Who does not like additional delights when it comes to improving your travel experience? When you nicely plan your trips, down to every small detail, make sure not to forget about planning your finances as well. Apparently, Travel credit cards come right at the top if you want to increase your savings and improve your travel experience.
A travel credit card is something that rewards customers with points or miles that can be redeemed for travel-related transactions, such as plane tickets and hotel accommodations. It can also include many dining discounts, lounge access, insurances, etc. While discussing how a credit card can improve your travel experience, we will talk about all these benefits in detail as well:
- Deals on flight bookings: When you use a credit card (specifically a travel credit card) for flight bookings, you can get promising discounts. Travel credit cards help in earning rewards either in terms of points or air miles, both of these can be used to get off on your flight tickets. Moreover, in some cases, you can also get completely free flight tickets up to a certain amount.
- Amazing deals on Hotel stay: Discounted hotel stays, additional complimentary nights are among some of the best travel credit card benefits. You can use your rewards points to locate exceptional deals, or you can use your credit card’s frequent traveler account to find vacancies in hotels that are otherwise fully booked. For example, with HDFC 6E Rewards XL you can get an Accor Hotel to stay voucher (30% off )- Rs 5,000.
- Lounge Access: Lounges are relaxing areas for passengers which is mostly an update from a common waiting room. It is much more comfortable and has its staff to attend to passengers needs. With Travel Credit cards, you can get complimentary access to these lounges free of cost, which otherwise would have been a costly affair. The benefit can be in the case of both domestic as well as international lounge access, as per the policy of the Credit Card. For Instance, with Citi Prestige Credit Card, you can enjoy unlimited domestic and international lounge access. But the same is not the case with every travel Credit Card, most of them have a limit.
- Complimentary gifts: No matter how heavily discounted a thing can be, it is always more delightful to have a completely free gift. Some of the top travel credit cards also provide several complimentary gifts for their cardholders, like:
● Complimentary night stays.
● Complimentary buffet.
● Complimentary Air tickets.
● Complimentary golf rounds at premium courses.
● Complimentary memberships of hotels, travel agencies, etc. for extra savings. - Travel securely: Travel Credit cards are not limited to savings and rewards anymore, they also take ample care of your security as well. There are many travel-related insurances and coverages provided by the top travel credit cards, like:
● Lost baggage
● Lost ticket and travel documents
● Late baggage cover
● Overseas hospitalization
● Air accident death coverage, etc. - Concierge services: A concierge is a person or business who is accessible to assist you in your daily activities. They can help you with everything from arranging family vacations to making dinner reservations and gaining entrance to unique events. Exclusive concierge services are among one of the top travel credit card benefits. The following services can be availed from the concierge desk:
● Event planning services
● Travel-related services
● Business services, including courier, conference, and messenger services.
● Flower or gift delivery assistance, etc.
As you can see, there are many benefits of a travel credit card to make your journey delightful. But with a great number of options available, how do you make sure, that you choose the card which can enhance your travel experience in your unique style? Let us see how:
How to choose among the top travel credit cards available?
Compare Credit cards online: Nowadays, you can easily compare different credit cards on the company’s website itself by merely selecting the compare button and smart AI will do the rest. Besides the official website, you can also compare credit cards online on many other third-party websites available.
Choose the right bases to compare: There are certainly many bases on which you can compare different credit cards, but some matter significantly more than others. Hence, you need to know which are some of the key points to compare travel credit cards on. Some such bases are mentioned down below for your convenience:
● Lounge Access: How many lounge access over what period? Does it provide both domestic and international lounge access or not?
● Brand Collaborations: What are the brands the card has collaborated with? Will the collaborations be of any profit to you?
● Accelerated Rewards: Does the card policies include accelerated rewards on travel-related expenses or not?
● Insurances: Does the travel credit card provide travel-related insurance? If yes, what are they?
There can be many more additions made to the list given above but you can start from here.
Kick start your research from here:
So, now you know how credit cards can improve your travel experience and how you can choose a decent travel credit card for yourself. Now, all you need to do is to get started with your research. Let us look at a brief list of some of the most famous Travel Credit cards to kick start your journey:
HDFC 6E Rewards XL: Here’s how this card can improve your travels:
● It converts all spending into FREE flight tickets.
● 8 Complimentary Domestic Lounge Access per calendar year.
● Accor Hotel stay voucher (30% off )- Rs 5,000
● Accor Hotel Dining voucher – Rs 1,000
● Priority check-in, choice of seat, a complimentary meal & quicker baggage
● 5% 6E Rewards on IndiGo, 3% on Grocery, Dining & Entertainment, and 2% on all other spends.
● Discounted Convenience Fee on IndiGo tickets-Rs.150
Yatra SBI Credit Card: It has the following features:
● Yatra.com vouchers worth Rs. 8,250 on joining
● Rs. 1,000 off on domestic flight bookings.
● Rs. 4,000 off on international flight bookings.
● Complimentary Air Accident cover of Rs. 50 lacs.
● Up to 20% off on domestic hotels.
InterMiles ICICI Bank Rubyx Credit Cards: The card offers the following advantages:
● Welcome benefits of 5000 InterMiles, flight discount voucher, and hotel discount voucher.
● Renewal benefits of 2500 InterMiles, flight discount voucher, and hotel discount voucher.
● For every INR 100 spent, earn 7.5 InterMiles.
● 24×7 premium concierge service.
● Complimentary lounge access.
HDFC Diners Club Black Credit Card: With the Diners Club credit card, you can get:
● Air accidental death coverage of Rs.2 crore.
● Emergency overseas hospitalization of Rs.50 lakh
● Unlimited complimentary access across 1000+ lounges around the world.
● Complimentary Annual memberships of Club Marriott.
● Travel Insurance Cover of up to INR 55,000 on baggage delay
The above mentioned are some of the best travel credit cards available in India that offer a variety of incentives, you should make full use of them to get the most out of your rewards and make your travels more delightful. Nevertheless, having the best travel credit card or any other credit card will only be fruitful if you know how to use it. The top two tips for using a credit card wisely are: firstly, you need to keep your credit card bills clear always and maintain a low credit utilization ratio. For this purpose, you can choose to register for the auto-debit services and never miss out on the due dates as your credit card bill will automatically be debited from your account. Now coming to maintaining a low credit utilization ratio you can set a threshold limit, and you will be good to go.
Additional Reading: 10 Travel Essentials that You Must Not Miss When Packing
