Our Favorite Travel Credit Card

When we decided to leave our jobs for full time travel in 2019, we were eager to explore travel credit cards to take with us on our trip! We had heard from friends the value of being able to earn points for flights anywhere in the world, and wanted to follow in their lead! But the question remained – which one of the many available travel cards was best for budget travelers? All of them offer the same concept – earn points redeemable for flight miles or cash back. All of this sounded great – why wouldn’t we want to earn from the money we were going to have to spend anyways?! So we got to work. 

There are so many travel cards to choose from! Here, we want to share with you the one we decided to go with and why. This worked great for our situation, but please remember that everyone’s circumstances are different so do your own research to see what best fits your needs!

In the end, we selected the Venture Capital One Travel Card. Having this card for our travels made saving money and keeping track of our expenses so much easier! Here, we will share with you an overview of the card, its benefits, and its uses for our fellow budget travelers. Hopefully this helps you when deciding how to fund your next big trip! 

The Benefits 

One of the first things that drew us to the Venture Rewards Card was that there was no fee for the first year of use. As we were getting ready to be unemployed for seven months, this was a big draw. Another important feature of the card is that it has no foreign transaction fees. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand how important this is while traveling abroad. We saved a ton this way!

Insurance was another huge benefit of the card. With the Venture Rewards Card, you get both an Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver and Travel Accident Insurance. That means, if you use your card for a rental car or airline tickets, you are covered in the case of collision, theft, or trip cancelation (for a covered reason). Finally, one of the best things about this card is the rewards. As a new card holder, you get 50,000 bonus points if you spend $3000 in three months. While this may seem like alot, if you get the card while you still have an income, it is easy to earn the 50,000 bonus points. This ended up being enough to pay for our flights to Colombia from Denver. 

Why we love it

One of the main reasons we love this card is the crazy savings we earned through everyday expenses! Each month, we would go through all of the expenses and pay off large expenses like hostels, tours, restaurants, or whatever! Here is a break down of our savings all thanks to the Venture Rewards Card:

• Covered nearly $350 of expenses (this is about 7 days of expenses based on our daily budget)
  • Colombia savings: $130
  • Peru savings: $120
  • Chile savings: $70
  • Argentina savings: $30
• Used miles to purchase flights from Denver to Cartagena and Calama to Puerto Montt

These savings made a huge difference and helped us to maintain our finances in a manageable way while we traveled abroad long term!

The security features and customer service with the card is another of our favorite aspects. Not long into our trip, we were hanging out in Bogota when we got a phone alert saying there was a suspicious charge to our card. When we looked at the charge, we immediately recognized it as fraudulent and was able to immediately lock the card with the Capital One App. We got on the phone with customer service who immediately suspended the card and had one shipped to a hostel we would be visiting the next week in Huanchaco, Peru. While we had to live without our credit card for about a week, the delivery of our new credit card to a small village on the coast of Peru reflected just how good a travel card the Venture turned out to be. 

Referral

We had such a great experience with this card during our South America trip and are excited to share our experience with all of you! If you are interested in applying for this card, you can use this link  to let them know we sent you! You will also get double miles on every dollar spent.

If you are in the market for a travel oriented credit card, we highly recommend you give this one a try! Learn more about this card Here!

Happy Traveling friends!

Summer & Jackson