Episode 04: How to Choose Which Travel Credit Card to Apply

In the last episode I discussed the difference between airline branded credit cards and generic bank travel credit cards. In this episode we will go over which of those travel credit cards to apply.

Before we get into deciding which credit cards to apply, I wanted to discuss people's misconceptions or fears regarding FICO score (credit card score) when applying to cards. Generally, if you have a credit score of 750 or above, you’ll more than likely get approved for the credit card you apply for. But worst case scenario, even if you didn't get approved for a card, it doesn’t hurt to call customer service to get an explanation. Sometimes, they just need some extra information when you just call in and then you just get approved. Sometimes they may want to ask if you would like higher credit limit or as simple as just verifying your address.

If you have a credit score that's probably around 600 or above, it might be a hit or miss chance of you getting approved. Any credit scores below 600, it might be a bit tough. So this travel hacking strategy really doesn't work well if you don't have a credit score of at least 700 or above is what I recommend.

A lot of people also had questions regarding if you applied and cancelled credit cards if that process really hurts your credit score. Your credit score does go down slightly, but it only goes down at most five points for each credit card you open and cancel.

The one thing that you really need to focus on here is making sure that you pay off your monthly credit card statement!

Please please please do that. That is the biggest disclaimer that I'm going to put out there. If you do not and cannot pay off your monthly credit card statement, then stop listening to this and don't do what I'm saying. By having to pay off the interest on the credit card due to late payments is totally going to negate any benefits that you would get from getting these points okay. So again I can't emphasize this enough, please pay off your monthly statements on time so that you're not paying more to the banks.

Alright now that I got that disclaimer stuff out of the way, let's just start something easy at least within the United States.

First thing that we want to keep in mind is if your city is a hub for any of the major airlines.

So for example LAX Airport in Los Angeles would be a hub for many of the airlines, United, Delta, American. JFK Airport in New York City is a hub for Jet Blue as well as Delta. Atlanta Airport is a major hub for Delta. Seattle Airport is a major hub for Alaska, San Francisco is a major hub for Virgin America as well as United, Honolulu Airport a major hub for Hawaiian Airlines and so on and so forth. The ones I described isn’t comprehensive list of major hubs, just giving quick examples.

If you're not sure if your city is a hub for in any kind of airline, simply do a Google search for “your airport + airline hub”. Usually a Wikipedia article will pop up on that specific airport, and then on the right hand side, list the airlines that consider that airport it’s hub, or focus city.

The major US legacy carriers is United, American, Deltas.

Mid-tier carriers I consider include Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines, etc.

Low cost airlines include JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit Airlines, Frontier, etc.

For example let's say one of you guys out there lives near Newark International Airport. The major hub for that airport is United. So one of the clear cards obviously to get is the airline branded card the Chase United Airlines credit card.

But a second card option to consider is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. That's also by the same bank as well but it's a generic bank credit card, and then these points can on the backside be then transferred to your United account if you choose not to redeem them through the Chase Sapphire Preferred flight search aggregator on the backside of card account.

Let’s say you're in Atlanta then it would make sense for you to get the Delta Airlines AMEX card, Gold or Platinum.

If you are brand new, just start with one card. And then apply to consecutive cards. I have gotten questions to me asking: well how many cards can I apply to?

It's really dependent. Banks issuing credit cards have nowadays made more strict rules and included the maximum number of credit cards that can be applied within a timeframe, but it’s still possible to apply too two to three cards and can actually get approved on all of them.

Again if you are just starting out with this travel hacking thing, just start with applying with one card just to get comfortable with how it all works. When you do apply to these cards and then get approved it usually does take about seven to ten business days for them to make the cards and actually mail them out to you, and then once they're mailed out you want to call and verify to get the card activated.

How do I best maximize spend without having to needlessly spend on things to achieve the credit card spend minimum?

What I always like to do and this is a side tip is whenever I apply to the cards I tried to plan them right around times when I'm going to have to spend a lot. So I try to time them around when bills come in. This includes rent, utility bills, car insurance, and much more!

In the next episode I will give some tips on how to maximize your personal lifestyle spending to achieve these minimum spend requirements.

I hope this episode helps you out with figuring which travel credit cards to apply to based on your current home airport and then your wish-list destination airports. Again, figure out the major airline hubs or focus cities and then apply to credit cards based on those airlines.

_______________________