Frequent Miler on the Air - The best credit card travel credits | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep366 | 7-10-26

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

On today's podcast episode, if you couldn't get enough of Basic Economy, don't worry! Delta has introduced Basic Business. We'll share a potential trick for getting 25,000 AA miles for free, and talk about Credit card Travel Credits: which are worthwhile and which are worthless. Giant Mailbag(01:10) - Joaquin says, "One thing I haven’t considered before listening to you was to monitor the price of a hotel or flight after booking to cancel and rebook it if the price drops."Bonvoyed(07:40) - Delta introduces Basic Business (and Premium Select, and First)Awards, Points, and More(13:54) - Delta Stays is better than Greg thoughtRead more about Delta Stays here(17:23) - Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card OpenTables(20:38) - Hilton expands partnership with Explora Journeys (luxury cruises)The best credit card travel credits(23:27) - Many premium cards come with travel credits to justify their annual fees.We rank them...(24:31) - General travel credits(26:16) - Airfare & Airline Fee credits(32:03) - Hotel creditsSubscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie YoderMentioned in this episode:Check out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of Voyascape, a podcast network that brings together the world's best travel podcasts. You can find all of our podcasts from around the world at Voyascape.com. If you are interested in advertising or sponsored content on any of our shows you can find out more at the link below.Voyascape Podcast NetworkFrequent Miler Beginner's Guidehttps://frequentmiler.com/start-here/

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world atvoyescape.com. On today's episode, couldn't get enough of basic economy. Delta introduces basic business. And credit card travel credits, which are worthwhile and which are worth less. Frequent mile are on the air starts now. Today's main event, the best credit card travel credits. So lots of premium cards these days. come with all kinds of travel credits, sometimes for all travel, sometimes specifically for flights, sometimes specifically for hotels. But anyway, they're all designed to make you think the card is not really as expensive

as it is. So we'll take a look and tell you which ones we think are best, and it'll give you an idea of which ones you can look at to really justify the annual fee, or are these just kind of gimmicks that make it seem like you're getting something when you really aren't. Yeah, and if you want to jump ahead to that conversation, or you want to come back to something later on, don't forget, you can always find the timestamps in the show notes. Just expand the description box,

and you can click around to where it is you want to find to jump ahead. And wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to give this a like or a thumbs up. Leave us a comment or a review. We always appreciate hearing from you. Now let's drag out this week's Giant Mail Bike. All right. Today's Giant Mail comes from Joaquin, who writes,

I've recently started listening to your podcast and I've been listening to a lot of the past episodes. One thing I haven't considered before listening to you was to monitor the price of a hotel or flight after booking to cancel and rebook if the price drops. Sounds very obvious, but for some reason I had never done that before. Yesterday, I decided to check the price of an upcoming stay I had booked at the Andaz Miami Beach through Amex the hotel collection using the credit for my Amex Platinum card. To my surprise, not only was the same room I had booked $200 less for the stay, but it also looks like the hotel is now part of fine hotels and resorts instead of the hotel collection. I canceled and rebooked, and I'm super happy to have saved $200 and also getting breakfast

included and guaranteed 4 p.m. checkout from the fine hotels and resorts benefits. That's terrific. I'm glad that really worked out. And I think it's a good reminder that it's not only worth checking the price, but MX does periodically change properties between the hotel collection and fine hotels and resorts. And so I know, for instance, I just completed a stay at Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas, which I know for a while was on the hotel collection, but I booked it under fine hotels and resorts. And so I don't know when that changed. But at any rate, definitely worth checking and worth keeping an eye on the price. I'm glad that that worked out well for you in that case. So that's good news.

One thing I wanted to note here is a few people asked questions about what to do if you used last half, like the last half. I can't say last quarter, right? Last semi-annual credit. So if you use your January to June credit and it's now July, what can you do if the price changes on a hotel you booked before with a previous half-year credit? Do you have any advice there? Could you reprice that, Greg? That's a great question. I don't know off the top of my head.

I don't know either. A lot of people have asked about it. My, I don't know, my assumption, I thought maybe you'd have the same. I don't know is that if you mess with something from a previous credit, there's a chance that credit will get clawed back. So if you try to reprice it in some way, there's a chance that it could, you know, you could end up canceling and rebooking and losing that credit. And so I'd be hesitant to do that with something that I had booked with a previous half-year credit. That said, some people have canceled those previous half-year FHR credits and not had them clawed back or different things have happened. So, you know, if you're willing to risk it, then you might try and see whether you can either contact the hotel or whether you can somehow change it through Amex.

but I don't know for sure, like a surefire way to get the better price and keep your credit. Right, right. So my guess is that my experience with Amex is they're not as quick to claw back things as, for example, Chase with the Chase edit credits. They claw those back right away. And so I think if you were in the process of just changing it and booking something else so that it doesn't look like you just refunded it and didn't. rebook, I think then the chance of getting clawback would be higher, but because you rebook immediately, I think there's a good chance of keeping your credit, but obviously I can't guarantee that. So there's definitely some risk there. Another question for you is if they hadn't rebook this, where it now says it's a fine

hotels and resorts booking, would they have gotten the hotel collection benefits? or find hotels and resorts benefits for their stay. Given it was booked, it would have been booked while it was under the hotel collection, but is now a fine hotels and resorts property during their stay, which one would they have gotten? Well, you know, I'm in Las Vegas as we record this, so I'm going to bet it all on you getting the benefits that you booked with. So if you booked under the hotel collection, I would bet strongly that you're going to get hotel

collection benefits that's going to show up as a hotel collection booking. and not as a fine hotels and resorts booking. That'd be my bet. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I've not tried that before, so I can't say for sure. Would you have bet that they're going to somehow recognize that the hotel has changed programs and you booked through Amex? I think it just kind of depends how it's handled.

Like, so is it somehow on the Amex end or is it on the hotel end? If it's on the hotel end, do they differentiate between a booking that's from the hotel collection versus fine hotels and resorts, meaning like when they switch to a fine hotels and resorts property, do they just see all bookings from Amics as that? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't know either. I will say that I had booked the cosmopolitan I just was at in Las Vegas, and there was a lot of confusion over the benefits of check-in, which I expected from reading some flyer talk threads about the cosmopolitan. And obviously they didn't understand how FHR. benefits are supposed to work. And after a lot of back and forth, they went looking and they saw,

oh, yes, breakfast is, like, included on each of my reservations, like, in the system. It showed that there was this, and I say breakfast in Las Vegas, it's a daily credit. It's a whole different ball game. If you do a book one of these, through one of these programs in Las Vegas. But, um, but initially, they told me I'd only get FHR benefits on the first. I booked three separate one night's days. And so if you do that, you usually only get a $100 credit. one time over the course of your stay. But breakfast you would get every day. And they were trying to tell me a check-in that I would only qualify for breakfast on the first day because you only get FHR benefits on the like the first day if you book them separately. And so we had a long conversation

about find hotels and resorts. And eventually a manager came over and looked at all three reservations and was like, oh yeah, breakfast is on all three. So I'm assuming that that's somehow coded in the system separately. That makes sense. But I, but it could vary from hotel the hotel to your point. I mean, who knows? I don't know. Good. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting discussion. All right. Let's move forward to Bonvoid. I've been on vacation. Who Bonvoid as well? I was gone, Greg? Delta. So Delta has introduced their basic business. So it's like basic economy, but now they've spread it. They threatened us with us quite a while ago, but now it's supposedly real for booking

starting in flying in September. And I said supposedly because I did a few searches and didn't find any examples yet with these, but Delta says it's alive, where all of the premium cabins now, you now have the option of booking a basic version or a plus version in addition to the regular version of that cabin that you're booking.

So for example, with, if you're, booking Delta One business class, you can book basic business or plus, which gives you a few extra things, but basic business is, you know, they advertise it as a way of saving money. But as we know, how these things go is basically they're just going to bump up the regular price and make basic business what we would have paid before, most likely. So what is this basic business business about? And by the way, everything I'm going to say here is true, I believe also for basic first class and basic premium select, which are the other premium cabins where this basic thing has been introduced. You do not get free seat assignments until check-in.

You have reduced mileage earnings. Fewer check bags allowed, except that this has not impacted if you have like a credit card or elite status, how many bags you get from that. So it's basically fewer bags automatically allowed based on your class of service, right? It does not include Delta 1 or Delta Sky Club access. That starts January 18th of 2027, that part. Also, no Delta 1 check-in access also starts January 18th, 2027. Delta 1 check-in and Delta 1 clubs, there's very few of those so far. So, you know, I don't think that's going to impact that many people,

the lack of Sky Club access can be a big one, although if you have a Delta Reserve card or an Amex Platinum card, you have some number of Delta's Club visits you can get into with your card, and that won't change, which is good because that's unlike basic economy, where you're not allowed to get into the Sky Club almost no matter what they bar you. They have a bouncer at the door. It's like, your basic economy, no, no, get out of here. Yeah, okay, I'm not done, I guess, with the limitations. Well, except this part isn't really a limitation.

It says no complementary or paid upgrades. So basically, that doesn't really apply to Delta 1 because there's nowhere you could go from there. But for Premium Select, it does mean then you can't use, for example, a global upgrade to to Delta 1 if you book Premium Select this way. Yeah. And so these things, Delta First Basic is available now, supposedly. in select Delta operated domestic and Latin markets. Premium select and basic business will begin flying in September, I think, as I mentioned before,

for domestic and select long-haul international markets. So there you go. Wow. Wow. I mean, they might as well just call it Delta nicer seat. Because that's all it comes with, right? Well, you know, if that's the only thing you care about, the in-seat experience shouldn't change at all.

You'll get the same meals and everything like that. You just might not be seated next to who you want to be since you didn't get your free seat assignment. So, yeah, I don't know. It's, I mean, that's why I put it on your bonvoid. It's not good news, but I guess it could have been worse. Really? I mean, how could you have imagined it being worse?

What could they have done here, Greg? Maybe not give you meals or something. Not give you meals. Like, take it away the meals, right? Like, I mean, like, no, no lunch for you. Or you get an economy meal up here in business class. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, like, you really have to stretch to imagine how it would be worse, right? I mean, this is awful. Somebody who would be buying a seat. Particularly, I think, if you're, like, if you see a seat on sale and you're buying through any kind of a third party, it might be really hard to know. Like, if you're buying through Expedia or price line or or your credit card. portal, I think it'd be pretty hard to know whether you're getting basic business or premium select for a while until they all get around to updating their systems.

And so I could definitely see people booking those. It occurred to me that. It occurred to me that. It's really surprised that they can't pick a seat. Yeah. I think the most unhappy people are the programmers over at the online travel agencies that have to change up their system. Figure that out.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, so and this applies to paid. you know, revenue fairs, are there basic business award fairs then to already? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, just like economy, you can book basic economy with Miles.

And so you'll be able to book basic business with Miles as well. You know, it's unclear. I do not think, though, in the rare case where Delta releases award space to their partners, I think that'll still be the. the regular business class, not basic in that situation. Because that's been true of economy, right? Like when you book Delta with a partner miles, you don't get into basic economy on Delta,

you get into regular economy. Yeah, yeah. So we can hope that that holds true. I expect that it would too. So that makes sense to me. All right. Awards points and more. We've got Delta stays is better than you thought.

How so? Yeah, a couple things. So I was booking a stay for a weekend in August. And I was, I looked through lots of different booking channels to try to find the best rate and best combination of benefits and things. Like, for example, this hotel was available through Amex is the hotel collection. And sometimes the hotel collection includes free breakfast. This one did. And so, you know, that was looking pretty good. but then I did some more searches. And like through Expedia, the price was way lower and kind of nullified the advantage that the hotel collection had. And as I kept trying different things, a few things surprised me. One built was very competitive, so that surprised me right off the bat. But what really surprised me is that when I logged into my Delta account on the Delta

Stays website, that had one of the best prices overall. right off the bat. And the reason I mentioned logging in is that it turns out, I had no idea about this, that if you have Delta elite status, you get kind of elite status with Delta stays and you get discounts and special perks. So this whole thing, that Delta stays is run by Expedia behind under the covers. So if you're used to Expedia's VIP status where you get some perks like discounts off certain stays and some on-property credits and things like that. This is exactly like that. But for me, as a high-level Delta elite, I'm getting better perks than my silver VIP status

with Expedia, better discount and better perks. So the price was better, and then I was able to use my Delta Platinum business card credits as well. And so it's really good if you have that combination of Delta Elite Status and a Delta Platinum or Reserve Credit card where you have Delta stays credit, then you get both good prices from the outset plus you can use your hotel rebates from those cards. Yeah, I mean, that's great. If you can get good pricing and some additional benefits. And I think it's really interesting to hear that you're getting out. access to better ones as an elite member booking through Delta, as a Delta elite, you're getting

essentially better sort of Expedia elite benefits than you would otherwise. That kind of tracks. I think we found something sort of similar with Alaska, with Tim getting access to better pricing with his higher level Alaska status than I had with my Alaska Silver status when booking through Alaska's stays sort of program. So if you do. have airline elite status, I would say it's probably worth checking the airline hotel booking program because it seems like they are, maybe not all, but at least some of them are getting access to good pricing and good benefits. Yeah, yeah. I did, by the way, check American Airlines hotels and I do have elite status there, but that price wasn't nearly as good. It wasn't bad,

but it wasn't as good. Good to know. Good to know. All right. Next. Next. up is Sapphire Reserve Open Tables, or Sapphire Exclusive Tables, I think, as Chase calls them. They have added some restaurants, 91 have been added, but 64 have been removed. What's up with that? Yeah, I mean, you know, they've never promised to keep the lists stable. And so it seems like good news that it's a net positive, but it really depends where you live or where you tend to travel to because like Detroit has lost some as far as I could tell, which is the closest area to me for any of these restaurants. And so it's net negative for me. Not sure where the restaurants were added.

Anyway, there is some good news here. So, Nick, you've specifically pointed out a number of times how awful it is that restaurants will just randomly disappear. from the list. And so you might have made a reservation while a restaurant was on the list and expect to get the rebate that the Sapphire Reserve card offers when dining at these restaurants. So they've added a undocumented but confirmed by Thrifty Traveler 60-day grace period. So the idea is if you booked a reservation before a restaurant was removed from the program, you're still eligible for the dining credit for up to 60 days after its removal from the program. Now you do have to contact Chase directly and ask for it. It's not going to come off automatically.

Yeah, that's a, I guess it's good-ish, but still also disappointing. So this actually affects me directly because I just thought we used it anyway in Las Vegas. We ate at Nobu, Las Vegas in Caesar's Palace, which was on the Sapphire exclusive tables list when I booked my reservation. But I see now it is no longer there. There's only, they went from five or six places in Las Vegas to one. One which, by the way, have not been able to get into for dinner at all. it's not on the strip. It's not like it's downtown Las Vegas. I had figured we'd probably

just be able to kind of figure out what night to go there. And my goodness, no reservations, can't get into this place. So apparently Esther's Kitchen is really good. But at any rate, I noticed that I got credit for like some July 1st restaurant charges. Actually, they should have been, oh, maybe that's part of the problem. So I'll have to go back and double check that because I made a couple of purchases

is late on June 30th, that at least one of them looks like it posted on July 1st. At any rate, just dated a restaurant that was on the list and is no longer there. So I'm going to have to follow up on that

with our separate accounts. Yeah. And that is a nuisance. That's really annoying. Yeah. But it's good to know about this, that it's possible if you get caught in this and you realize you got caught in this situation.

Absolutely. It's good that they do have a way to save that. Yeah. All right. Hilton. Hilton's up. They expanded the partner. with Explora Journeys. What is Explora Journeys? Yeah, it's a luxury cruise line. I think it's a

sub of MSC voyages or something like that. And anyway, so they have a tie up, sort of the way Hilton's has a tie up with like small luxury hotels, but now it's with a cruise line, where you can earn, if you book through Hilton, which you can apparently now do, You can either redeem Hilton points for the cruise, which I'm sure will be at a terrible value. So, you know, wait to see. I couldn't, this was not live at the time we were recording this, so I couldn't actually check on the prices yet. But I'm willing to bet that the value is terrible there. But you could also redeem, I mean, you could also earn points.

So if you book through Hilton, you'll earn Hilton points. And you'll also get elite benefits during the cruise. So gold members will get a complimentary welcome cocktail party. Diamond members get that plus additional journey experience credits. So credits for miscellaneous things like spa or laundry or different things like that. Diamond Reserve members, I think this is pretty interesting. They get a butt behind. the scenes bridge tour, but even more interesting, a private port transfer furs. So if you want to feel

really special, you get those private port transfers. So I think that that's a kind of smart way, I think, of rewarding those few Diamond Reserve members on board. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I'm not very familiar with explorer journeys, but interesting to see that they do have some of those benefits. Now, I will note that MSC, which is the explorer journey, is like you said, it seems to be like an elevated luxury component of MSC. But MSC does do a match to their regular program that offers a number of these programs. So a number of these benefits. If you had Hilton Diamond, for instance, you can match to MSC Diamond and you would get the complimentary welcome cocktail party on board, sometimes a couple of times during a single sailing, depending on where you're sailing and when. you wouldn't get the additional experience credits.

So that's interesting. But the behind the scenes tour, I think that is something else that comes up as well. But at any rate, so some of these things you are able to get with MSC. So I'm not surprised to see that they're thinking in the same direction here with Explorer. But good to know if you're going to be cruising with Explorer.

All right. We'll be right back after this with our main event. Jamie writes in, love the show, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Please help. That's true. Well, this can be confusing. And luckily for you, Jamie, we have a beginner's guide that can help. You want to go to frequentmiler.com slash start here to check out our full beginner's guide. And we're back with today's main event, the best credit card travel credits.

Many premium cards come with travel credits to justify their annual fees. And in today's episode, we're going to rank them from best to worst, basically. We're going to identify which ones are best anyway. But some limitations here on what we're going to cover. We're only going to consider credits that are like add up to $200 or more for the year. We're only going to include cards that are possible to get new. And we're not going to include credits that require high spend. For example, a Safrae Reserve card adds, you know, some Southwest credits. If you spend $75,000 in a year, we're not going to include that. We're not going to include the platinum card or is a business platinum where $250,000 spend gets your credits. Right. Like, that's not going to be part of

this discussion. These are credits that you get automatically for paying the card's high annual fee. All right. So we're going to split these up into a few different categories. We're going to start out with general travel credits. So the best general travel credits. Contenders that we have in this category include the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Reserve Business Card, each of which have a $300 travel credit that you can use anywhere for travel. You can book wherever you want. The Venture X, VentureX Business Card have a $300 credit for any travel booked through Capital One travel. So you do have to book through their portal in order to use that $300 credit. and the JetBlue Premier card, which offers $300 for JetBlue travel purchases.

And through JetBlue travel, of course, you can book hotels, cars, vacation rentals, activities, cruises. You can buy some travel bags. They have some away bags and things like that. So you got a few different options there as well. So out of our general travel credits category, which is best? The Sapphire Reserve card, hands down. I mean, the fact that you can just use it anywhere, you're ready. to pay for any kind of travel and automatically get $300 back makes it such an easy no-brainer credit.

Yeah, I mean, I have to agree. The only thing here that I guess could get somebody to lean in a different direction is if you don't intend to travel this year and then the JetBlue premiere, I guess you could use that towards buying a suitcase. If you buy like the right suitcase, that's available to JetBlue. Yeah, it's a stretch. The Sapphire Reserve. Oh, no, I was going to say, let's mark this down as Greg says the Sapphire Reserve and Nick says JetBlue. No, no, don't mark it that way.

Sapphire Reserve is a pretty easy winner. Like you said, very easy to use. So that one, I don't think there's much discussion to be had. All right, let's cover airfare and airline fee credits next. There are a number of cards on the market that offer credits for either airfare or airline fees. Those include the Hilton Aspire cards. which offers $200 per year in flight credit. Now, that is $50 per quarter for purchases directly with airlines or via MX travel.

So that does not need to be on incidentals. That's just for any purchase directly from an airline or an airline-related purchase through MX travel. So you could be buying tickets essentially with that one. $50 a quarter. All right, the city strata elite has a $200 splurge credit. and there are a number of different merchants eligible for that, but since we're talking about airfare and airline fee credits, one of the options is American Airlines,

so you can choose that as your merchant and get up to $200 back in American Airlines purchases. The Ritz Carlton Visa Infinite card comes up to $300 in the airline incidental fee credits per year. The CNB Crystal Visa Infinite Card, that's one we don't talk about very often. It was kind of a darling for a short time many years. ago, but is not commonly discussed these days, but that one has a $350 airline fee credit. The UBS Visa Infinite and Visa Infinite Business or Visa Business card have a $500 airline fee credit

for selected domestic airlines. And the MX Platinum card has $200 in airline fee credits for selected domestic airlines. So out of the cards offering an airline credit, which is best. Yeah, so right off the bat, I'm going to throw away the ones that require you to pick a specific airline and are limited to domestic airlines. So that gets rid of the Amex Platinum and the UBS Visa Infinite. CNB Crystal Visa Infinite. I'm going to eliminate that one just because I'm no longer familiar with how it works or how broadly applicable it is. So sorry that gives CNB an unfair disadvantage.

there but this one I find this really tough because to pick a winner of the remaining three Hilton Aspire is great because you can just straight up use it for airfare but it's piddly $50 a quarter so if you really want to get $200 off I mean you could like book a flight and then next quarter change that flight to one that's $50 more and then next quarter you know but that's a hassle city strad elite $200 off american airlines that's super easy to use but wait that's selected one domestic airline didn't you eliminate a couple of already with that restriction although the ones they eliminated were for fees airline fees that's selected whereas this one you could use for american

airlines flights straight up and you know it's very easy to use in that way but it's only one airline Also, it's you're making, you're giving up on other stuff that would be good to get because you can pick other things for your splurge credit. Then you have Ritz Carlton, $300 airline fee credit. It is a fee credit technically, but what I like about it is that the way you get the credit is you secure message or call them and say, hey, I spent this much. You basically point to some charges on your bill. tell them what kind of fee it is and they credit it. And so it's super easy to get credited for lots and lots of things. So I'm going to actually give the Ritz-Carlton credit here, my number one pick. Yeah, you know, this is an interesting one because the Ritz-Carlton, I think, is the clear

choice if you have a Ritz-Carlton card and you've used it a bunch of times and you're familiar with how relatively easy it is to use. But I think it's hard to explain that to somebody who doesn't have the Ritz-Carlton card because it sounds very restrictive. It sounds as restrictive as the platinum card credit almost, except that you don't need to select an airline. It's just that in practice, it's very easy to use. People have been credited for all sorts of things. And so, this is one where I think it's hard to make the case in a clear way, but I would say that that's the easiest one to use because I've never had pushback on getting my various requests credited for those feet credits. So I find that one particularly easy to use

because I spend enough on travel-related stuff each year, and it's relatively easy to get those credits. However, I think taking aside the fact that that one just works on a lot of stuff, I think then the Hilton Aspire has to be the winner here, but I think it's pretty telling that the Hilton Aspire would otherwise be the winner. The $50 quarterly credit is annoying. that that's really not, I don't think, an incredibly useful. And I think for a lot of people, you're not going to have something to book every quarter. So you're going to have to go searching for a way to use this every quarter. And the fact that that is better than the options from most of the others is, I think,

telling that the airfare and airline fee credit benefits are not worth full face value, I would say, for most cards. Is that, would you agree with that statement? Yeah, I do. I do. All right. So in a nutshell, for this category, we agree that the Ritz Carlton is best, but with a lot of caveats. Right. Yep. I think that's a good way to summarize. All right. Next step, hotel credits. So the hotel credits, this gets kind of complicated because you've got lots of different types of cards offering hotel credits these days. And so let's kick it off with hotel credits that are eligible for all. all hotels bookable through the cards travel portal in this case. So again, credits that are not specific to a chain. So you've got Delta Stays credits. The Delta Skymiles Platinum Business Card and the Delta Skymiles Reserve and Reserve business

card all have good credits. The platinum business is $200, right? The Delta Platinum business card is $200. The Delta Sky Miles Reserve is $200. And this Delta Sky Miles Reserve business is $250 in Delta State. credit and you've found that that can be pretty valuable. So we just talked about that during an earlier segment. The City Strata Elite card comes with $300 in credit for hotel bookings made through city travel that are two nights or more. So you have to book two consecutive nights or more

and spend $300 or more in order to get full value out of that. The built palladium card has a similar credit, but it's $200 every six months. So you get a January to June, 200 and a July to December 200. And so you could add an additional $100 worth of built cash and make that $300 if you have the built cash to spare. But again, that requires two nights or more. So those are the ones that cover, I think, all hotels, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just one clarification about the Delta stays credits is that there are other Delta credit cards that also have credits, but that are less than $200. And because we said at the outset, we're only looking at cards that offer $200 or more credits.

That's why we didn't list those. All right. So out of this subset of the credit cards that have hotel credits, the all hotels subset, the ones that can be used for any hotel, essentially, or any hotel bookable through these platforms, which of these is best, in your opinion? Yeah. For me, there's no question here. The Delta stays credit allows one-night bookings right.

right there, it has a big advantage over the other two, which require two nights. And as I mentioned earlier in the show, I found really good pricing here. So, you know, that's a really important thing, right? If a particular portal always had really bad pricing, then a credit is worth less than one that has good pricing. Yeah, I have to agree with you because A, of course the one-night stay thing, be the ability to book just about any hotel. And because it's using Expedia's inventory, you do really have access to such a wide range of places. And we found some limitations on the flip side with others. So for instance, city, we found some places where city travel

just doesn't have hotels bookable that, you know, there are plenty of hotels. So if you happen to be going to one of those places, then that travel credit isn't worth much to you at all. That's a really good point. In fact, I remember a specific hotel in a town in North Carolina where most other hotels were available through city travel, but not the one I wanted. And so that happens as well. Built, we've had a lot of cases where the pricing doesn't look very good and also where it doesn't always have all the hotels. My most recent couple searches of built hotels, the pricing has been better. I can't yet say for sure if that's just a lucky happenstance or if they fix something there. But either way, they do have that two-night requirement. And so, and plus the six-month requirement

are both limitations that the other two don't have. Yeah, I had a lot of difficulty finding a use from I built palladium credit this time around. The Delta credits are valid any time during your cardholder year, I would assume, whereas, you know, these others are split up, the strata elite. Yeah, calendar year, I think, for the Delta ones. But yeah. Yeah. Actually, I guess I said are split up.

The city strata elite is also anytime in the, well, in that case, it'd be the card member year. That's right. That's right. So the strata lead and the palladium require two nights. The palladium is the only one that is split up six months at a time. That $300 travel credit is. I think probably calendar year credit now that I think about it and say that out loud. But at any rate, so those are the, we agree, Delta stays are the best for the all hotels.

Let's look at hotel collections. So these are sort of subsets of hotels, not hotel brands, but hotel collections. So the MX Platinum cards have credits eligible for fine hotels and resorts or the hotel collection hotels. So each of the various flavors of platinum card. And again, I'm talking to MX Platinum, not Delta Platinum. but the MX Platinum cards and business platinum cards come with up to $300 in credit for FHR or hotel collection bookings twice a year, once between January and June, once between July and December. For fine hotels and resorts, those states can be as short as one night. The hotel collection requires a two-night minimum.

So that's, again, $300 twice a year, so up to $600 per year there. The United Club and United Club Business Card have $200 in renowned host. hotels and resorts credit per year. That does not require a two-night stay. You got the Chase Sapphire Reserve has their edit credits, so up to $250 twice a year for a two-night stay or more, booked for property through Chase's The Edit. Then you have the Robin Hood Platinum card, which offers $250 twice per year for, quote, luxury hotels through Robin Hood's portal. I put that in quote, marks here because I don't have this card and don't have any plans to get it. So I don't know exactly what that means, but we assume that it's a similar collection of hotels. And again,

that requires a two-night minimum. So again, we're talking MX Platinum, United Club and Club Business, Sapphire Reserve Card, or cards, I should say, and the Robin Hood Platinum card. Out of those credits that are eligible for a specific collection of hotels, which do you think is best? I like the platinum cards, the Fine Hotels and Resorts and the Hotel Collection credits, not only are they nice and big, $300 twice a year is great, but the Amex has a really broad collection of hotels in both of those collections, and the fact that the Fine Hotels and Resorts, part of the collection can be booked one night at a time and you get this credit. That's pretty good. So that's my pick.

Let me just say briefly why I didn't pick the others. United one is pretty good because you could book that one night at a time. But my understanding, I don't have a United Club card so I can't look, but my understanding is that renowned hotels are kind of a subset of Chase's The Edit, basically. So the edit is already problematic because it has a much more limited footprint than Amex's collections. but if that's true that renown hotels is even more limited, then that's a really big problem. And so I don't pick either of those. And then Robin Hood Platinum.

I don't know much about it. On Reddit, I saw some people saying the prices seem to be inflated for the qualifying hotels. And so that might actually be how they define which luxury hotels are eligible, which ones they charge more for. I don't know that for a fact. So I'm not going to pick that. So there you go. All right. I would agree with you.

The MX Platinum card credits are definitely the best here. I think that for some people, those credits don't look terribly useful because in some cities, the only hotels that participate in those programs are really expensive. And if that's not your jam, if you're not looking to spend a lot of money on a hotel, then you might look at find hotels and resorts and say, this is ridiculous. The prices are all outrageous. If you look in New York or Paris or London or a city that's a traditionally expensive hotel market, then yes, many of the hotels are going to be $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 per night.

And if that's not the type of place you usually book, you might look at this and say, well, it's not worth anything at all to me. But to Greg's point, there are a broad number of hotels in these programs. If you look across multiple markets, if you look all over the place, I mean, I mentioned earlier already that I've been in Las Vegas and I booked a few of these. I saw a couple places in Las Vegas that during the week were $150 a night through fine hotels and resorts. And so, you know, you can book two nights with one of these credits. Now you'd have to pay resort fees in most places in Las Vegas still, so it's not quite free.

And the breakfast credits can be more restrictive. There's a lot of potential issues with that. But my point is that it does range. And if you're only looking at expensive cities, then you are only going to find expensive hotels through fine hotels and resorts because the hotels just are expensive. luxury hotels are going to be expensive. But if you look in markets where luxury hotels tend to be more economically priced, then you're much more likely to find, I think, the broader selection you're looking for, although the hotel collection, I've been impressed at places I've been able to find hotel collection properties that I wouldn't have expected to find a luxury booking portal. There just

are quite a lot of places. So totally agree. That's the one for the win there. All right. Next, we have Hilton only. Yeah. So this is a quite a restrictive subset, but we've got a number of Hilton cards that offer a decent amount in credit each year. The Hilton Aspire card offers up to $400 in Hilton Resort credit per calendar year, and that's $200 semi-annually. So 200 January to June, 200 July to December. That has to be used at Hilton resorts that are on the qualifying list for that. There's a separate list.

Don't assume that because of Hilton. has the word resort and the name that it qualifies because that's not necessarily true. And don't assume that because a hotel isn't a resort, that it doesn't qualify for the resort credit, you need to look at the list because there are properties that don't look like resorts that are in there and properties that are resorts that are definitely not on there. But you do have to use that at that specific list of places. And then you have several different Hilton cards that offer quarterly credit. So you've got the Hilton business card offers $60 per quarter, so that's $240 per

year up to $240 per year. The Hilton surpass card is up to $200 per year in credits for Hilton charges. That's $50 a quarter. And the business platinum card, the MX business platinum card, offers up to $200 per year in credits for Hilton's days. Again, $50 per quarter. All right, what do you think out of the Hilton only credits, which is best? Yeah, this one, this one's tough because I like that the Hilton Aspire gives you Well, so much credit, $400 and $200 at a time, so at least you're not doing this every quarter. On the other hand, having a restrictive list of which properties it can be used at, I really dislike. So I'm going to go with the Hilton business credit, which is the one that's $60 per quarter instead of the other two cards that are $50 per quarter, just because it's slightly bigger, and say that that's my. my favorite, because it can be used at all Hilton hotels, and because you don't even necessarily

have to be staying at a Hilton hotel to use it. A lot of times, I and many others have had luck paying for food or beverage bill at a restaurant in a Hilton hotel and getting that credit. And so it can be used beyond Hilton stays, I guess is my point. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that That's probably the most logical pick here because it is sort of the easiest to use. And even if you only used it three times per year, then if you got $180 out of it with very little headache, that might be worth more to you than the Hilton Aspire cards credits that you do have to use at specific places. Now, to Greg's point there, the same type of thing could work with anything on the resorts list. So if you happen to be staying in a city that has a property on the list,

you might be able to just go there for dinner and the $200 credit. You know, it might be something you can use all at once on a meal or something. So it can be used in a similar way there. I think out of the credits, I guess you have to give it to the Hilton business, but the Hilton business card itself is very questionable value in terms of a keeper card. So I'd probably rather have the Hilton surpass card. because of the other benefits of the card. So even though I think the credit, I guess, is better because it's $10 more a quarter on the Hilton business card.

I don't find that card particularly interesting. So I might pick the Hilton surpass if I were like, if you said, Nick, pick a card to have that's got a Hilden credit. The surpass would probably be the best. Totally. Totally makes sense. Although if you're looking at cards, you could get the business platinum and then you have both the final. hotels and resorts and the hotel collection credits and this $50 per quarter Hilton credit. So, all right, now across all of these hotel credits, we separated them into different categories,

but across all of them, which is best. Ooh, this one's kind of tough. So, you know, I really like the platinum cards, FHR and hotel collection credits, but I'm not always traveling somewhere with those properties. and I like them because they oftentimes get me in the door at places where I'd be interested in staying but might not have otherwise paid the full cash rate for or they come in handy when awards aren't a great deal. But I can't ignore the fact that they're fairly restrictive in the sense that it is this collection of properties. Ironically, even though I've never in my life had a

delta card, I think I have to go with one of the Delta stays credits because the ability to book any hotel for just one night and use a credit of $200 or $250, I think I'd have to go with one of those Delta cards. Now, I, again, I've never had a Delta card, and I doubt I'll ever get a Delta Reserve business card because the card itself, I don't fly Delta. I don't use Delta miles often. So I'm not necessarily interested in the card. But if you ask me to pick which of these is best, I guess I'd have to say the Delta

Sky Miles. reserve business at $250 that you can use at any hotel, essentially, that you book through Delta hotels, and you can probably get a decent price. I think that's got to be the pick for the best one. Totally great. The Delta Sky Miles credits are the best, easiest to use of all the hotel credits. What about overall across all of these credits? You can only have one, which one is best? You know, I think that's a really interesting question because if I look at it just in terms of which credit do I, would I like the most? The Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Reserve business is the easiest one to use because you can use it for travel, any kind of travel. You can book your travel

anywhere. But, you know, the, I think the hang up for me there is that's not necessarily the card I would most likely want out of this list. And that alone doesn't justify keeping the card. And so I think if I had to pick which is quote unquote best as it compares to the card's annual fee, I'm going to go with the Ritz-Carlton card because at $300 that's pretty broadly useful, if you get anywhere near face value out of that, it gives you a pretty good deal on an annual Marriott 85K free night certificate. So I think in terms of bang for the buck, I might go with the Ritz-Carlton card or at least make an argument for the chase. Ritz-Carlton card. If I'm just looking at the credit in a vacuum by itself, then the Sapphire

Reserve credit is, quote-unquote, the best one. Yeah, that's well put. The funny thing is, so as you're talking about comparing it to the card's annual fee, that that like had a whole bunch of things firing in my mind, like, well, the Scipass, Hilton's surpass credit is more than that card's annual fee. So if you could deal with using it quarterly, then you're coming out ahead, or look at the Delta Platinum card, which has the $200 hotel credit for a $350 annual fee. That's a big portion of the annual fee as well. So anyway, not necessarily better than the Ritzman just, you know, it's an interesting way of thinking about it. And then, of course, you know, the platinum cards, $600 towards the annual fee, plus they've got so many other credits

that are useful that you could easily make the argument there. So yeah, so obviously looking at it just, just focusing on only the credits is maybe not a fair way if you're trying to decide what cards to keep. But, you know, if your goal is more like which cards, when I'm looking at, should I keep this card? Should I sign up for this card for long? term because it has these great perks. I'm not sure about that big annual fee. Oh, but it has

this credit. Is that credit good enough that I'm likely to use it all the time? Maybe this gives you some idea which ones the credits are truly useful and will save you a lot. This episode was produced and edited by Carrie Yoder, music by Annie Yoder. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and you'd like to get more of this in your email inbox each day or each week, go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. us on all the various social media, join our Frequent Myler Insiders Facebook group. And wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to like this or give it a thumbs up. If you have a question that you'd like to be considered for a future question of the week or a piece of

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