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Having all the best travel credit cards has allowed our family to save close to a million dollars on luxury travel by using points and miles to travel for pennies on the dollar. With so many travel reward credit cards to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know which one is right for you. The question we hear most often from people who want to learn how to travel with points and miles is “What is the best travel credit card for beginners?” We also hear “What travel reward credit card should I get first?”
The best travel credit card we recommend for starting out is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. This credit card is widely regarded among points travel experts as the #1 travel reward credit card for beginners. However, even experienced points travelers like us still keep this card because of all the great advantages it offers.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is one of the best travel credit cards on the market thanks to the high value and flexibility of Chase Ultimate Rewards. This card is a must-have for anyone just beginning to dip their toes into the world of points and miles. With a generous sign-up bonus, bonus points on travel and dining out, and the ability to earn valuable transferable points, the Chase Sapphire Preferred deserves a place in your wallet.
Chase Sapphire Preferred: Best travel credit card for beginners
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is ideal for travelers because it includes many travel protections and benefits with a reasonable annual fee of $95. The card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards, which are widely regarded as one of the most valuable points currencies available. The card earns 5 points per dollar on travel booked through Chase Travel℠, 3 points per dollar on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery purchases (excluding Walmart, Target and wholesale clubs), 2 points per dollar on travel booked outside Chase Travel℠, and 1 point per dollar on everything else. The card also earns 5 points per dollar on Lyft purchases through March 2025.
This card also includes a $50 annual credit toward a hotel stay booked through Chase Travel℠. Cardmembers also receive an annual bonus of 10% of their spend on their card anniversary. So if you spent $50K on your card that year, you’d receive a 5,000 point bonus on your card anniversary. There’s also a free year of DoorDash DashPass that you must activate to use.
Chase Ultimate Reward points can be redeemed through Chase Travel℠ for travel, which is very easy to do for beginners. The points can also be transferred to one of Chase’s 14 travel partners for flights and hotel stays, which typically allows you to maximize the value of your points. There are so many ways to use Chase Ultimate Rewards, from simple to more complex, once you master transferring points.
Generous Sign-up Bonus
The Chase Sapphire Preferred typically has a sign-up bonus of 60,000 points after meeting the minimum spending requirement. See the current offer here.
The sign-up bonus and any points redeemed through spending can be redeemed for travel in Chase Travel℠ at a value of 1.25 cents per point. So a 60K point bonus is worth $750 in travel through the portal, a 75K point bonus is worth $937.50, and an 80K point bonus is worth $1,000 through Chase Travel℠. You can book flights, hotels, cruises, tours, and car rentals through the portal with your points. However, it can be worth even more when transferred to travel partners, which we’ll cover later.
Redeeming Points for Travel through Chase Travel℠
To redeem your points, you must login to your Chase Ultimate Rewards account first. Then you click on “Ultimate Rewards” and “Redeem Rewards”. Select your Chase Sapphire Preferred card (if you have more than one Chase credit card) and click on “Earn/Use” next to your number of points. Click on “Travel” and then begin searching for whatever travel you’d like to purchase. It will show you the amount in dollars and in points.
Chase Travel℠ portal is powered by Expedia and is very easy to use. If a plane ticket or hotel room is available to book with money, it is available to book with points. There are no black out dates or limitations on which airlines or hotels you can book this way. This method is preferred for beginners since it is simple and easy to navigate. Since the point value is tied to the cash price, this method works well for cheap economy plane tickets and hotels that are competitively priced. However, if you are booking luxury travel, you’ll typically want to utilize a transfer partner.
Redeeming Points by Transferring to Travel Partners
The second way to use your points is by transferring them to one of Chase’s 11 airline partners or 3 hotel partners. This is a slightly more advanced tactic that beginners don’t often utilize. Transferring points to travel partners is how we maximize the value of our points for luxury hotel stays and premium cabin flights. Chase’s travel partners include these airlines- Air Canada Aeroplan, British Airways, Flying Blue, JetBlue, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Southwest, United, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus and Iberia. Chase’s hotel partners include World of Hyatt, IHG one Rewards, and Marriott BonVoy.
The best hotel partner for transferring your Chase points is World of Hyatt for hotels since they have an extremely generous award chart allowing for valuable point redemptions. We’ve stayed at luxurious resorts including Park Hyatt Maldives, Andaz Mayakoba, Park Hyatt New York, Andaz Costa Rica, Park Hyatt Tokyo, Park Hyatt Dubai, and many more for free using our Hyatt points. We’ve squeezed outstanding value out of our point redemptions at high-end hotels that would have been very expensive if paying with dollars instead of points.
Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya offers valuable Hyatt point redemptions
One of our preferred airline partners has been United for international travel. We have used United miles to book flights with United’s partners including Lufthansa First Class, Lufthansa Business Class, Air Canada Business Class, Brussels Air Business Class, and many more.
Another airline partner is Air France/KLM Flying Blue, which also offers valuable redemptions. We transferred Chase points to Flying Blue to book Air France Business Class flights to Dubai for our Oman trip. The Business Class tickets for our family of 4 would have set us back $19,400.08 one way but we paid $1,673.56 in taxes and fees and 340,000 Flying Blue miles, saving $17,726.52 in the process. As you can see, the savings can be incredible for luxury family travel.
We transferred Chase points to fly Air France Business Class
Singapore Airlines is another airline partner we’ve flown several times and extracted great value out of our points. It’s also a highly rated airline with one of the best business class products in the airways. Check out our reviews of Singapore Airlines Business Class from Frankfurt to New York, Singapore to Frankfurt, Hong Kong to San Francisco, Singapore to Hong Kong, and Maldives to Singapore.
For domestic travel in the U.S., we prefer Southwest Airlines, another transfer partner of Chase. Southwest offers decent point redemptions, especially when you score a fare on sale. We flew $98 roundtrip to Denver for our Snowmass ski trip, which only cost us $220 for our family of four thanks to our Southwest Companion Passes. We can maximize the value of our Southwest points with our Companion Passes, which allow us to fly our kids for almost free- paying only taxes/fees.
Southwest is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards
Chase Sapphire Preferred Travel Benefits
The Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card comes with fantastic travel benefits including no foreign transaction fees, trip cancellation/interruption insurance, trip delay insurance, baggage delay insurance, lost baggage insurance, roadside assistance, travel accident insurance, travel and emergency assistance, and primary insurance when you rent a car.
We use our Chase Sapphire Preferred for car rentals to save on insurance
The primary rental car insurance alone has saved us thousands of dollars over the years when renting cars on vacation, since car rental insurance can add hundreds of dollars to the rental fee. Typically credit cards will only cover secondary rental car insurance, meaning that if there’s any damage done to your rental car, you have to go through your personal auto insurance first. However, with this benefit you don’t need to involve your car insurance at all. To activate this benefit, you must pay for your rental car (or a portion of it) with your Chase Sapphire Preferred, and then decline the rental car agency’s collision damage waiver coverage. Let me break down the other benefits.
Many credit cards charge a fee when using it internationally, which can add up if you travel abroad frequently. Thankfully the CSP does not charge any fees for transactions made outside the U.S. Trip cancellation allows you to up to $10,000 in insurance for non-refundable prepaid travel expenses if you need to cancel your trip for a covered reason. Trip delay insurance offers $500 per ticket to cover non-reimbursed expenses like meals and hotel stays when your flight is delayed by 12 hours or the delay requires an overnight stay.
Baggage delay insurance offers $100 per day for up to five days to cover travel necessities like clothing and toiletries if your baggage is delayed by 6 hours or more upon arrival to your travel destination (not upon returning home). This benefit covers you and your immediate family, so if your entire family has delayed luggage, that would really add up. If your luggage is lost, the card offers up to $3,000 per person in lost luggage reimbursement.
The card also has travel accident insurance covering up to $500,000 per person for loss of life, limb, sight, or hearing. Thankfully we’ve never needed to use this benefit. There’s also 24/7 roadside assistance if your car breaks down, doesn’t start, you get a flat tire, or you lock your keys in your car. Having assistance without paying an annual membership to AAA is convenient.
Lastly, the Visa Signature Concierge Service is available if you need help getting tickets for events, making reservations at restaurants, suggestions on what to do in a given location, help securing transportation, and more. We’ve actually never used this service, but its nice knowing that it’s available if you need it. The service is available 24 hours/day and the number is on the back of your Chase card.
Additional Perks
The card offers some additional perks that you might utilize to save even more money. The card offers a complimentary one-year DoorDash membership, which gives you free delivery and reduced service fees on eligible purchases.
The card offers purchase protection up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per account if an eligible item you purchased within the past 120 days is damaged or stolen. There’s also an extended warranty protection which offers an extra year of warranty on eligible purchases with a manufacturer’s warranty of 3 years or less. You’ll need to save your receipts to take advantage of these benefits, but they could save you a lot of money if an expensive electronic device (like a smart TV or phone) breaks after the warranty.
Last thoughts on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred consistently ranks among the best travel reward credit cards (see current offers on our favorites here). It was one of the first credit cards we opened when starting our journey with points and miles. It is the card we recommend most to beginners. We still carry this card because it has so many perks and earns valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards. For a modest $95 annual fee, this card is a keeper year after year.
Check the current offer here to apply for your own card. What would you do with your sign-up bonus? With the standard 60K point sign-up bonus, you could fly business class to Europe, stay 2 nights at the ultra-luxurious Park Hyatt Maldives or stay 3 nights for 2 people at one of Hyatt’s Category B all-inclusive resorts. Alternatively, you could stretch your points further for domestic flights in economy for your family or budget hotel stays. There are so many possibilities. If you’re new to this, welcome to the wonderful world of points and miles!
*Editorial Disclosure-The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are 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.
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