Spoiler alert: Travel can be unpredictable. Bags gets lost, flights get canceled or delayed, or you can come down with a bad case of the stomach flu. Your plans for a relaxing vacation can turn into a scramble to fix urgent problems far away from home. There's only so much you can do to prevent disaster; you never know if you'll be a victim of bad travel luck until you depart. But, if you use the right credit card to pay for your trip, you can set off with peace of mind that you’ll be covered in case of an emergency.
Travel-focused credit cards let cardholders earn points that can be used for significant discounts on flights, hotels, or rental cars. But there's another benefit many cards offer that could save your vacation in more ways than one. Some cards come with travel insurance that can help reimburse some of the costs related to delays, medical mishaps, and other travel surprises. To be sure, credit card travel coverage comes with plenty of limitations—check your card's benefits to see the specifics—but it's nice to know that, say, if a freak hailstorm dents your rental car, you're covered if you made the purchase on your card.
We've sorted through dozens of credit cards that come with perks that protect you from common travel nightmares, all at no extra cost to you. Here are the six best.
Things to Know About Credit Cards
How We Evaluated
Chase Sapphire Preferred
Chase Sapphire Reserve
Chase Freedom
Capital One Spark Miles Select for Business
Capital One QuicksilverOne
USAA Rewards American Express
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Be cautious with cards that offer long introductory period APR rates. Potentially high APR rates snap into effect after the card’s introductory period ends, which could cost you a lot in interest if you’ve left your balance unpaid. It’s really important to keep an eye on your finances, and keep an eye on the calendar.
APR rates and credit limits vary based on your individual credit. Credit limits and interest rates for each card are determined based on each cardholder's personal situation, so we did not take that information into account when evaluating these cards. One thing to remember is that if you pay your card off in full every month, you will not be charged interest.
Banks have final say on who they accept for a credit card. These recommendations were put together with the assumption that applicants would have average credit or above. That being said, banks decide who they will issue credit cards to using criteria including, but not always limited to, an individual's credit score when evaluating each applicant.
Credit card benefits vary with every credit card and issuer. Right now, our research shows that one issuer—Chase—is a clear leader in offering travel insurance policies with their cards, although that could change in the future. Banks can, and have, changed the insurance offerings that come with their cards. For example, Discover and Citibank no longer offer some travel insurance benefits on their credit cards, and American Express credit cards tend to include just a few basic coverages. (AmEx offers a fuller coverage in its stand-alone travel insurance, which you can buy separately.)
Some of the most common credit card insurance benefits include roadside assistance, trip cancellation/interruption, trip accident, and lost or delayed luggage. We chose cards that offer a wide range of coverages but also include rewards programs, (mostly) low annual fees and no foreign transaction fees. Where possible, we chose cards that include travel delay insurance, as about 1 in 5 flights have been delayed so far this year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
As with any travel insurance plan, you'll usually need to foot the bill first and file a credit card travel insurance claim before getting reimbursed. And, again, credit card travel coverages come with plenty of limitations. For example, to use a card's travel insurance, you'll need to book the travel on that card. In other situations, the card's coverage is secondary, which means you'll need to request compensation from other sources, such as primary insurance providers or common carriers, before the card's insurance will pay out. You'll also need to carefully review your card benefits to make sure any claim you're submitting follows its guidelines. It's always a good idea to check with your card issuer before filing a claim.
Please note: The offers mentioned above are subject to change at any time and some may no longer be available.
Reviewed has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Reviewed and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.
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Kim Porter
Contributor
Kim Porter is a seasoned journalist whose work has been published on websites such as U.S. News & World Report, Credit Karma, and LifeLock. Her expertise is in credit cards, credit, real estate, running, and travel, and she plans to run a half marathon on each of the seven continents.
We use standardized and scientific testing methods to scrutinize every product and provide you with objectively accurate results. If you’ve found different results in your own research, email us and we’ll compare notes. If it looks substantial, we’ll gladly re-test a product to try and reproduce these results. After all, peer reviews are a critical part of any scientific process.
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