Best Travel Credit Cards and Points Earning Strategies During the Pandemic

With travel practically halted, you may be wondering what you can do to earn cash back, miles or points to book future travel. Good news: There are credit cards and earning strategies to increase your balances even while you are not in the air or on the road.

During normal travel times, co-branded credit cards that pay points with a specific airline or hotel group are a great way to earn award travel. But now that travelers are mostly grounded, award programs operated by banks and financial services companies are worth a second look. The programs of Chase Bank, American Express and others let you earn points you can redeem for travel or other rewards directly through the program. Or you can transfer your points to airline, hotel or other travel partners. Here you can find information about which airlines and hotels partner with any of four popular programs:

Each of these programs offers credit cards tailored to different types of users. Look for cards with high earn rates in “bonus categories” that pay you extra points for shopping at specific types of merchants, like gas stations and supermarkets. Then simply align your spending on credit cards that have high point earn rates for those spend categories, and you will continually earn cash back or points to book future award travel.

The Capital One Miles program is relatively new among transferable points programs. Unlike Chase and Citi, whose points transfer to partners at a 1:1 ratio, Capital One Miles transfer to most airline partners at a 2:1.5 ratio.

The Citi ThankYou Rewards program offers a limited number of credit cards that pay transferable ThankYou points.

One of the more well-known Citi ThankYou cards is the Citi Premier℠ Card, a premium card, earning 5x points on dining and airfare. Also popular is the Citi Prestige® Card, which pays 5x points on restaurants and travel.

Another Citi credit card to keep on your radar is the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer. Until recently, this card earned only cash back, but thanks to some recent changes, you can now turn your cash-back rewards into Citi ThankYou points, which you can then transfer to any of Citi’s partner airline programs.

Like American Express, Chase continues to push the envelope with its personal and business credit cards. It can be argued that the Chase Ultimate Rewards® program has the most well-rounded lineup of credit cards that earn transferable points.

Chase personal credit cards to consider applying for are the Chase Sapphire Reserve® or the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. You are not able to apply for both. Of these two cards, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card could be a good choice if you are new to earning transferable points.

The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card is the lone Chase business card that earns transferable points. This card earns 3x points on cable, internet and phone services, travel, shipping, and social media and search engine advertising purchases.

Similar to Citi, you can earn cash back with Chase cards and convert the cash into Chase Ultimate Rewards® points. To make these conversions, you must be a Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card holder.

Personal cash back cards to consider applying for are the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, which offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases, and the Chase Freedom®, which offers cardmembers 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in purchases in rotating quarterly bonus categories like gas stations and grocery stores.

Business owners can also take advantage of cash back to points conversions. The Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card earns 1.5% cash back on all transactions. Think of this card as the business equivalent of the Chase Freedom Unlimited®. Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card holders earn 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent on cell phone, landline, internet and cable TV services, and at office supply stores.

Before you do any online shopping, consider using a shopping portal to earn additional cash back, miles or points on your spend. If you are not focused on earning specific airline miles or credit card points, Cashback Monitor is a great place to see what your earning potential is across myriad merchants.

Cashback Monitor is a helpful website that shows your cash back, miles and points-earning options at merchants you are looking to use. Enter the merchant you want to shop in the top left “Search Store Here” field and Cashback Monitor shows your cash back, airline and credit card points-earning options.

For example, let’s say you want to shop at Lululemon. After you search for Lululemon, Cashback Monitor shows the highest-earning cash back, travel miles/points, credit card points and other rewards points options. Simply click through to your preferred option and you will earn rewards on your purchase.

Earning cash back when you shop is ideal for travelers who do not want to deal with airline award charts or transferring credit card points to airline or hotel loyalty programs. Examples of shopping portals, among the many that are available, include Mr. Rebates and TopCashback.

Many airlines have shopping portals, which let you earn miles by shopping hundreds of big-name and specialty retailers online. Just register with the shopping portal then start at its website to navigate to the store you want to shop. You’ll automatically earn miles when you make a purchase. Airline shopping portals include:

There are several credit card portals where you can pad your credit card point balance when you shop. You must be a cardmember with a card that earns points in order to earn additional credit card points. Examples of credit card portals include:

Rakuten is a hybrid portal option that allows you to earn either cash back or points. This website previously was strictly a cash back portal. In 2019, Rakuten opened up the option to earn American Express Membership Rewards points in addition to cashback. For example, a merchant that used to offer 1% cash back now offers 1% cash back or 1 AmEx point per $1 on your purchase.

American Express, Chase, Delta Airlines, Hilton Hotels and other loyalty programs offer unique ways to earn points or miles. American Express and Chase have what are called AmEx and Chase Offers, respectively. Enroll your points-earning card in an offer and you can earn additional points when you make a purchase with a select merchant.

Chase, Delta and Hilton partner with Lyft. By linking your loyalty program accounts with your Lyft account, you earn additional Chase, Hilton or Delta SkyMiles on Lyft rides. Delta also partners with Airbnb to let you earn SkyMiles with your Airbnb spending.

The United MileagePlus X app is an interesting way to earn United Airlines miles. Use the app for your online shopping and you will earn miles shopping at select merchants.

Now is a great time to earn cash back, miles or points. By choosing the right credit card or taking one or two extra steps before you shop, you can build the points and miles balances in your accounts. When travel opens back up, you will be well-positioned to book your next trip.

All information about The Platinum Card® from American Express, American Express® Gold Card and American Express® Green Card, Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card, Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card, Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, Chase Freedom® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® has been collected independently by NerdWallet. The Platinum Card® from American Express, American Express® Gold Card and American Express® Green Card, Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card, Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card, Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, Chase Freedom® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® are no longer available through NerdWallet.

The information related to Citi Premier℠ Card and Citi Prestige® Card has been collected by NerdWallet and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service.

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