If I Had To Pick Just One Card…

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If I had to pick just ONE card, what would it be???  What is the best travel credit card? Travel hacking has allowed Adriana and I to travel to various parts of the world for pennies on the dollar.  We’ve enjoyed some amazing business class flights and have stayed at several 5 star resorts all booked with points and miles.  The majority of the points and miles earned come from our regular spending with travel reward credit cards and with sign up bonuses.

Friends and family have asked how we have been able to travel and of course we mention our points and miles hobby.  Interested ones will undoubtedly ask, “which is the best credit card out there for travel hacking?”. There is no OSFA card out there, since everyone has different travel goals, but in this post I’ll discuss the one card that I would personally pick. This card fits our travel goals and spending habits like no other.  While we strategically use certain cards for spending on different items to maximize our points earning, there is a card that I find myself using more often than not. So, if I had to pick just one card, that card would be the American Express Gold card.

IF I HAD TO PICK JUST ONE CARD – THE AMEX GOLD CARD

The card comes with a $250 annual fee, yet with its point earning opportunities and useful annual credits, it’s easy to justify.  The main reason I would choose this card is because of our spending habits. This card offers 4x points on dining and groceries, 2 categories that we spend a lot on.  Yet, this allows us to earn 4x points on many other categories as well and I’ll explain shortly.

On average, Adriana and I spend about $400 a month on dining and about $600 a month on groceries.  With these 2 categories alone, we earn 4,000 points a month.

You may be asking, “what about the other spending categories?”. Here’s where I would get creative to maximize our points earnings for other categories. Gift cards are the solution! So, for example, another big spending category for us is gas. Adriana and I will spend roughly $600 a month on gas. Our grocery store offers gift cards to gas stations. By buying gift cards for gas at a grocery store, we indirectly earn 4x on gas since the purchase was made at a grocery store.  This would yield us another 2,400 points earned in a month. 

Another place where we spend money every month is Amazon.  We get a lot of items at good prices through Amazon’s Subscribe & Save option, such as dog food, coffee and other household items. We spend roughly $200 a month at Amazon. Again our grocery store offers Amazon gift cards, allowing us to earn about 800 points a month.  I think you can see what is possible with gift cards from your grocery store.

OTHER REASONS I LIKE THE AMEX GOLD

Aside from being able to earn 4x points on numerous different categories, there are other awesome perks provided by this card. One is that it has no foreign transaction fees. This allows us to use this card abroad at no additional charge.

This card also earns 3x on flights booked through the airline or amextravel.com.  On those occasions where you had to pay for flights, you could earn a considerable amount of points.  Although, you could potentially earn 4x if your grocery store sells gift cards to the airline of your choice.  My local grocery store sells gift cards to Southwest Airlines and Delta Airlines.

The Amex Gold offers a $120 Dining credit per year.  Each month you get a $10 credit to use at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Boxed and Shake Shack.  This is an easy credit to max out.

This card also offers a $100 Airline Incidental credit per year.  Similar to the Amex Platinum card, you must select your airline at the beginning of the calendar year to use this credit.  You can use this credit for bag fees, in flight Wi-Fi, snacks, etc.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE POINTS

As you can see, you can earn a considerable amount of points every month with your regular spending.  This is important in determining whether to keep the card for the long run. This one is a keeper for us.  We find Membership Rewards points to be super valuable because they allow us to travel to Europe and South America for cheap in business class.  We can fly on a Star Alliance airline in business class for eighty eight thousand ANA miles roundtrip. ANA is a transfer partner of American Express.

American Express has several airline transfer partners, and many of these are extremely useful.  They are:

• Aer Lingus
• Aeromexico
• Air Canada
• Alitalia
• ANA
• Cathay Pacific
• Avianca
• British Airways
• Delta
• El Al
• Emirates
• Etihad
• Flying Blue
• Iberia
• Hawaiian Airlines
• JetBlue
• Qantas
• Singapore Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic

Many of these transfer at a 1:1 ratio and transfer instantly.  This is important when you’re trying to book an award flight!

CONCLUSION

To answer the age old question of “which is the best credit card for travel rewards”, the American Express Gold card is the one for me.  With its endless point earning opportunities and useful perks and credits, this card checks off all of the boxes that we look for in a travel rewards card.  What card would be your one and only? Comment down below!