- The 10 best credit cards for travel in 2019.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun, informative, entertaining
and if you like to travel for free,
well you are in the right place
because I'll be counting down
my 10 favorite cards, credit cards to use for travel
to redeem for free travel, free awards.
The cards that are on this list, they'll be on this list
for one of three reasons or maybe three of three reasons.
It depends on the card, but the first one could be
that it earned a really good signup bonus.
The second one is that it can earn really good points
or mile per spend and the third is that
there could be some really great ongoing benefits
for having the card.
At the end of the video, I'll count down
some of the other cards I have in my wallet
that didn't make the top 10 and I'll conclude
with some bonus tips for helping you meet your minimum spend
so you can get those signup bonuses.
The 10th best card for travel in 2019
is the CitiBank's Citi Costco card.
This card is a cashback card.
It earns a percentage cash back based
upon how much you spend.
This card is on here because of the earn per spend.
You get 4% cash back on gas, 3% cash back on travel,
2% cash back on Costco and 1% cash back on anything else.
There's no annual fee.
There's no signup bonus, but if you're doing a lot of spend
on Costco, travel and gas, this card could be pretty good
for you because you don't have to worry about miles
and points and where you can redeem it and where you can't.
CitiBank also offers a Sam's Club version of the same card.
It's just the Sam's Club variant.
The ninth best card for travel in 2019
is the Fidelity Cash Back card.
This is another cash back card.
It's pretty simple.
It earns 2% cash back on everything everywhere.
No categories, no dates, no time and no gimmick.
Just 2% cash back on everything that you buy.
I mention this one because I think it's the simplest.
There's a bunch of other 2% type cash back cards.
You could take a look around and see which one you like.
The other one I'll mention is the Citi Double Cash Card.
It earns 1% cash when you buy something
and then 1% cash back when you pay off the bill,
but it works off to be 2% either way.
I prefer the Fidelity just for simpleness.
These are the only two cash back cards I have on this list.
All the other cards that I'm gonna talk about on this list
earns some form of travel currency,
being it membership rewards, ultimate rewards,
United Miles, Marriott Points, things like that.
So on with the list to number eight.
The eighth best card for travel in 2019
is the American Express Gold Card.
This is a new Gold Card
and so we'll start with the signup bonus.
It has a pretty good one.
You can earn 25,000 membership rewards points
by spending $2,000 in the first three months.
Plus they have another bonus where if you spend
at restaurants, you'll get 20% back of your spend
at restaurants in the first three months of card ownership
up to $100 of the statement credit.
Some perks for just having the card,
it comes with $100 airline credit.
You pick your airline at the beginning of the year,
say like American Airlines, SouthWest
and then if you buy incidental things like baggage fees,
seat upgrades, it'll credit $100 back
to your card for those purchases.
The American Express Gold card also includes
$120 dining credit that is given to you $10 per month
that can be used on certain restaurants like
Ruth's Chris, Shake Shack, Cheesecake Factory or Grubhub.
Basically you buy something from one of those restaurants
and up to $10 per month is credited back to your statement.
From an earning perspective based on dollar spent,
this card is best at restaurants, supermarkets and travel.
It earns 4X membership rewards points on restaurants
and supermarkets and then it earns 3X points on travel.
It earns 1X points on everything else.
By the way, when I use the term 4X, 3X, 1X,
that's the typical frequent flyer speak
for just how many points you get
per dollar spent on the card
and the points earned in this card are membership
rewards points, the typical currency that's earned
on most of the basic American Express cards
that you can redeem and transfer
to a lot of different programs.
Now just a caveat on the travel,
you can get the 3X points only if you book the travel
directly through AmexTravel.com.
This card does have kind of a middle of the pack annual fee.
$250, but if you take a look at those perks
with the airline credit and the dining credit,
you pretty much make that back right away
and the signup bonus, well then
you're way above that annual fee.
The seventh best card for travel in 2019
is the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card.
This card has a lot of great perks.
Let's start with the bonus.
It's a tiered bonus.
You can earn up to 60,000 World of Hyatt points,
40,000 World of Hyatt points after spending $3,000
in the first three months and then if you spend
$6,000 in the first six months,
you can get another 20,000 World of Hyatt points.
This card also has some pretty good ongoing benefits
of having the card if you stay at Hyatt Hotels.
The first one and a lot of hotel credit cards
are rolling out is a free night at Hyatt Hotels
every year that you have the card and if you spend
$15,000 or more on the card each year,
then you actually get another free night
at Hyatt Hotels so that's a pretty good benefit
of just having the card and putting
a little bit of spend on it.
Also it comes with five elite nights that count
to your Hyatt status and you get two more elite nights
to your Hyatt status per every $5,000
that you spend on the card and just by having the card,
you get a little bit of elite status in Hyatt.
It comes with Hyatt Discovery Status
which is the basic status at Hyatt.
The earn on this card, you get four points
on every dollar you spend at Hyatt Hotels.
You get two points in kind of a bunch of odd categories
like restaurants, cafes, airline tickets, fitness clubs,
gym memberships and then $1 on everything else.
The annual fee on this card is $95 every year.
That's a pretty low annual fee for all those benefits,
particularly if you're regular at Hyatt Hotels
which is one of my favorite chains to redeem points for.
The sixth best credit card for travel in 2019
is the CapitalOne Spark Miles for Business card.
This is a new card that was just released
at the end of 2018.
It is a business card so you have to own a business,
be part of a business to apply for this card,
but why is it interesting?
Well because it potentially offers
a 200,000 point signup bonus for getting
the card and meeting the minimum spend.
Now this signup bonus is another one of these
two-tiered signup bonuses.
You get 50,000 points if you spend $5,000 in three months
and then you'll get another 150,000 points
if you spend $50,000 over six months.
If you have a lot of spend that you can put
on the credit card, well then
that will be worth about $2,000.
That's what those points will be worth for
if you redeem them for flights.
Now this earns the CapitalOne's currency
which transfers two CapitalOne point
to 1.5 miles in a variety of different programs
which include 11 different airlines.
None of the big US carriers, but there is a carrier
in Star Alliance, OneWorld and SkyTeam.
So you could transfer there to book
with most of your favorite airline carriers.
Then from an earn perspective,
this card earns two points for every dollar that you spend.
No categories, none of that stuff.
The annual fee is $0 the first year you have the card
and then it's $95 every year after.
The fifth best card for travel in 2019
is the Chase Ink Business Preferred.
This is another business card.
This is with Chase.
It earns points in my favorite travel currency,
Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
We'll talk more about Chase Ultimate Rewards points later
when I get to number one and two cards,
but Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers
to what I consider to be the most widest variety of partners
including Hyatt Hotels, United Airlines,
at least, the places that I like to go
and the things I like to travel a lot in
so I find Travel Rewards to be the most flexible
and valuable currency.
The Chase Ink Business Preferred card
earns a pretty good signup bonus.
80,000 points if you spend $5,000 in the first three months.
From an earn perspective, it earns three points per dollar
spent on travel, internet, phone
and an interesting category, social media advertising.
If you do a lot of advertising on places like YouTube
or Facebook or things like that, you could earn
a lot of points on this card.
There really aren't any ongoing bonuses
for having this card and the annual fee is $95.
I'll point out this one is also business card
so you have to have a business
to apply for it, but you know what?
If you have a blog or a YouTube channel or anything
that earns a little bit of revenue,
well you might consider that a business
for when you apply for these cards.
The fourth best card for travel in 2019
and this one's a mouthful
so I'm just going to read it so I get it right.
It's the Citi Business AA Advantage
Platinum Select World MasterCard.
Wow, that is a mouthful.
American Airlines and CitiBank have a ton
of different American Airlines cards
so it's this particular one.
It's also new for this year.
It has quite a generous signup bonus.
It has 70,000 American Airlines miles
after spending $4,000 within
the first four months of account opening.
Some of the benefits for this card include
a free check bag if you're flying on American Airlines
and a free companion ticket
if you spend more than $30,000.
It also comes with no foreign transaction fees
and by the way, most of the cards on this list
that have an annual fee come with
no foreign transaction fees
so I'm actually not mentioning it on every card
because it's actually such a common benefit.
If you travel a lot and you don't have at least
one card with no foreign transaction fees,
you should make sure you have at least one in your wallet
for when you travel internationally.
You earn two miles per dollar spent
on American Airlines flights, telecommunications,
cable and satellite providers,
rental cars and at gas stations.
The annual fee is $99.
It's waived the first year you have the card.
The third best card for travel in 2019
is the Platinum card by American Express.
This card comes in a lot of different variants.
It comes in a lot of different countries,
so if you're not a US listener, like you're in Canada,
the UK, Australia, chances are,
you can still get this card.
Though the benefits might be
a little bit different in your own country,
the reason you get this card is for the benefits.
The benefits are really good, but it also has
a pretty good signup bonus too
so let's start with the signup bonus.
The signup bonus is 60,000 membership rewards points
after spending $5,000 in the first three months.
Membership rewards points transfer to
17 different transfer partners.
I talked about this earlier about the value
of having a flexible currency.
It's one thing to have points in United or American Airlines
and you have to fly with that airline or that alliance,
but it's so much better to have your currency,
your travel currency or your points
in something that transfers to a lot of different partners
so when you're going to some place like Fiji,
you can find that you can transfer points
into the alliance that you want to redeem flights for.
I won't read the whole list of 17.
I'll just put them right here
so you can see what those 17 transfer partners are.
And in addition to airlines,
it also has three hotel transfer partners.
It'll transfer to choice hotels,
Hilton hotels and Starwood hotels, but I will point out
that I think the airline transfers
for membership rewards are a better value.
With earn perspective, the platinum card earns 5X points
on air travel and prepaid hotels
booked through American Express's website.
One point on everything else.
Okay but now let's talk about the benefits.
The benefits are really amazing.
Starts with a $200 airline credit, similar to the
American Express Gold card that I mentioned earlier.
The way this works, you pick your airline,
Southwest, American, United, whatever,
and then your incidental expenses
get credited back via American Express
up to $200 per calendar year.
It also comes with a credit for Uber.
It's a $200 annual credit for Uber
and that's parceled out per month.
So you get $15 per month to basically use
on Uber rides for free.
You have to use it or lose it, but you can also use
it on UberEats if you're not a big Uber rider
to get Uber for free.
It comes with a Global Entry credit,
$100 that you could use
for Global Entry membership or TSA Pre-check.
Some of the other cards on this list
have that too that I didn't mention.
A new benefit that they've added is
$100 annual credit with Saks Fifth Avenue.
You can buy free stuff on Saks Fifth Avenue
on their website or on their stores.
It comes with a bunch of different status perks
like Hilton Gold, Hertz, Avis, national rental car perks
so you get better treatment at those places,
but my favorite perk is the lounge access
and you get this in two different things.
One, it comes with priority pass.
This is a value of $99 per year
and it gives you basically access
into the priority pass network of lounges
which is thousands of lounges around the world,
but my favorite favorite perk
is the Centurion Lounge access.
American Express runs its own collection of lounges
at a number of airports.
They're called the Centurion Lounge.
The Centurion Lounges are great.
By having this card, you have free access
into the Centurion Lounges
where you get lots of really great food, places to rest
and if you're flying domestically in the US,
I go through San Francisco a lot.
Getting my meal at the Centurion Lounge,
coming and going, I look at that
as about a $20 value each way so that can really add up.
Now this card does have a big annual fee.
It's $550 a year is the annual fee, but if you take a look
at the Uber credit, the travel credit,
the earn, the lounge credit, it can really be worth it
and American Express purchase protection is amazing.
If you buy something on this card and you basically break it
in the first months, American Express
will replace it for free.
My wife, OCGirl, she actually dropped her iPhone
after having it for just a few weeks
and we submitted a claim and American Express credited us
back the entire purchase price for the iPhone
so we could buy a new one after we broke that one.
The second best card for travel in 2019
is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
This is number two, but it's kind of tied with number one.
Both these cards kind of go together.
It depends how much you spend on a card,
but I consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred card
to be the best all-around card
if you're just getting started in this whole game
of miles and points for travel
and if you're gonna get one card,
you don't spend a lot yet,
this is probably the one card you should get.
It has all around a good signup bonus,
all around good spend and all around pretty good benefits
with not too high of an annual fee.
So first let's talk about the signup bonus.
You get 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points
for spending $4,000 in the first three months
of card ownership and if you add an authorized user,
you can get another 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
The annual fee is waived on this card for the first year.
It's $95 every year after.
The earning spend, you earn two points per dollar
on travel and restaurants, one point everywhere else.
Now this is earned in the Ultimate Rewards currency
that transfers to a lot of great travel partners
including Hyatt Hotels, one of my favorite hotels,
which is not a transfer partner
for American Express that I mentioned earlier.
That's one reason why I like these.
I earn a lot of my Ultimate Rewards points
ultimately to redeem at Hyatt Hotels.
The number one best card for travel in 2019.
It's another Chase Sapphire card, but this is
the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
This is a card they've introduced
recently in the last two years.
This is Chase's premium card.
It does have a pretty high annual fee,
but it can earn more points and so if you spend a lot,
then you can earn even more on this card.
But I should mention you can only have one
of these Chase Sapphire cards.
You can't hold both of them currently.
If you currently have both, you can,
but Chase is not allowing you to sign up
for one and the other.
You can switch between the two products,
but you can't get both as new card holders.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve
has a similar signup bonus to the previous one.
50,000 Ultimate Rewards points for spend
in the first three months of card ownership.
Now where this one differentiates itself,
the annual fee is higher.
It's $450 every year, but it comes with
a $300 travel credit and they're very generous
with the categories they consider travel.
There's a lot of different things they consider travel
and it's much like that
American Express credit I talked about.
Basically you buy something they consider travel
and they rebate it right back to you.
It also comes with a $100 Global Entry
or TSA Pre-check credit, pretty similar to some other cards
I mentioned before and it comes with that same priority pass
membership that I talked about in American Express
except the Chase version has unlimited guests.
So if you have a big family, you can bring them all into
the lounge with you as you go in.
So the other big differentiation between this card
and the Preferred card is the earn.
The Preferred card earns
2X points on travel and restaurants.
This card earns 3X points on travel and restaurants.
So three points for every dollar spend.
So if you spend more than $12,000 a year on travel
and restaurants, travel being a really broad area,
then you'll definitely make your money back
on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
A few honorable mentions.
There's a whole bunch of other cards
that are like these rotating category cards.
Chase Freedom is an example of it that earns
like 5X points in certain categories.
Those can be pretty good,
but they're usually limited circumstances
so I didn't include any of those
rotating category cards in this list.
You know, I also have other cards
in my wallet not on this list
like the United Card, the Marriott Card.
I keep them for some of the benefits.
That's probably for another video and finally,
if you're struggling with this.
Chris, the minimum spend on these cards is huge,
well I have a tip for you.
There's this new service called Platiq.
It's plastic with a Q and it's basically
a website that allows you to use your credit card
to pay for things that you ordinarily
couldn't use a credit card for.
So for example, you have a mortgage,
you have a Home Owner's Associate,
you have utility bills that only accept
like a check for payment, well you can use Platiq,
give them your credit card and they will send them a check.
It's a great way to meet your minimum spend
with those bills that you already pay.
If you want to check out Platiq,
I have a link in the description below.
You'll get 500 fee-free dollars for using it.
I'll get a few fee-free dollars if you use that link too
which I will definitely appreciate, but check out
Plastiq to help you meet that minimum spend.
Well I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you like this video, you might also enjoy
watching this video which has a whole bunch more content
and tips about using credit cards to help you
maximize your travel rewards.
It's basically the advanced companion to this video.
So I won't say goodbye
because I'll see you right over there.