Best travel credit cards for July 2021 – CNET [CNET]

After a long year of feeling stir-crazy during the pandemic, a lot of us are getting the travel bug. And now that travel is safer in parts of the world, those of us with wanderlust are beginning to plan that big 2021 vacation to make up for all the time spent at home. If you’re planning your next absolutely epic trip, we have a suggestion: Apply for a travel credit card.

Membership for this type of rewards card has some pretty great benefits. These cards come with some of the highest reward rates out there — every time you use one, even just at the gas station or grocery store, the points you accumulate can be used toward a future travel purchase. A travel rewards card also comes in handy for travel perks such as priority boarding, airport lounge access, first-class upgrades for frequent travelers, TSA Precheck and Global Entry statement credits and exclusive rental car and hotel benefits. 

So if you want to start racking up points that will be useful down the road, it’s time to start looking into the travel perks offered by the best travel credit cards. Or if you already have a travel rewards card, you might want to take stock of what it offers, since there could be better rewards out there. Below, you’ll find our picks for the best travel credit cards.

Read more: Airline cards vs. travel credit cards: Which one’s better for you

In the table below, we’ve broken down the key features of each card to help you determine the best travel credit card for you.

A note on airline credit cards

After considerable back and forth, we chose not to recommend a best airline credit card as part of this list. The travel cards highlighted above will get you better point redemption value overall and will most often be your best option as a primary travel card, since you’ll earn points from a variety of airlines. Some airline credit cards, however, can be valuable for certain spending habits, such as if you always fly with one airline and usually check bags, and can therefore be worth their low annual fees (usually less than $100) for some people. 

Choosing the best airline credit card (co-branded or not) is subjective based on your loyalty to any particular airline. The value of perks like priority boarding, seat upgrades, lounge access and airline status varies depending on which airline you’re loyal to and how often you travel. People often choose an airline credit card based on which airlines operate hubs at their nearby airport.

Even if you stick to one airline for all your flights, co-branded cards are tricky when it comes to extracting value. For example, the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard from Bank of America offers 3x Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles on Virgin purchases, and 1. 5x Flying Club miles on all other purchases. With The Points Guy’s most recent maximum valuation of 1.5 cents per mile, that means you can get up to 4.5% back on Virgin purchases and 2.5% on everything else, when maximizing the value of those points. Given the difficulty of finding a perfect redemption for a specific flight, we don’t expect many users to maximize the redemption value every time. 

Those rewards rates are decent, but remember that you can only redeem those miles with a short list of airline partners, and you’ll rarely get top redemption value. Also, the best redemptions are often transcontinental flights in business or first class, such as booking a $4,000 round-trip ticket for $2,000, which is a good deal but not relevant for most American consumers. Finally, since you’re only getting the top reward rate (3x) when flying with that specific airline, you could potentially be spending more for certain flights than you would bargain hunting. If you want to go from LAX to NYC, for example, and you spend $100 more to fly on your airline of choice, you’re sacrificing a significant portion of the rewards value you generate. 

All that said, if you fly multiple times per month with the same airline, value the status upgrades with a specific airline and could potentially maximize the redemption value with longer flights or upper-class cabins, an airline credit card could be a good option for you. They can also be helpful for occasional loyalty fliers who would like to see the checked baggage fee waived (free checked bags are a common airline card perk), but only when they don’t fly often enough to justify the high fee of a premium travel card. There are also scenarios where it makes sense to have an airline card and a non-co-branded card, but just make sure you’re keeping an eye on annual fees and you’re never letting points or miles expire.

Cards researched

• Platinum Card from AmEx
• Gold Card from AmEx
• Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Chase Sapphire Reserve
• Capital One Venture
• Capital One VentureOne
• Bank of America Premium Rewards
• PenFed Pathfinder Rewards Card
• Uber Visa Card
• BofA Travel Rewards
• Discover It Miles
• Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard
• Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless
• JetBlue Plus
• Alaska Airlines Visa Signature
• United Explorer Card
• Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card
• Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card
• Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card 

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For rates and fees of the American Express Gold Card, click here.

For rates and fees of The Platinum Card from American Express, click here.

Disclaimer: The information included in this article, including rewards program features, program fees and credits available through credit cards to apply to such programs, may change from time to time and are presented without warranty. When evaluating offers, please check the credit card provider’s website and review its terms and conditions for the most current offers and information. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.

The comments on this article are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.