Best Credit Card for Applications and Conference/Grad Visits Travel

[AnimeChic101!]

Hi all,

What would be a good credit card in the USA for applications (including sending GRE scores) , traveling to conferences, and traveling to visit grad programs? I have a discover card (which is great), but i'm using it for other things at the moment. What would you recommend? I would prefer a card with a low interest rate, and no annual fee (for at least the first year). I also have decent credit (mid 700's). Any recommendations would be great. 

[TakeruK]

I only got this card about 2 years ago, but I love my United Chase Explorer card. The first year is free and there is a $95 annual fee afterwards. I originally was only going to get it for one year, but I decided that I will pay $95 each year for the benefits, especially the car rental loss/damage waiver benefits (see below). The reasons I love this card for academic travel:

1. You gain 50,000 bonus points if you spend $3000 (or was it $2500?) in the first 3 months. This is very easy to meet if you put all purchases on this card---I spend about $2000 per month on the card (the only thing I don't pay with the card is rent). If you just directly sign up for the card, the bonus offer is only 30,000 points. In order to get the 50,000 offer, you should sign up for the United Mileage Plus account first, and then within a week, you'll get an offer in the mail for the 50,000 points bonus. 50,000 points gives you two round-trip tickets anywhere in North America.

2. You accrue points very fast (1 point per dollar spent, 2 points per dollar spent with United).

3. You get two free checked bags for you and a companion if you book with the card.

4. You get priority boarding for tickets purchased with the card (Boarding Group 2 out of 5).

5. You get two passes per year for the United lounge.

6. No foreign transaction fees! Great for conferences, because I don't have to add these numbers into my reimbursement requests.

7. Car rental loss/damage waiver benefits. The card covers the loss/damage waiver for car rentals, which saves me about $10-$15 per day. Coverage is also primary, so the card's coverage applies first and your own insurance won't be dinged. This was super helpful for me because I got a flat tire with a car rental and the company charged me $400 including a $80 processing fee for the damage. The card covered all of the costs, even the processing fee.

8. There are lots of other benefits I haven't had to use yet, like purchase protection and lost baggage (with any carrier).

One downside is that the interest rate isn't the best, but I always pay the balance each month so it's not a big deal for me. I really like the above benefits because it makes traveling a lot more convenient. I live in a United hub city so it's always easy for me to get a United flight. Yeah, United isn't the best airline, but the benefits and points gives free flights! It also works well for me because my school reimburses me for my flights for work and then I use the points for my partner and I to take vacations etc (or if the conference is in a cool place, we use points for my partner to come with me after the work is over).

Note: I'm sure the other airline cards are also pretty good, but I like United because its membership in Star Alliance means I can also use points for Air Canada and trips home (I'm Canadian).

[AnimeChic101!]

Thanks, TakerUK. Accruing points sounds great. I don't mind paying an annual fee after the first year (i'm more than likely to going stop using the card after the application cycle). I'm more of an American Airways person myself lol. I'll def take a look at that card.

Any other cards that people can recommend?

[rising_star]

I prefer cards that offer cashback (Capitol One, Discover, Citi, etc.) to those that offer flight rewards but that's because I am not loyal to any one airline (go see Chris Elliott's website if you want more about the logic of this). All of those companies offer credit cards which have no annual fee and offer 1-2% cashback on every purchase you make. In addition, all have options where you can get a card that will also offer rental car protection, extended warranties on certain purchases, etc. It's really a matter of preference though. I have multiple cards and which one I use depends on the context.

[TakeruK]

Indeed, the airline rewards only work well if you are willing to stick to one airline and actually have reason to use the tickets. My calculation is that I spend about $25,000 per year on my credit card, which, including the spending points bonus, corresponds to about 35,000 bonus airline points in purchases. I would guess that about $2,000 is spent on United flights (for work travel) so that's another bonus 2,000 points. What's 37,000 points worth to me? It's about 1.5 round trip tickets within North America, which I value at around $500 per round-trip ticket, so that's $750.

If I were to use a cashback card, assuming a 1.5% cash back rate, then $25,000 is $375. Even at 2%, it's $500. However, this is $500 that I get right away, no matter what. I only realise the benefit of my airline points if I actually use it to get a flight that I normally would have to pay for. If I redeemed my airline points for gift cards, 37,000 points is about $370 value, not as good as cashback. Also, even if I gain 37,000 points in one year, I only have enough to redeem one single ticket. Airline rewards forces you to redeem at set intervals, which may not be as good for you. (Some cashback cards require you to redeem $50 at a time, but that's still much more frequent than a $500 flight).

If I am only looking at the points benefits, after considering the $95 fee, the airline rewards are just marginally better than cashback and if I didn't use some of the other benefits, I would have just used the United card for the first year, collect the 50,000 points (which we used towards a dream vacation in Australia) and then cancelled. But I like the other benefits enough to justify paying for it, at least for now. In particular, I am traveling a lot this year and next year for job applications, so I appreciate the little extra perks.

Another strategy that others use is to just rotate through the various airline cards. You can sign up for the United card, collect the bonus, cancel after a year, then sign up for AA card for a year, collect the bonus, cancel etc. If you want to do this, you need 3 different cards because in order to qualify for the bonus, you need to not have the card for at least 2 years. However, all of these opening and closing of credit cards can be bad for your credit score---not likely to be worth a couple of free flights each year in the long run. One way to mitigate this is to ask the bank that issues these rewards card to transfer your line of credit to a free card and then just not use it. You still get dinged for opening new credit, but at least you don't have a series of very short credit histories.

[AnimeChic101!]

Thanks for all of the advice! I settled on 2 rewards cards ($1000 each). I think that will help me pay for my applications and my conferences for the year.