Skip to content
Credit Card SignUps
Advertiser disclosure: We are paid by partners when you apply for some of the cards on this page through our links. Compensation can affect where and in what order offers appear. It does not affect our ratings or reviews. Read the full disclosure.

Trip Rewards Planner

Tool

Enter your trip budget and we rank real cards by what each would actually return on it. The math accounts for portal rates, cobrand bonuses, foreign transaction fees, point values, and travel protections.

Plan your trip

Skip to results ↓
Trip spending
Trip details
How you book
Trip total
$2,600
Ranking 39 cards with
rates verified June 10, 2026

Math uses our point valuations updated 2026-06-10. Only cards with verified current rates are ranked. Welcome bonuses and annual credits are shown separately, never mixed into trip math.

Ranked for this trip

By estimated dollar value. Points and miles use our current valuations, cash back counts at face value.

Best card for this trip
#1 of 39
Sapphire Reserve card art

Chase Sapphire Reserve

Chase · $795 annual fee

16,100points
≈ $330 est. value · 12.7% of trip
Flights $131Lodging $164Dining & drinks $28Ground, activities & the rest $7
Read the full review

8x on lodging and flights through the issuer portal at 2.05¢ per point drives this result.

SpendAmountEarnsPointsEst. value
Flightsportal$8008x6,400$131
Lodgingportal$1,0008x8,000$164
Dining & drinks$4503x1,350$28
Ground, activities & the rest$3501x350$7
Total earned16,100≈ $330
Estimated net value (Ultimate Rewards at 2.05¢ each)$330
Primary rental coverageTrip delayTrip cancellationLounge access
$1,520 in annual travel credits, not counted in trip math.Welcome bonus not included.Rates verified 2026-06-10.

How the trip planner picks a card

The planner runs your trip budget through every card we have verified this cycle and ranks them by estimated dollar value. Each spending bucket gets matched to the best earn rate the card legitimately offers for it. A 4x flight rate applies to your airfare, a 10x portal hotel rate applies to lodging only if you said you would book through that portal, and an airline cobrand multiplier applies only when you picked that airline.

Points and miles get converted to dollars using our current cents-per-point valuations, the same numbers behind our points valuation calculator. Cash back counts at face value. On international trips, cards that charge a foreign transaction fee lose that fee against your lodging, dining, and ground spending, which is why a 3% fee card can fall a dozen places the moment you flip the destination toggle.

The math is conservative by design. Portal multipliers never apply to the mixed activities-and-shopping bucket, unknown spending earns the card's base rate, and we round down rather than up. When a card wins here, it wins on rates you can actually capture.

What the math counts, and what it leaves out

Welcome bonuses are excluded on purpose. A 75,000-point bonus dwarfs any single trip's earnings and would make every ranking a bonus ranking. Use the welcome bonus breakeven calculator for that question. Annual travel credits are listed on each card but stay out of the trip math, since capturing them depends on your habits, not your trip.

Travel protections appear as badges instead of dollars. Primary rental car coverage, trip delay reimbursement, and trip cancellation coverage are worth real money when things go wrong, and on an international trip they can matter more than half a point of earn rate. Scan the badges before you decide on a close call.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is the best credit card to use for travel purchases?
It depends on how you book and where you go. For flights and hotels booked directly, cards with flat direct-travel rates like the Chase Sapphire Reserve (4x) or Wells Fargo Autograph Journey (5x hotels, 4x airlines) lead. If you will book through an issuer portal, portal rates of 8x to 10x usually win. Enter your actual trip budget above and the ranking does this comparison for you with verified current rates.
Do travel points beat cash back for a trip?
Usually, if you redeem them well. Transferable points like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards are worth about 2 cents each at current valuations, so a 3x travel card earns an effective 6% back against a 2% cash card. The gap closes if you redeem points for cash or gift cards at 1 cent or less.
Does booking through a card travel portal earn more points?
Often yes. Chase Travel pays Sapphire Reserve holders 8x, Capital One Travel pays Venture X holders 10x on hotels, and Citi Travel pays Strata Premier holders 10x on hotels and car rentals. The tradeoff is price and flexibility. Portal prices sometimes run higher than booking direct, and airline or hotel elite benefits may not apply to portal bookings.
How much do foreign transaction fees actually cost on a trip?
A 3% fee on a $3,000 international trip where $2,200 of spending happens abroad costs about $66, which usually erases the rewards advantage of the card charging it. Most dedicated travel cards charge no foreign transaction fee. The planner deducts the fee from each card's result automatically when you set the destination to international.
Are the point values in this tool guaranteed?
No. They are editorial estimates updated monthly from published valuations and real redemption data. Your value depends on how you redeem. Cash redemptions sit near the floor, transfers to airline and hotel partners reach the ceiling. We show the assumed cents-per-point figure in every card's math table so you can judge the assumption yourself.
Why is a hotel credit card not winning for my hotel-heavy trip?
Hotel points run cheap per point. Hilton pays up to 14x on stays, but at roughly 0.35 cents per point that is an effective 4.9% back, close to what a 2x transferable-points card returns. Hotel cards earn their keep through free night certificates, elite status, and brand loyalty, which sit outside per-trip math.

Written by the CreditCardSignups editorial team. Card rates and offers verified June 10, 2026. Point valuations updated 2026-06-10. Card terms change often, so confirm details on the issuer's site before applying.