How to Pick Your First Travel Credit Card

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With so many different credit card options out there it can be overwhelming on which one to open first. We will give you our favorite cards to start with so you can escape from decision paralysis and start earning free travel!

How to Pick Your First Travel Credit Card

There are two travel credit cards that we will recommend over and over again. The are the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

The reasons we love them for beginners!

  • Low fees
  • Always a great sign up bonus
  • Earn flexible rewards

Credit Card Fees

Both of these have an annual fee of $95. If you cringe at the idea of having an annual fee it’s time to switch your thinking. I used to be like this too. Cards with fees have better benefits and perks that make the fee easily pay for itself.

If you really dislike paying the annual fee you always have the option of keeping the card for one year and downgrading it to a free card, but with these two credit cards we don’t recommend this because they are important to transferring points.

Sign Up Bonus

The standard Sign Up Bonus (SUB) for these two cards are Chase Sapphire Preferred is 60,000 points and the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card has a bonus offering 75,000 miles.

The most basic and simple redemption will get you 1 center per 1 mile/point for both of these cards making their SUB worth $600-750.

If you choose to dig in deeper and learn how to transfer the rewards out to hotel and airline partners you can save thousands of dollars!!

Flexible Points

Both of these cards have points or miles that are super easy to redeem and can be used with many different hotel and airline programs. Because they are so flexible and easy to use, Chase Sapphire Preferred rewards and Capital One Venture miles can be put to use by anybody.

Why these first?

The Chase Sapphire Preferred has a redemption rate of 1.25 cents instead of 1 cent unlike other Chase cards, so we love having this in our card portfolio. Plus, you can transfer your other Chase points you accumulate later to this card making them worth more!

The reason we commend getting the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card first is because this bank can be a bit tricky when it comes to rules on approvals and are more likely to approve people who haven’t had any hard credit inquiries or opening any new cards in the past 6 months.

The Deets on the Chase Sapphire Preferred

This was my first card! With the Chase Sapphire Preferred you will earn points referred to as Chase Ultimate Rewards® (URs).

One of the great things is you can transfer URs to 10 airline partners including international partners, plus U.S. domestic carriers like JetBlue, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

The UR points can also be transferred to three different hotel partners. Our favorite hotel transfer partner is Hyatt. I wasn’t a Hyatt fan until I started using points and you just can’t beat their value when it comes to paying for rooms in points. Remember how we said you can get a better than 1 center per point/mile value if you transfer? An example is transferring 25,000 UR points to Hyatt and getting a free night at a hotel in Hawaii that usually costs $600-700 per night!

If you want to start with a basic redemption you can also book free travel using your points through the Chase Travel℠ at a rate of 1.25 cents per dollar. For example, a hotel costs $125 per night and you’d need 10,000 points.

Another reason we love this card is those benefits you get from paying the annual fee of $95. It comes with primary rental car insurance, trip cancellation, interruption or delay coverage and baggage delay coverage.

The Deets on the Capital One Venture Miles

This is the second card we opened on our journey and another favorite starter card. This card is so, so, so easy to use. Miles are earned at a rate of 2 miles/$1 spent.

Capital One Miles can be transferred more than 15 partners, unfortunately none of these are U.S. based. In order to fly domestically you’ll have to book a partner award ticket. This gets a bit more complicated if you are a beginner, but can give you great value.

These miles can also be hotel partners. The one we love as a family that travels is the Wyndham Rewards partnership. This allows you to book Vacasa vacation rentals with miles. The cost is 15,0000 miles per bedroom with a value of up to $350 per night. If it’s two bedrooms the value is up to $700 and would cost 30,000 miles etc. The sweet spot is finding a room bedroom that has a loft with extra beds!

This last one is one of my favorite redemptions options for this card. You can use the card to book your trip and later use the miles to reimburse yourself. This is an amazing feature if you are a Airbnb user etc. For the SUB you could cover $500 worth of travel. I used this when I bought Disney Park Tickets to reimburse myself. You just have to use a 3rd party ticket provider like Undercover Tourist to make sure the charge codes as “travel”. Disney will not code like this!

Another reason we love this card is those benefits you get from paying the annual fee of $95 like $100 statement credit for Global Entry or TSA precheck every four years, rental car and travel accident insurance and two complimentary visits per year to Capital One or Plaza Premium Lounges.

Another Capital One Option!

If you in this for the long haul and totally committed another option is the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card. While we don’t call this a true beginner card because of the $395 annual fee, which is more than most beginners want to pay, it’s a great premium card I wanted to mention. I has high end perks that easily pay for itself like $300 travel credit if you book travel through the Capital One Travel portal, 10,000 bonus miles on your anniversary, and lounge access to Capital One Lounges, Priority Pass, and Plaza Premium.

Applying for your first card

Now that you choose your first card it’s time to apply! We recommend having at least a 700+ credit score, ideally 750+. You can check it for free on Experian. Remember you also need to follow our basic rules of paying off the card in full every month. If you don’t do this the travel is no longer free because you are paying high interest rates on your balances.

Tip: If your spouse is going to start opening cards as your Person 2 (P2) do not add him as a authorized user since it will count towards their 5/24 status.

Complete Sign Up Bonus

After you get the card, we recommend messaging them to overnight the card after approval so you can start using it faster, it’s time to meet your minimum spending to earn your bonus points.

Tips for Meeting Minimum Spend

  • Use it for all of your regular spending
  • If you know a big bill is coming it’s the ideal time to open a new card
  • Add it to your Apple Pay or Google Pay account, plus your spouses so they can use it
  • Switch any auto pays like utilities, subscriptions etc. to this card
  • Add it as your default payment online

After you hit the SUB

If you have a player 2 it’s time to refer them to the same card so you can get referral points and they can get the same SUB as you. A quick and easy way to double up on points.

If you don’t have a partner then you can sign up for your next card, maybe the one you didn’t choose. We recommend waiting at least 30 days, but recommend 90 days between sign ups.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

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 section below is 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 questions are answered.

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