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Vacation Smarter With a Top Travel Credit Card

Cover $600 or more* of your next trip with a travel credit card intro offer. Our Nerds have all the info you need to find the smartest card for you.

How Do Travel Credit Cards Work?

These cards pay you points or miles for making both travel and everyday purchases. Once you accumulate enough, you can redeem them for rewards like flights and hotel stays. Here’s some more info on points and miles — and some of the other common benefits of travel credit cards.

Points & Miles

Earn points and miles that you can apply toward your next trip, or potentially even get your TSA PreCheck or Global Entry application fees covered.

Insurance Coverage

Some travel credit cards include coverage for the unexpected, like trip cancellation, trip delay, baggage delay, or lost baggage.

Other Perks

From no foreign transaction fees to airport lounge access, the perks are plentiful when it comes to top travel credit cards.

What To Look For In a Travel Card

Ask yourself the following questions when narrowing down your list of options:

Intro offer

Does the card offer a large number of points or miles after you spend a certain amount in the first few months?

Earning potential

How does the card reward your spending? How much are points or miles worth? Is earning potential unlimited?

Foreign transaction fees

Does the card charge you for making purchases abroad?

NERDY TIP 🤓

To get the most out of your intro offer, apply for a card at least five months before booking your trip so you have time to earn and receive points.

Check Out Our Favorite Cards Today

Easy Earnings, Effortless Redemptions. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers a big intro offer, high rewards and flexible redemption options make this card worth the annual fee.

It's one of the most popular credit cards on the market — and not just because it's one of the most heavily advertised. Unlike the airline-branded cards it was designed to compete against, it pays a high rewards rate on every purchase (not just on travel spending), and you can use its rewards to pay for any travel expense, without any restrictions on when you travel, which airline you fly or which hotel you stay at. Throw in a big intro offer for new cardholders, and it's no wonder this card is a favorite of so many people. If you want travel rewards that are easy to earn, easy to understand and nearly effortless to redeem, you aren't going to find many travel credit cards better than this one.

A Worthy Option Among Premium Cards. While the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card shares the same DNA as the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, it offers key perks that set it ahead of its counterpart. If you’re looking for a travel credit card with an easy-to-understand rewards program and you spend enough per month to offset the annual fee in rewards, this might just be the card for you.

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card If you fly a few times a year, chances are you’ll transit through an airport with a Priority Pass lounge. Holders of the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card get access to the more than 1,300 Priority Pass lounges and restaurants worldwide. Plus, cardholders (and authorized users) will get unlimited access to the new Capital One Lounges that are starting to open in a few domestic airports. And, you could enjoy perks like a 10,000-mile anniversary bonus when you renew your card. That’s worth $100 toward travel (or even more if you strategically transfer to travel partners).

Travel Rewards With a Cash-Back Twist. Frequent travelers or bigger spenders would probably get more value from a card with a higher rewards rate and more perks (and an annual fee). But if you only travel occasionally and want to save on a hefty annual fee, the Discover it® Miles card is a solid choice.

Some travel credit cards give you the option of redeeming your points or miles for cash back rather than travel, but doing so usually means getting a lower value per point. The Discover it® Miles is a noteworthy exception. Each mile you earn with the card is worth 1 cent, regardless of whether you use it to pay for travel or convert it to cash back. The flexible redemption options and unique intro offer make this card a great low-cost alternative.

*Earned rewards estimate based on credit cards that offer introductory promotions of 60,000 points or more. Terms and conditions apply to earn reward benefits. Credit products subject to lender approval. See NerdWallet.com for details.