Source
r/personalfinance•
Gules

I just began a job that requires travel. Should I use one travel card or industry specific ones?

Credit

I just began a new job that requires me to travel across the country twice a month at least. I have one colleague that has one card he uses for flights, hotels, and rental cars, and then uses loyalty memberships on the individual companies. I also have another colleague who has a cc for each aspect (cc for flight, cc for hotel, cc for car rental). I currently have a CS of 650+. Not sure if I should go one card or three.

Also, any help pointing me to the best subreddit to find out which card would be best would be great (I don't think r/churning is what I need). Thanks so much in advance, everyone.

Posted Feb 5, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

04
RhetoricalTestQstNs•

I currently have a CS of 650+. Not sure if I should go one card or three.

You have a "fair" credit score. Most of these travel rewards cards usually require "good" to "excellent" credit scores.

You can always try to apply, and if they reject you, call the reconsideration phone number.

We need more info like if your employer only uses certain airlines, hotels, and rental car companies or if they go by schedule or by a budget.

5
GulesOP•

Employer leaves travel entirely up to me, so it's wide open. I'm in control of my own schedule and budget is not set but obviously I'm not staying at the Four Seasons. Thanks!

1
t-poke•

It's up to you, really. If you know you're always going to be flying the same airline, and you know you're always going to be staying at the same hotel chain, then you may want to go for the specific cards of each.*

If you know your travel will require you to mix it up a bit (different locations, requirement to buy the cheapest flight regardless of airline, etc), then a general travel card is a good idea since it will earn X points per dollar on all travel regardless of airline/hotel.

*One caveat to this is if you know you're going to be flying United or Southwest a lot, because their respective cards through Chase are 2 miles per dollar spent with them. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is also 2 points per dollar spent on travel. Chase points can be transferred to United and Southwest, so the end result is the same but you get additional flexibility with the CSP than the UA/SW cards. The United card has some additional perks, like free checked bags and 2 lounge passes a year, not sure what perks the SW card has.

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