Our choice of credit cards that we have used to get free hotel stays, upgrades to business class, and more.
February 2024: This post has been superseded. Please read our most updated post on upgrading travel with credit cards.
There are a lot of credit card reward programs and some of them have stood out more than others in our experience. I know there are numerous blogs about all of the types of cards and their benefits but I am going to limit this post to our top three that are all travel based rewards. None of these cards charge any foreign transaction fees which is a definite selling point for those who love to experience international travel. All of the cards have various additional benefits not detailed here as I am limiting the perks to those that are travel based.
Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card
Hands down my favorite card. With an annual fee of only $95.00 the Surpass card is well worth the expenditure. The introductory offer is currently at 130,000 points after spending $2000.00 in the first 3 months, which is easily done just shopping for your weekly groceries. As a bonus you'll be getting 6x the points on those grocery purchases.
Hilton Gold
You will automatically get Gold status with Hilton Hotels which will give you such perks as free room upgrades where available, daily food credit or free continental breakfast depending on geographic location, and an 80% bonus on top of the 12x points earned if the credit card is used to pay for the hotel. There are numerous other little perks like free bottled water, spa discounts etc. that round it out nicely.
Hilton Diamond
If you spend $40,000 in a calendar year then you will be bumped up to Diamond status. Diamond status is even better and surprisingly easy to achieve and maintain. Unlike other top tier rewards you don't need to register a certain number of stays to achieve and keep that status. You CAN do so with stays (I believe it is 60 nights in a calendar year) but it is not the only way. This is one of the aspects I love about the card. I use it exclusively for the first half of the year until I've hit the milestone to keep my Diamond status rolling.
Why? The perks of Diamond are awesome! Free upgrades, guaranteed rooms if booked 48 hours ahead, free access to Executive lounges where you can get breakfast, cocktails, etc. and you'll earn a 100% points bonus per stay. You'll have dedicated parking spots that are right by the hotel entrance too.
Admit it, it is nice to feel like you are getting special treatment.
There are a handful of other benefits that accompany the lower tier cards as well like general room discounts, digital keys and check in, and rollover nights. Surprisingly the digital check in and key are one of the things I love about the Hilton Honors reward program. Simply get the App and you'll be able to check in, choose a room, and use your phone as your key without ever having to visit the front desk. I know it may not sound like much but when you are exhausted from travel it is so nice to just be able to skip any check in lines and go straight to your room and crash.
Free Nights
You can book your hotel rooms using the points you've accumulated and, depending on the location, this can be as low as 25,000 points per night. I've used my points to get an entire week for free in an upgraded suite at a Hilton in Helsinki for example. The points I had earned earlier in the year by my stay at an all inclusive Hilton in Bodrum, Turkiye. There was a promotion running through Hilton that got me 15x my points for the entire stay and at the end of it I had enough to pay for my Helsinki hotel. Gotta love being able to use one vacation to pay for the next.
Not to mention that you'll also be earning free nights while you spend. In addition to points, you get a free night for every $15,000 you spend along the way. These all add up. I bank my free rooms and use them at the more expensive properties like the Conrad hotels in Manhattan. Nothing beats a free weekend at a 5 star hotel in NY! Last time I stayed there for a couple of days around Easter. At over $850.00 a night the free night rewards saved me $1,700.00 and in truth it saved me well over $2,500.00 because, due to my diamond status, I was upgraded to a suite. Can you say awesome?
Priority Pass
Finally, and this is a very nice perk, you will have 10 free visits per year to various airport lounges via Priority Pass. Even at smaller airports these places are fantastic. Given the number of times I've had a layover that exceeded 3 hours I was so grateful to have access to these lounges. Free food and drink, Wifi, showers, loungers and beds in some places. At the very large iGA international lounge in the Istanbul airport they have a bar, billiards table, separate kids area, live cooking stations, an open air spot for smokers, and there is even a massage therapist on site!
Travel can often be a very stressful affair so having these little oases available makes a world of difference. Not all lounges accept Priority pass though so it is best to download their app and check ahead if there is a lounge at the airport you are transiting. Turkish airline lounges, for example, only allow guests who are elite status with their Miles and Smiles rewards program or those who are traveling with a business class ticket, which we recently did using another credit card to upgrade our seats. Continue reading to find out more about that.
October 2023 Update: It is with a heavy heart that I have learned just recently that Amex Hilton is dropping the Priority passes from all of its cards. You can still get access via the Amex standard platinum card but with an annual cost of $700.00 it isn't for me. Amex Hilton cards are trying to offer improved rewards to offset this loss but to me it wasn't worth it. I'll still maintain the card as I love having diamond status and the current rewards give me enough free nights and other benefits it is still pretty valuable. That being said, we are rethinking the next card listed. Currently it is the Venture card but now we are going to upgrade this card to the $395/year Venture X which will give us the Priority pass lounge unlimited access. Worth it in my mind. Once we have the new card and have some experience with it I will update the blog to add the Venture X.
Capitol One Venture Card
Our other go to card is this one from Capitol One. Also carrying a low annual fee of $95.00, the primary reason we selected this one was that the miles accumulated can be used on a wide variety of partner sites. In most cases the miles are transferable at a 1:1 ratio which was very important to us as we wanted to be able to transfer the miles to the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles reward program.
Travel Bonus
The current bonus for new customers is 75,000 miles after spending $4,000.00 in the first three months. After that you'll be earning 2 miles for every dollar spent. This increases to 5 miles per dollar if the card is used to book hotels or rental cars. Our plan was to build up the miles on this card and then upgrade our flight to Istanbul. It is about a 10 hour overnight flight and the allure of a lay flat seat was simply too much to resist.
The typical price for an economy ticket in summer was $1,200.00 and business was $5,000.00 for an upgrade cost of $3,800.00. The upgrade was 45,000 miles. We could have used that same amount to get the flight for free in economy but doing the math showed that using the miles for the upgrade gave us bigger bang for the buck. Basically it equated to a value of 2.7 cents/mile vs 8.4 so a little more than triple the value. A few months later we were sleeping soundly in one of those glorious lay flat seats after our flight attendant had prepared the bed with sheets and a pillow. Bliss!
There is a caveat that I should mention here. Just because you have the miles to purchase an upgrade there still need to be seats available in business class to upgrade to. In addition, a request for upgrade will only be granted if all members of your booking party can be accommodated so no ditching the family while you enjoy the high life in business class (yes, there are several parents/spouses who do this - Google it!). For Turkish Airlines they don't open up the upgrade option until 90 days prior to your departure while some airlines use a bidding style where you may not know if you have the upgrade until hours before your flight. That being said, if you truly must be in business class you are better to bite the bullet and pay the extra up front. Otherwise you can roll the dice and hope everything aligns just right.
TSA Pre-check and Global Entry
For those frequent travelers who covet this status, the Capital One card will refund up to $100.00 which in effect makes the application free for at least the card bearer. Unfortunately it does not extend to family members but every little bit helps. Want to learn more about global entry? Check out the post we have which lets you know all you need to know and provides valuable insight on how to fast track your interview process.
Priority Pass
Similar to the Amex card you will have access to priority pass lounges but in this case you'll only get two free passes. The card is perhaps best for individual travelers as opposed to a family unless you plan to ditch the kids in the airport arcade and go enjoy yourself in the lounge! You would never do something like that, right?
Rental Cars
The card automatically confers Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Five Star status as well. This will allow you to access a wider range of vehicles and may earn you a complimentary upgrade. Using your card to book a car rental, through any rental agency, will provide you with auto rental collision damage insurance.
American Express Delta Skymiles Gold
Rounding out our top three is this card. It was one of our first cards and still gets some use, but very little of late. It carries a $99.00 annual fee, free for the first year. Currently you can get 40,000 Delta Skymiles after spending $2,000.00 in the first 6 months so it is a pretty low barrier for earning the bonus and as such is a decent beginners card. We've only maintained it in order to use it to book domestic flights on Delta and get the two worthwhile perks of the free checked bag and priority boarding as detailed below.
Travel Benefits
You'll earn 2x miles on purchases through Delta, at restaurants or grocery stores. Overall, the benefits are a bit limited in scope but worth it if you fly Delta often. In particular you'll be spared the cost of checking bags in for each passenger for whom the flight was purchased using the card. This can be a pretty big deal if you are traveling as a family for example. You'll also get priority boarding for those flights which gives you a leg up when trying to secure overhead storage for your carry on.
Finally you can save up to 15% on flights booked using through Delta (if booked as award travel using miles only) and once you spend $10,000.00 in a calendar year you'll receive a $100.00 credit towards future flights.
Overall, it is an "ok" card to have in your repertoire especially for domestic North American travel. The savings on checked bags alone really adds up over time; an unnecessary cost passed along by the airlines that rankles me to this day. And several airlines are charging for carry on bags now. And don't get me started on having to pay extra to be able to sit together as a family, even in basic economy. Ridiculous!!!
Update: Delta SkyMiles has been getting a fair amount of negative attention now due to upcoming changes to their rewards program, and rightly so. They are devaluing their rewards considerably but these changes do not have much impact on the Gold card. Rather they are stripping a lot of perks from the Platinum and Reserve cards such as the Delta Sky Club access and making it harder to obtain and maintain a higher status. That being said, if you fly Delta a few times in the year where you'd other wise be paying for a checked bag then it might still be worth it but, considering their limited rewards scope and similar cost of other cards it sure makes other cards like the Capital One Venture a lot more attractive.
Summary
While there are numerous options for credit cards we have found these three to be a useful combination for getting free hotel stays, flight upgrades and other travel perks. Each of these costs under $100.00 annually so they are not crazy expensive. Granted, if one travels a lot it may be worth looking into the more expensive options for each of these three. They carry annual fees closer to $450.00 but bestow other perks such as automatic Diamond status and unlimited Priority Pass visits in addition to offering some yearly travel credit. Do some research and crunch some numbers and you'll find your perfect set to improve your own travel experiences. You should also look in to whether the cards have a referral reward program and if it applies to a significant other. That way you can boost your points and have them get the original bonus for even more freebies.
Thanks for reading, and Happy (upgraded) Travels!
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