How To Use Credit Card Points for Travel

Travel credit card points can help you squeeze travel into your budget even when funds are tight. Or they can cover travel comforts you wouldn’t normally spring for, like business class seats and 5-star hotels.

But travel credit cards and the points they earn are more complex than simpler credit card alternatives, like cashback. Don't worry, though — by learning these basics of using credit card points for travel, you can redeem them for maximum value!

. . .

How Do Credit Card Points and Miles Work?

Purchases made with travel credit cards earn rewards referred to as “points” or “miles,” depending on the card issuer. 

But unlike the rewards you’ll earn with cashback credit cards, which tend to have a relatively consistent value, the value you get back for your travel credit card’s points can vary significantly depending on how you redeem them.

COMPARE: Best Travel Credit Cards

How To Earn Credit Card Points

There are two main strategies for earning credit card points: 

• Qualifying for one-time welcome offers when you get a new card 
• Earning points from your ongoing spending

Taking advantage of generous welcome offers is the fastest way to travel for free with credit cards. 

For instance, some welcome offers could earn you enough miles to redeem for a roundtrip international flight or several nights at an upscale hotel!

COMPARE: Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonuses

After you’ve earned a card’s welcome offer, your everyday spending will continue to earn points, albeit at a slower pace. 

You can maximize the number of points you earn by strategically using multiple credit cards with high reward rates in your top spending categories, like groceries, gas, or restaurants. 

If you prefer to stick with only one credit card, your best bet is to go with a card that has a high base rewards rate, meaning it earns more than one point on each purchase. 

Some cards also give annual point bonuses. Issuers like Chase and Capital One may also offer bonus points if you refer your friends or family members to their credit cards.

READ MORE: How To Get the Most Out of Credit Card Points

How To Redeem Credit Card Points

Credit card points can be redeemed in oodles of ways, but the most appealing redemption paths for travelers are usually:

• Making a purchase with your card directly from a travel company and then redeeming points for a statement credit toward that purchase afterward
• Redeeming points for travel offered within a card issuer’s travel portal
• Redeeming points for an award flight or hotel stay offered by the card’s co-branded issuer 

Redeem for a statement credit

Some travel cards give you the option to redeem your points like cashback. 

Chase Ultimate Rewards®, for instance, get a value of one cent per point when they’re redeemed for a statement credit against any purchase you’ve made — travel or otherwise.

Other programs aren’t as flexible. American Express Membership Rewards® get a very low value of 0.6 cents per point when redeemed for a statement credit, even if you’re redeeming for a travel charge. 

No matter who your card issuer is, you probably won’t be able to stretch the value you get for your points above one cent each when redeeming them for a statement credit. 

Redeem via your credit card’s portal

Rewards that belong to a card issuer’s in-house loyalty program, like Chase Ultimate Rewards or Capital One miles, can often be redeemed for flights and hotels through the issuer’s travel portal. 

The portal’s interface will typically resemble other online travel agencies like Expedia. Redemptions with hundreds of different travel brands may be available.

Some card issuers give their points extra value if you redeem them through their portal. 

For instance, points earned with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® card get 25% and 50% more value per point, respectively, when redeemed through Chase Travel℠.

But most portals only offer standard redemption values of one cent per point, if that. 

You also won’t necessarily be able to redeem your points for all travel providers. For instance, Southwest flights are often MIA from card issuers’ travel portals.

Redeem directly with an airline or hotel

If your credit card is “co-branded” — meaning, it’s administered by both a credit card company and a specific airline or hotel network — the card will earn rewards that belong to the airline or hotel network’s loyalty program, like American Airlines’ AAdvantage® miles or Marriott Bonvoy® points. 

These points can be redeemed directly for “award travel” with the issuing travel company or other companies it shares an alliance with. 

The main advantage of redeeming for award travel is that it can increase the value you get for your points beyond one cent each. 

With travel portals and statement credits, the number of points needed for your redemption scales with the cash price of the travel. But when you redeem points for award travel directly with an airline or hotel, you can find deals that require a disproportionately low number of points relative to the booking’s cash price.

For example, let’s say you’ve always dreamed of seeing a surreal lunar rainbow shimmer over Victoria Falls in Zambia. A three-night stay in the falls-adjacent Protea Hotel would normally cost $696 when paid for in cash or 69,600 points when booked via a credit card’s travel portal. 

But if you’ve saved up points by using a credit card like the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless®, you can book the same stay directly on Marriott’s site for only 35,500 Bonvoy points. 

Quick calculations show that your points will get a value of about two cents each for that Marriott award redemption, making it a good use of points rather than cash.

There are, however, disadvantages to redeeming credit card points for award travel, the most notable being inflexibility.

Unlike credit card travel portals, which feature a broad range of travel brands, an airline or hotel company’s points are usually only redeemable with travel providers they own or are allied with. 

And some airlines, like Qantas and Cathay Pacific, are notoriously tight with the number of high-value flight awards they release, particularly during peak travel season.

This unpredictability makes it difficult to find a good award redemption for specific travel dates and destinations you have your heart set on. 

Transfer credit card points

If you want the flexibility of a credit card portal with the high value of award redemptions, your best bet is to use a credit card that earns points you can transfer to multiple airline and hotel loyalty programs. 

We’re not the only ones who love point transfers. Other credit card experts, like Brian Kelly, founder of The Points Guy, say transferable-point credit cards are the best type of credit card a traveler can have.

“The transferable cards allow you to bank points and then transfer to a number of different partners,” he said on the Erika Taught Me podcast.

Transferable-points credit cards have an edge over other types of credit cards for two key reasons:

1. They allow you to combine points earned from your spending with points from the potpourri of airlines and hotels you’ve traveled with. 
2. Rather than forcing you into award redemptions with one airline or hotel family, they allow you to jump on the best redemption offers from numerous loyalty programs.

Most major credit card loyalty programs have transfer partners, though some have a more diverse list of partners than others.

• American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to 18 airline and three hotel loyalty programs, including Delta SkyMiles, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, and Hilton Honors. 
• Capital One miles transfer to 15 airline and three hotel loyalty programs, with a few highlights being Emirates Skywards, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, and Wyndham Rewards. 
• Citi ThankYou® points transfer to 14 airline and four hotel loyalty programs, among them Thai Royal Orchid Plus, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, and Leaders Club. 
• Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer to 11 airline and three hotel loyalty programs, including United MileagePlus®, Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards®, and IHG® Rewards Club. 

Stateside travelers should note that none of Capital One or Citi’s airline loyalty partners are based in the U.S., which may limit domestic flight redemption options. 

Ultimately, the airlines and hotels that a credit card counts within its transfer network may make or break the card for serious travel hackers. 

FAQs

How many credit card miles does it take to fly?

The number of credit card miles it takes to fly will vary depending on the miles’ loyalty program, the flight’s length, and the ticket’s travel class. A long, international flight in first class will take far more miles than a domestic flight in economy.

Loyalty programs that use dynamic pricing for their redemptions may have award flights that take particularly low or high amounts of miles. 

For instance, we found a Southwest flight from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in Southwest’s cheapest travel class for only 1,034 Rapid Rewards® points, one way. 

But a one-way Delta flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, South Africa, in Delta’s priciest travel class can take as many as 495,000 Delta SkyMiles. 

Do credit card points expire? 

If your credit card points belong to any of the four largest rewards programs in the U.S. — Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, or Capital One Rewards — your points won’t expire, provided you keep your card open and in good standing.

However, other points you can earn with a credit card, like AAdvantage miles or Marriott Bonvoy points, may expire due to account inactivity, even if you’ve kept your card open. 

It’s generally a good idea to make at least one small purchase with your credit card every few months, which will keep your account active and its points from expiring. 

TL;DR: Turning Points Into Travel

You can earn credit card points from welcome offers and your regular spending — and then turn those into trips by redeeming them through your card’s travel portal, directly with a co-branded airline or hotel, or as a statement credit to reimburse you for a trip you’ve booked.

Some cards also let you transfer points to partners. These are the best travel credit cards to get if you want maximum flexibility.

Travel can be expensive, but credit card points can help you visit corners of the globe that would otherwise remain unchecked on your bucket list!

For more tips on travel hacking with credit cards, check out these episodes of the Erika Taught Me podcast:

• Fly First Class for Free With These Travel Hacks
• Travel Hacks From the Man Who Has Visited Every Country In the World
• Upgrade Your Life With These Life Hacks

. . .