is higher.
[1004]
It's $450 every year, but it comes with
[1006]
a $300 travel credit and
they're very generous
[1010]
with the categories they consider travel.
[1012]
There's a lot of different
things they consider travel
[1014]
and it's much like that
[1016]
American Express credit I talked about.
[1018]
Basically you buy something
they consider travel
[1019]
and they rebate it right back to you.
[1022]
It also comes with a $100 Global Entry
[1024]
or TSA Pre-check credit, pretty
similar to some other cards
[1027]
I mentioned before and it comes
with that same priority pass
[1031]
membership that I talked
about in American Express
[1033]
except the Chase version
has unlimited guests.
[1036]
So if you have a big family,
you can bring them all into
[1038]
the lounge with you as you go in.
[1040]
So the other big differentiation
between this card
[1043]
and the Preferred card is the earn.
[1046]
The Preferred card earns
[1047]
2X points on travel and restaurants.
[1050]
This card earns 3X points
on travel and restaurants.
[1053]
So three points for every dollar spend.
[1055]
So if you spend more than
$12,000 a year on travel
[1059]
and restaurants, travel
being a really broad area,
[1062]
then you'll definitely
make your money back
[1064]
on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
[1066]
A few honorable mentions.
[1068]
There's a whole bunch of other cards
[1069]
that are like these
rotating category cards.
[1072]
Chase Freedom is an
example of it that earns
[1075]
like 5X points in certain categories.
[1077]
Those can be pretty good,
[1079]
but they're usually limited circumstances
[1080]
so I didn't include any of those
[1082]
rotating category cards in this list.
[1084]
You know, I also have other cards
[1087]
in my wallet not on this list
[1088]
like the United Card, the Marriott Card.
[1091]
I keep them for some of the benefits.
[1092]
That's probably for
another video and finally,
[1095]
if you're struggling with this.
[1098]
Chris, the minimum spend
on these cards is huge,
[1101]
well I have a tip for you.
[1102]
There's this new service called Platiq.
[1104]
It's plastic with a Q and it's basically
[1106]
a website that allows you
to use your credit card
[1110]
to pay for things that you ordinarily
[1111]
couldn't use a credit card for.
[1113]
So for example, you have a mortgage,
[1115]
you have a Home Owner's Associate,
[1116]
you have utility bills that only accept
[1119]
like a check for payment,
well you can use Platiq,
[1121]
give them your credit card and
they will send them a check.
[1124]
It's a great way to
meet your minimum spend
[1126]
with those bills that you already pay.
[1128]
If you want to check out Platiq,
[1130]
I have a link in the description below.
[1131]
You'll get 500 fee-free
dollars for using it.
[1136]
I'll get a few fee-free dollars
if you use that link too
[1138]
which I will definitely
appreciate, but check out
[1141]
Plastiq to help you
meet that minimum spend.
[1142]
Well I hope you enjoyed this video.
[1145]
If you like this video,
you might also enjoy
[1147]
watching this video which has
a whole bunch more content
[1150]
and tips about using
credit cards to help you
[1152]
maximize your travel rewards.
[1154]
It's basically the advanced
companion to this video.
[1158]
So I won't say goodbye
[1159]
because I'll see you right over there.
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