Travel Credit cards are hands down some of the most valuable type of credit cards to ever exist. Things such as free airport lounge access free Hotel upgrades free business class flight tickets, free travel insurance even free car insurance are just a few commonly added benefits of what makes these cards so useful. Now, whether you only take one trip per year or you're someone who flies out almost every single month, there are a ton of great credit card offers that are here out right now, but it might not be around for too long. So ladies and gents in this video, let's go over some of the best travel credit cards that you need to have before this year. I'll also be giving you the exact updated formula on which cards are right for you in what order you should get it, and I'll be giving you not only the blueprint but the strategy and also the credit score on what you need to have in order to get approved. Keep in mind with credit cards, just because you want a card and you apply doesn't mean you'll always get approved. They do still need to go ahead and approve your application, but we'll be going over some of the rules and things to look out for for this year. Now the first credit card on this list. Believe it or not, this is gonna to be at the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Now the reason for this is because this is actually one of the best low annual fee great starter travel credit cards. So the Chase Sapphire preferred you'll earn 5x total points on any airfare or travel purchase, the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, and 2x points on any other travel purchases. Now with this card, you can also find that you get three x points back on dining including delivery services and takeout. You'll also get 3x points on online grocery store purchases. You'll get 3x points on select streaming services, and one point per dollar spent on all other purchases. Now, although this card is considered to be a very great card for frequent Travelers, it is still amongst one of the best well-rounded card for any individual too. A few additional benefits from the Chase app I Preferred include an annual 50 Hotel credit, a no foreign transaction fee, and also you're provided with great travel and purchase coverage. Now this card here I would say is number one just because I Know that most people who get into the credit card game are going to start off with the chase. Trifecta So this card here is going to pair up pretty well with most people set up. If any of you guys have gotten into the credit card game, you'll know that the Chase Freedom unlimited or the Chase Freedom Flex are some of the most valuable cards that everyone should be carrying. In addition to that, the Chase Sapphire Preferred allows you to get into the travel credit cards without having to commit to a huge annual fee. Now this also opens a door for you to still go towards the American Express route where you have access to the Platinum card or it allows you to go to the route of the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Now keep in mind ladies and gents with this card though, there are certain exceptions that you need to know about. So first of all, one of the major rules that is going to affect just a lot of people is called the 5 A 24 Rule with Chase And this is where if you've opened five or more credit card accounts with any issuer in the past 24 months or two years, you'll run into an issue where you get automatically denied with Chase. Now there are certain exceptions with this rule, like if you applied for some business credit cards, it actually does not count towards the 5 24 rule. Meaning if you you apply for three business cards and you applied for three personal cards, you wouldn't be six over twenty four, you would actually still be 3 over 24. meaning that you still have two more slots for personal credit cards. On top of that, there is also something called the Sapphire card rule. So if you already hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve or you already held the Chase Sapphire preferred before, you cannot get approved for a welcome bonus on either one of those cards in the last 48 months. Also on top of that, if you are a fan of both the Chase Staff I preferred and the reserve, you're gonna have to pick one because you cannot hold both cards at the same time. A lot of people also assume if you start with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and you want the Chase Sapphire reserve, the best thing to do is to product change or upgrade your card into that. If you do that, you're not going to be eligible for that new card holder bonus, which is actually something that you really want to be careful about because when you sign up for a new card, when you get the welcome bonus, that is exactly when you'd find yourself getting a huge incentive. Now the Chase app I Preferred is going to give you a welcome bonus offer. at the time of filming this video of 60 000 bonus points if you spend four thousand dollars is within the first three months of account opening. So sixty thousand points one to one if you don't know, is about six hundred dollars cashback when redeemed through the Chase Ultimate travel portal, you're actually going to be getting a 25 boost so that sixty thousand dollars is going to be worth 750 in travel to get approved for this card. I Highly recommend you guys to have a score of at least 700, but data points have shown people with a score lower than that getting approved around the 680 range. If you guys are just getting started out or you find that this card is very viable for your situation, this is what I would recommend you to do. Get the Chase app I preferred wait about two years before product changing to the no annual fee Chase Sapphire card or product changes to the Chase Freedom Card and then apply separately for the Chase Sapphire Reserve. If you are determined and dedicated within the Chase ecosystem, it's one of the few strategies that also allows you to maximize the benefits of the chase. Trifecta I Do also want to make note that it often times is just so much better to find a way to apply for card and get the welcome bonus because if you product change oftentimes you will not get a welcome bonus there. Now the second credit card on this list might come at a bit of a surprise because it's not an issuer that I normally consider as a top dog. Contender But boy oh boy have they stepped it up for this year. So far now this year is going to be the Capital One lineup of cards, more specifically within their Venture set. Why have I gone ahead and added the Capital One Venture lineup to the list of some of the best travel cards for this year? Well let me go through it. So Capital One Works off of the Visa Network meaning it's accepted pretty much almost everywhere, even including Costco which is somewhere I've been doing a lot more shopping at since I Moved into this new home and I realized man having a lot of my AmEx cards as my primary driver. It becomes a little bit of an issue when I'm shopping at places such as Costco. On top of that, there is no foreign transaction fees with their cards. you also get car rental insurance, you get extended warranty, and last but not least, you get a very solid welcome bonus that a lot of people often neglect. So ladies and gents. Even on your screen, you'll notice that within the Venture lineup you have a ton of great choices. So if you're someone who doesn't have the best credit, or if you're someone who doesn't want to pay a huge annual fee or you're someone who doesn't travel a lot or you are someone who travels a lot I mean they got about four different great variety of options for you to give you an idea of what I personally go for. I'm looking more towards a Capital One venture or even the Venture X just because of the revamp and the benefits that they've added. This is more specifically geared towards the Venture X, but I Do know that a lot of people are more conservative these days on that higher annual fee, especially when you have a lot more credit cards. so the Venture one card is going to give you some of the least benefits, while the Capital One Venture X is going to give you things such as earn unlimited 10x miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One travel. you can also earn about 5x miles on flights, book through their portal, and you can earn unlimited 2x miles on all other purchases. While you can also find that the Capital One Venture Card where you can earn unlimited five miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars, book their capital and travel and you can earn a limited two miles per dollar on every purchase. the Capital One Venture one also has no annual fee, but it's going to give you 20 000 at bonus miles as a welcome bonus incentive where you can earn an unlimited 1.25 miles per dollar on every purchase. Now the Venture and the Venture X are going to also give you a 100 credit for Global Entry or TSA pre-check The Venture is also going to give you two complimentary visits per year to Capital One lounges or to 100 plus locations through their partner Lounge Network. Or if you travel a lot, it's going to be way more worth it to enjoy unlimited complimentary access for you and two guests to 1300 airport lounges including Capital One lounges and their partner Lounge Network. So the Capital One Venture Card is gonna cost you a 95 annual fee, while the Venture X is going to be 395 dollars. keep in mind, the Venture X is actually pretty comparable right now to some of the higher tier luxury travel credit cards like the Chase Sapphire reserve and also the Amer American Express Platinum but it comes to you at a fraction of the annual fee cost through the first year. benefits of even the Capital One Venture X card I mean 75 000 bonus miles 300 Capital One travel credit 10 000 miles anniversary bonus And then also if you need TSA pre-check or global entry and you get 100 credit to that too, you can find yourself getting pretty decent Roi Just in the first year of card ownership. now these cards are pretty solid. but I Do need to mention that there are like everything. Some disadvantages as well and you have to note that with this card, even though you're earning two miles per dollar, each mile is worth about one penny. But if you redeem your miles for cash back, you're pretty much cutting the value in half where you're getting about 0.5 cents per mile. Now, between the Capital One Venture cards, it depends on which one you're going for. The higher the annual fee is, the higher credit score should be in order to get approved. So the key with either one of these four cards within the Capital One Venture lineup is that in order to get maximum redemption or find a lot of value holding these cards, you need to put in a little bit of work to see what transfer your partners are giving you the most amount of Roi back I Also believe that the Capital One setup is also good for anyone who's late game into credit cards, someone who's a bit more seasoned. You've been in this space for the last five to ten years and you've never touched. Capital One This is a viable open door card, meaning that if you've exhausted all your options with Amex Chase and all the other contenders, Capital One is definitely going to be an area where you can spend some more money, accrue those points and then get even more value. So the third credit card on this list this one here is a no annual fee option, but it serves not only as a great all-around and what I claimed also to be one of the best credit cards of 2023, but it's also what I consider to be one of the best travel credit cards with no annual fees. and this is because you get 2x on travel, 3x on dining. It has amazing Transfer Partners Like amazing, amazing, super amazing. When I say amazing or certain words more than once, just know that it is really good. This year is going to be the built. MasterCard Now normally this is a card that is super well known where if you pay it rent, you can actually use this card without having to pay a transaction fee. On top of the benefit of paying rent without a fee, you also get car rental insurance, cell phone protection insurance, and like I mentioned earlier, you get multiple Transfer Partners including American Airlines and Hyatt Personally, for me, those are two huge partners that I maximize a lot. So in order to get approved for this card I'd Highly recommend you guys to have at least a 680 credit score. And it's also worth noting if you're someone who does the occasional travel or you're not married to the idea that you know you want to be traveling every single year, every single month, this card here is still that go-to card where you can find a bit more value in that travel category. You can get your cash back and transfer it to a lot of the partners when you do decide. okay I want to pick up traveling a bit more and find it's a lot easier than you think it would be. No annual fee, no commitment I Mean this is a card that is solid and if you're also someone who pays apartment rent, this is a no-brainer here. If you guys want to check out something like the built MasterCard definitely check out the video that I made on it a few weeks back. So the fourth credit card here on this list. This is actually one of my favorite go-to travel credit cards. This is the big heavy hitter and this is the American Express Platinum Card. So the AMX Platinum is going to give you 5x back on flights booked directly with Airlines or through the American Express Travel portal, 5x back on hotels prepaid on that same travel portal and then One X back on everything else. That fee that you pay every single year is going to be 695 dollars, but I will mention it is actually fairly easy to recoup a lot of that value, especially within that first year of card ownership. Actually I got two of my cards, I Got a personal and a business card. So before the pandemic, the general welcome bonus offer for this card was sitting at around 60 000 points. Now, if you were personally targeted for an increased offer, you could see anywhere from 75 000 to even a hundred thousand points. Now Ladies and gents, there are some pretty solid welcome bonus offers that exist right now where before you would have to spend all this cash within a three month period. But even now they allow you to spend it within a six month time period and you're getting almost even double what the current welcome bonus was just a few years back. Now, the insane part about this card is that you're getting about 1250 worth of cash if you're able to find the highest welcome bonus of at least 125 000 Mr points. But they're also going to be giving you even more benefits than that. So if you utilize all of the current credits on the personal Platinum Card I've calculated to be over fifteen hundred dollars, which is double the price of the current annual fee, not even including that welcome bonus offer. With doing just a bit more math and adding up those credits, you'll find that in the first year, you're getting a cash value of 2 750 just by holding one of these cards. Not only that, but there are things that are a bit more harder to quantify with American Express such as having access to the American Express, Travel booking portal, or even the fine Hotel and Resorts website. Some of the neat little perks with this is that you get a room upgrade. upon arrival. you get free daily breakfast for two people. You get four pm checkout which is so, so nice. and on top of that, you can get additional spa or food credits completely for free. Not only that, but American Express is known to have the best customer support service I Can attest to that I've lost items I've had things get stolen I've had uh, just false purchases placed on my account and American Express takes care of it very, very well. expanding. Outside of that, I've also gone special event invitations that you guys would all get if you are a card member for this product and you also get things such as automatic Marriott Bomboy Gold Elite set is Hilton Honors Gold status where this can also open up a whole other world called Status Match Hacking where you can also find yourself going to like casinos or Resorts and getting something like this. this is a Caesar's Diamond rewards card and I can tell you I I don't Gamble and I've never stayed I don't remember staying at a Caesar's reward. just know that it's I haven't stayed enough for me to even remember the last time I stayed at one. but I got one of these cards and that's actually by fully utilizing the benefit of this card right here. So there's a lot you can do with credit cards. Now, the American Express Platinum Card is clearly not meant for anyone who's a beginner. So if you're trying to just get into the credit card game you don't travel, this is not a card meant for you. But if you're someone who does travel, you do appreciate lounge access. You appreciate having a little bit of prestige in that wallet, then this is a card that I highly recommend you to pick up now to get proof for this card. I Highly recommend you to have a credit score of at least 720 and I think anything less than that is gonna be a little bit hard to actually get approved. The biggest downside to this card is definitely the high annual fee and you also have to rely lies that in order to get all that value you need to be someone who spends at certain places or go out your way to set reminders in order to make sure that you do get your Roi back. The annual fee is pretty crazy because before it was at 550 and then last July 1st they did decide to bump it up. It is worth mentioning though that the American Express Platinum Card is hands down one of the most valuable cards in my wallet. It is something that has brought me outsized value even in comparison to that annual fee. and especially if you're someone who travels I would say even just a few times per year, if you know how to maximize the benefits on this, you can really make sense of what it offers. So last but not least, Number Five actually fits in with almost the next three cards and this is going to be within the co-branded card lineup. So a co-branded credit card is a credit card that works alongside another company in order to build a bit more card loyalty. Examples of this is like the World of High Card they actually collaborated here with Chase in order to come out with this card where if you have it, you get a bit more benefits by staying at their property. Now for anyone who is new to the points and Miles travel game I Highly recommend that instead of staying at like a new property every single time, try to stay loyal to one for me. I Know that Marriott has some of the biggest footprint all across the Us, but I Personally have loved the Hyatt lineup. So one of the first few co-branded cards that I got was a world of high Credit card and it has been truly amazing. The benefits of this are simple. it's just the fact that if you get a card like this, you'll pay a low annual fee. this is 95 a year, but it also gives me benefits a welcome bonus. And on top of that, it also gives me a free Hotel night. Now some of those Hotel nights could be worth 200 or even more depending on where I stay and what type of season it is. but if I'm paying 95 and I'm getting a 200 room, you'll notice benefit is still right there. Aside from the high lineup, you're actually going to have a few choices now instead of Airline cards. I stick more primarily towards Hotel cards just because I find it's a lot easier to justify that annual fee. So Marriott has worked together alongside not just Chase but American Express So you're gonna have a wide variety of different cards that you can apply for. One of the credit cards that I got a few years back was the Marriott Bonvoy at Business Credit Card with American Express it's 125 annual fee. Very straightforward. You get 75 000 Marriott Bonvoy points. You can use that towards a future hotel stay or if you wanted to, you can go towards the chase lineup of what their cards offer and they have the Bonvoy Bountiful they have the Bonvoy Bold And They also have the Bonvoy Boundless Depending on which card you want to get, one of them is going to have a higher annual fee of 250 dollars which is the Bonboy Bountiful card. Or you're going to be seeing that the Marriott Bonboy Boundless card is going to give you a 95 annual fee now depending on what travel habits you have as an individual, that's going to determine which credit card you should pick up depending on even also the Loyalty of the hotel brand that you decide to go with. Even though you should aim to build loyalty, it doesn't hurt you at all in order to have more than one of these credit cards because if I'm just holding a world of higher credit card, I can always book a hotel room too. And if a friend wants to stay somewhere and use up that free credit, that right there gives value to someone that I care about as well. On top of that, we also have the Hilton lineup of cards where we have the Hilton Honors American Express card, we have the Hilton Honors Sir pass Guard and we have the infamous Hilton Honors Aspire card. Out of all these three, my favorite definitely is the Hilton Aspire card. And that's because one of the dream destinations at almost I feel like everyone has on their bucket list is the Bora Bora area. It's where you got those little cute Huts sitting on the middle of the ocean and you can actually take advantage of staying there at a huge discounted price or even for free if you are a card holder of the Hilton Honors Aspire card. So that card also carries a 450 annual fee. But you're also gonna be finding that you get a hundred fifty thousand Hilton Honors bonus points after you spend four thousand dollars in purchases on the card in the first three months of card ownership. On top of that, you'll also find that I G has their own line of cards. They have the Ihe Rewards Premiere the Ihe Rewards Traveler, and the IHG Rewards Premier business credit card with even the rewards. Premiere You can find that you get 140 000 bonus points after spending three thousand dollars in purchases in the first three months of card ownership. Now Hotel points don't work exactly like regular credit card points do, or these act more one-to-one You'll notice that if you have like 2 million Marriott Bonboy points, those two million points are not going to be worth something like twenty thousand dollars something crazy in cash. It would actually be worth much less than that just because they inflate the value of their hotel points, making it seem like they're worth a lot more so 140 000 IH points I would be impressed if you're able to get even more than three nights of free stay. But just keep in mind if you are able to find good discounts or Partnerships or promotions at a specific time, you could essentially find yourself extending the value of those 140 000 points which would initially be much less so. Ladies and gents, those are are going to be some of the best travel credit cards that you need to have within your wallet. 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