8 Best Travel Credit Cards to Book Flight Tickets and Hotels With

Planning to travel?

With air tickets and hotel stays taking up the bulk of your holiday expenses, you’ll be missing out on savings if you don’t make use of a credit card for rewards.

Moreover, many travel credit cards give you perks like discounted bookings, complimentary lounge access, travel insurance coverage and even hotel stays (if you meet the spending requirements).

BUT, remember that with great power comes great responsibility.

And that responsibility means that you must pay your credit card bills on time or risk incurring credit card debt.

So if you’re good with your personal finance and aren’t yet capitalising on these great benefits for your overseas holidays,

Here are the best travel credit cards to book your flight tickets and hotels with!

Most credit cards have a $30,000 annual income requirement. However, even if you don’t meet this requirement, there are still cards that you can use to save more on travel. Read on to find out.

TL;DR: Best Travel Credit Cards to Book Your Flight Tickets and Hotels With

Disclaimer: This article highlights the perks of selected credit cards. Readers should always do their own due diligence and read up on any fees associated with products listed.

Aside from getting these travel credit cards to save on your big-ticket travel expenses, consider these multi-currency accounts for your overseas spending:

Miles Credit Cards vs Cashback Credit Cards

Frequent flyers and those who have a high expenditure would make the best out of miles credit cards.

These cards come jam packed with travel perks and the miles that you earn while spending on these cards can help you redeem flight tickets, hotel stays and other rewards!

If you’re determined enough, you could even redeem your miles for a first class ticket!

But do note that there is a fee involved when crediting your miles and that miles usually have an expiry date.

On the other hand, cashback credit cards give you a discount on your flight tickets and hotel stay purchases.

So if you want some instant gratification and really can’t be bothered with the slow grind to save miles, cashback cards are more suited for you.

For a more in-depth look, check out this article:

DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card

Key features:
– 10 miles per dollar on hotel transactions at Kaligo
– 6 miles per dollar on flight and hotel transactions at Expedia
– 3 miles per dollar on online flights & hotel transactions (capped at S$5,000 per month)
– Miles earned never expires
– Enjoy 2 free lounge visits at over 1,300 airport lounges worldwide within each 12-month period of your membership

First up, we have the DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card that offers the highest miles per dollar on Kaligo and Expedia. Even if you are booking a trip on other platforms, you’ll still stand to earn three miles per dollar on online flights and hotel transactions!

With the majority of us already having a DBS bank account, signing up for this card much simpler and you won’t have to download another app to track your expenditure on this card.

Oh and did I mention? The miles earned on this card never expires so you can slowly save up for that elusive first class ticket.

As the cherry on top, you’ll get two free lounge visits, making this card one of the most well-rounded miles credit card to use for travel.

Citi PremierMiles Card (Mastercard)

Key features:
– 10 Citi Miles per dollar on Kaligo (till 31 Dec 2022)
– 7 Citi Miles per dollar on Agoda (till 31 Dec 2022)
– Miles earned never expires
– Up to S$1 million in insurance coverage when you charge your travel tickets to Citi PremierMiles.
– 2 complimentary visits every year to airport lounges worldwide

Next, we have the Citi PremierMiles Credit Card. Much like the DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card, this card offers some of the highest miles per dollar, free lounge visits and never expiring miles.

You get up to S$1 million in insurance coverage when you charge your travel tickets to Citi PremierMiles.

If you prefer booking on Agoda and the range of partners that Citibank offers, this is a good alternative.

UOB PRVI Miles Cards (AMEX/Mastercard/Visa)

Key features:
– 6 Miles per dollar on selected travel partners (Agoda, Expedia and UOB Travel till 31 Dec 2022)
– Complimentary Travel Insurance
– UOB PRVI Travel Butler (Dedicated hotline for comprehensive travel assistance)

Happen to be travelling with Qatar Airways, Emirates or Qantas? With the UOB PRVI Miles Cards, you can earn six miles per dollar on selected travel partners that include major airlines and hotels worldwide!

The list is quite extensive with over two million vacation rentals and hotels across Agoda, Expedia and UOB Travel platforms, so you’ll most likely score a great deal here.

There’s also a public conveyance personal accident coverage and emergency medical assistance of S$500,000 and emergency medical assistance, evacuation & repatriation coverage up to S$50,000 due to an accident or illness (including due to COVID-19).

The best part is that you’ll have access to the UOB PRVI Travel Butler which eliminates the hassle of travel planning with comprehensive travel assistance including flight, hotel, insurance and car rental booking!

 American Express Singapore KrisFlyer Card

Key features:
– Hassle-free conversion with no transfer fee
– 2 KrisFlyer miles per dollar on Singapore Airlines
– Up to S$350,000 Travel Inconvenience & Travel Accident Insurance
– Exclusive Hertz privileges worldwide

If you’re new to miles credit cards, it is important to note that most miles cards require you to pay a fee to convert your points into miles. However, with the American Express Singapore KrisFlyer Card, this is no longer a problem!

While you won’t be enjoying a high miles earnings, you’ll get KrisFlyer miles credited directly into your account and you’ll get to enjoy complimentary travel insurance and car rental privileges at Hertz worldwide.

So if you’re a loyal Singapore Airlines customer, this card would probably be your best bet with two miles per dollar when you make eligible purchases on singaporeair.com, SingaporeAir mobile app and KrisShop (in-flight and online).

GrabPay Card

Key features:
– Up to 1.2% cashback in GrabRewards Points
– Additional points when making bookings through the Grab app on Agoda and Bookings.com
– No minimum income required
– No annual fees

For those of us who don’t qualify for credit cards, the GrabPay card levels the playing field by removing the barrier to entry (the minimum income requirement).

This card is also great as you can stack cashback from other credit cards (more on that later) to earn more “cashback”.

However, this cashback comes in the form of GrabRewards Points. In other words, you can only offset your spend when you use GrabPay QR or use GrabRewards Points to redeem vouchers and rewards.

Still, this is the one of the few, if not the only option if you’re a student or someone who don’t meet credit card requirements. A 1.2% cashback on a $1,000 plane ticket is still a decent $12 in GrabRewards Points.

As a bonus, you can make bookings on Agoda and Bookings.com through the Grab app to earn additional points and convert your points into KrisFlyer miles too.

UOB Absolute Cashback Card

Key features:
– 1.7% unlimited cashback with no min. spend
– No spend exclusions
– Access to UOB card privileges including 15% off accommodation bookings on Agoda and 9% off hotel bookings on Expedia

While 1.7% cashback might sound like peanuts when compared to other cards, the UOB Absolute Cashback card let’s you earn cashback on virtually everything.

And yes, that includes hotel bookings and flight tickets too.

What’s more, you’ll gain access to a plethora of UOB card privileges including 15% off accommodation bookings on Agoda and 9% off hotel bookings on Expedia.

If you’re a cashback hunter like me, you’ll also probably know of the cashback stacking trick with UOB Absolute Cashback (and AMEX True Cashback) that let’s us earn up to 2.9% cashback in total.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of it, check out this article to find out more:

CIMB Visa Signature

Key features:
– 10% cashback on cruises capped at $20 ($800 min. monthly spend required)
– Complimentary travel insurance of up to $500,000 when you charge your full travel fares to your CIMB Visa Signature card

Not taking to the skies and prefer to chillax on a Royal Caribbean cruise instead? Consider the CIMB Visa Signature card that gives you up to 10% cashback on cruises (capped at $20 with $800 minimum monthly spend required).

You’ll also get a sweet complimentary travel insurance of up to $500,000 when you charge your full travel fares to your CIMB Visa Signature card.

Since cruise trips easily cost more than a thousand dollars for a family of four on a three-night getaway, it’s really not that hard to qualify for the maximum cashback.

Amaze

Key features:
– Additional 0.5% cashback on top of existing credit card rewards

If you’re already armed with credit cards, you might also want to consider adding amaze by Instarem into your arsenal as it gives you an additional 0.5% cashback on top of existing credit card rewards.

This additional 0.5% cashback CAN be used for travel-related expenses such as flight tickets and hotel bookings. However, this depends on the credit card that you are using.

So make sure that you familiarise yourself with the spend exclusions of your credit card before using amaze + your credit card to stack rewards.

Have some tips and tricks on how to get the best savings with travel credit cards?

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