Beyond points, the right travel cards come with perks that make travel meaningfully better and cheaper. These are perks that most cardholders either forget about or don't know how to use.
Lounge access
Cards like the Amex Platinum and Capital One Venture X include Priority Pass membership, which gets you and often a guest into hundreds of airport lounges worldwide. Free food, drinks, comfortable seating, and showers before long flights. We use the lounges constantly.
Travel credits
Essentially free money if you remember to use them. The Amex Platinum offers $200 in airline fee credits annually, and the Capital One Venture X includes $300 in travel credits through Capital One's portal. On high-fee cards, these credits often bring the effective annual cost down to nearly zero.
Primary rental car insurance
Cards like the Venture X let you decline the rental company's coverage, which runs $20 to $30 per day, and let your card cover it instead. On a week-long trip that's $140 to $210 saved without thinking about it.
No foreign transaction fees
Any good travel card should have zero foreign transaction fees. If your card charges them, you're losing 2 to 3% on every international purchase. That adds up fast.
Trip delay and cancellation insurance
Many premium cards cover costs if your flight is delayed or cancelled. This can save hundreds of dollars in hotel and meal costs when things go wrong.
Global Entry and TSA PreCheck credits
Cards like the Amex Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, and Capital One Venture X cover the application fee. These programs make airports dramatically more pleasant and the credits offset a meaningful chunk of each card's annual fee.
The math on high annual fees
A $395 annual fee sounds steep until you account for $300 in travel credits, a Global Entry credit worth $100 every four years, lounge access that replaces $15 airport sandwiches, and primary car rental insurance that saves $25 a day. Most premium cards effectively cost $0 to $50 per year for people who use what they come with.
See the specific cards we use
We cover the exact cards in our wallet, what we like about each one, and what to apply for first on the Credit Cards page.
View the cards we use