Travel Credit Cards

Travel credit cards can be a great help when away from home. Relevant rewards can be of great value, such as air miles, free or discount hotel accommodation, but care should be taken to choose a card which suits your needs best.

Some offers include special sign up bonuses including 20,000 air miles (or similar points) when you get the card. Other valuable offers include 0% initial APR which can either be for purchases or for balance transfers. If the latter, it can be of great value for either avoiding paying any interest on existing debts, or for making money by using available funds to place into a savings account or similar investment.

One thing to watch out for is that some cards limit you to one airline or one hotel chain. This is OK if that's the one you always use anyway, but otherwise can be less use than a more flexible offer.

Some accounts include annual fees. Although this might seem like a bad idea at first, those which have fees often offer much better rewards and other features. So have a look at your use of credit, and calculate how the rewards balance against the fees for each particular card to see which gives you the most advantages.

Some cards charge you a 3% foreign currency conversion fee. At the time of writing, it was said that Capital One and Discover don't charge you this much, but this can change at any time, so please check the details when you are ready to get a card.

Other features of use include various types of insurance for purchases etc., as well as other useful services offered by some. Don't forget that you can use the internet to locate local ATM machines when you are in unfamiliar areas, as well as asking locals.

At the time of writing MasterCard is offering 3 nights for the price of 2 in Asia for Accor hotels. There are often special offers like this, so check to see which cards present such promotions most often, and which are likely to be of most use to you personally.

Travel credit cards can be of great value, especially if you choose one which suits your needs best.