Every Road Warrior should have at least one of these in their wallet:

Last updated on Jul 18 2021 by Gennady Podolsky

If you asked me in 2010 what is the best credit card every Road Warrior should have in their wallet? Starwood American Express was my top pick. I would compare and analyze all the different ways clients could use their points and transfer them to the airlines. While it was not a card for everything you charge, there were enough benefits there for almost every road warrior to have one.  There were many great choices and Starwood Amex was a marginally better choice than others. In the past decade, with the rise of the 3 super cards we will review below, the choice got much simpler.  

The 3 cards are The Platinum from American Express, Citi Prestige Mastercard and Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa. Each respective card is the epitome of the best their banks and networks have to offer. They absorbed all the best features of all the other cards and made them available in a “one-stop” card with high annual fees but so much more in terms of benefits their offer for high spending travelers. While carrying one of these cards is an absolute must for Road Warriors, most of my clients carry at least 2. 

Citi Prestige Credit Card 

Citi Prestige is the simplest card of the three. I hope you already have this card in your wallet as they stopped accepting new card applications as of July 2021. It has the lowest annual fee and potentially the highest cashback/miles rewards for Road Warriors. However, it offers the least valuable fringe benefits of the three cards. The real annual fee is $245. Technically it is $495, but $250 will come back to you as automatic credit every year after the first $250 is spent on travel purchases, which encompasses all things travel down to taxis, tolls and parking fees. There is always a signup bonus between 40,000 and 75,000 points, so your first year fee is more than compensated for.

Citi offers the most lucrative rewards rate: 5 points/cents back per dollar spent on airfare, travel agency purchases (such Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz, any other OTA as well your local agent direct charges). You also get 5 points/cents back on dining (restaurants, bakeries, cafes, takeout). Hotels, airbnb and cruises reward you with 3 points/cents per dollar spent, and 1 point/cent on other purchases. They offer many ways to redeem points, but the only ones worth considering are moving points to the airline partners or taking cashback. You should not redeem your points as gift cards or book travel through Citi Travel department (see 4th night free hotel exception below).  You are better off buying all those things through your favorite merchant or channel, potentially applying better discounts you find elsewhere and earning more Citi points on these purchases (You do not earn them when you redeem them through the Citi program).  Then, you would simply use a statement credit feature to offset those purchases at penny per point.

Points can also be transferred at a ratio of 1,000 points-to-1,000 miles to partner establishments such as Aeromexico, Asia Miles, Avianca, Emirates, Etihad Guest, Qatar Airways, EVA Air, Air France, Turkish Airlines, JetBlue and several more. Moving points to airlines is the only way the value you can get could greatly exceed the penny per mile mark, especially when booking premium travel.  Always compare the purchase price of airline tickets to their points value (at penny per mile) plus tax and ensure you are getting a better deal by transferring miles to the airlines frequent flyer program than by paying for travel and redeeming points through the statement credit option to cover the purchase.

Additionally, Citi offers a complimentary fourth-night hotel accommodation that can be utilized twice a year. This is the only time where booking hotels through Citi may be worthwhile.heck your options carefully as 4 nights free is common in luxury hotels regardless and with other promotions and benefits, this offer may not be as good as it appears. You also get $100 credit for a Global Entry or TSA Precheck membership, which you may use every 5 year years or so. Finally, Priority Pass Select airport lounge membership which comes with neat benefits such as lounge access, credits at some airport restaurants and even minisuites and sleeping pods at certain airports (See more on Apps Every Traveler Should Have on Their Phone)

Citi offers the best extended warranty coverage of the three cards. Any manufacturer warranty for an item purchased with your Citi card is covered by 24 additional months (meaning a typical 1 year warranty becomes 3, cars, boats and planes are not included).

Chase and Amex only offer a 12 month warranty. The purchase coverage is similar to those of Chase and Amex  The card also comes with the full list of MasterCard World Elite Benefits (similar program to Visa Signature benefits that Chase Sapphire Reserve Comes with).

Another excellent feature is the Virtual card numbers option Citi offers to keep your card information protected from being compromised.  Amex and Chase only offer them on their business accounts for now.  With Citi Prestige Virtual cards, you can give each merchant a different card number which is only valid for that particular merchant.  

The biggest drawback of the Citi Prestige is the lack of travel insurance (Citi removed it in 2019 when they introduced the cashback option).  Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum offer a comprehensive suite of travel insurance coverages including trip cancellation or interruption, lost baggage, emergency evacuation and so on.  None of those are available on Citi Prestige. Before you dismiss Citi Prestige completely, keep in mind that insurance benefits are rarely used since there are many exceptions and filing claims is very time consuming.

The card is versatile because you can use it as a cashback card with an excellent rate of 5 percent cashback for airfare, travel agency purchases or dining, 3 percent on hotels, AirBnB or cruises and 1 percent on everything else with no limits. This card can be used in any way to fit your needs perfectly. You can use it like a top rewards card (with the same percentages in rewards), a cashback card or a combination of both ways. The best part is you do not have to decide which card is for you until redemption time. This flexibility allows you to choose the most beneficial option each time making this card very efficient. Chase and Amex have better websites and customer service for the most part, but there is some attraction in simplicity to Citi Prestige. Most benefits are similar to the other cards with exception of travel protection.

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card 

The super card from the largest credit card issuer in the US is Chase Sapphire Reserve.  The real annual fee is almost the same as Citi at $250, calculated by deducting their $300 annual travel credit from the $550 annual fee. Unlike Citi, you only get 3 percent back in points or dollars instead of 5 percent on airfares, travel agency purchases and dining.  Like Citi, you get 3 percent back on hotels, cruising and Airbnb.  However, you also get 3 percent on anything else in travel including taxis, Uber/Lyft, trains and so on.

Since you get a 50 percent bonus when redeeming your rewards through Chase Travel, you get 4.5 percent back on all of your travel spending wherever you made them, as long as you redeem your rewards through Chase Travel.  Chase Travel is powered by Expedia so you get fairly competitive pricing.

For the other benefits you get the same Priority Pass as Citi,  $100 credit for Global Entry and all Visa Signature benefits that are similar to Citi Prestige’s World Elite Mastercard benefits. Some of the fringe benefits you get with Chase that you don't get with Citi are a 15 percent discount and 10X points on Lyft purchases, free delivery for a minimum order of USD 12, and up to USD 120 in DoorDash credits through a DashPass membership.  You also get a $120 discount on Peloton membership. 

Unlike Citi, the card comes with excellent travel insurance benefits, even marginally better than AmEx. You and your immediate family members are covered for travel delays and interruptions, travel evacuation, delayed and lost baggage, loss damage waiver for car rentals and more.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers less in terms of cashback/reward bonuses but more in terms of fringe benefits as compared to Citi.  Your mix of spending is also more important.  If you tend to book and prepay all your travel through 3rd party online sites, you will do much better with Citi.  If, on the other hand, a big chunk of your spending is with hotels  and AirBnBs directly,.and you don’t mind using your points with Expedia (is the service through Chase currently uses for their “Book Travel” function)l,  then Chase may fare  better. If the travel insurance benefits are important, Chase is the best option for you

American Express Personal Platinum

American Express Platinum is the Grand Dame of credit cards. It was the original supercard. AmEx led the way with designing all the benefits we associate with the supercards today. While it lost some ground due to Chase Sapphire and Citi Prestige, it remains a very strong contender.

Like Citi Prestige, American Express Platinum offers 5 times the points on airfare charged by airlines directly. To be clear, the tickets do not have to be purchased on the Amex site or airlines website. It can also be purchased through travel agencies or 3rd party websites as long as the airline is listed on the card as the merchant of record, which is how it is listed in most cases . They also offer 5 times the points on hotels prepaid directly on AmEx’s website but this is a limited number of hotels so this feature is not as generous as Chase Sapphire Reserve or Citi Prestige which give the bonus on any hotel.

The recently raised annual fee is $695. There is no automatic credit like with others. They do offer a $200 travel credit for incidentals (like seat or baggage purchases) on only the airline that you choose once annually.  They also offer $200 annual credit for hotels prepaid through amextravel.com . Three other benefits that come as monthly statement credits which add up to  $200 annual Uber credit, $240 annual streaming credit (limited options), $300 equinox credit. Also $50 credit twice a year on any Saks Fifth Avenue over $50.  American Express Platinum memberships also bumps you to Gold status with Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honor, Hertz, and gives you Avis Preferred and National’s Executive. If you get to use all those benefits, they add up to well over $695 however it is not as easy to use those benefits as it is with other cards.

AmEx lounge benefits work slightly differently than other cards. Like others, they offer you Priority Pass Select, but unlike others it does not come with meal credit at certain airport restaurants.  However, AmEx operates Centurion lounges at several airports around the world which you have access to, and those lounges are available through the Priority Pass Select program that other cards offer.

When it comes to transfer partners, AmEx has more partner airlines to choose from than the other airlines and they more regularly offer transfer bonuses with their partner airlines.  British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue, Marriott and Hilton Hotel programs are among partners that frequently offer transfer bonuses of 25 to 40 percent.

American Express Membership Rewards (MR) program has some unique features which work differently to other programs.  For example, if you need to cancel a ticket which was issued through Amex Travel using membership rewards, the refund will come back as monetary statement credit equivalent to a penny per mile rather than in points. Both Chase and Citi will put the points back in the rewards account, not as monetary credit to your statement. With all 3 cards, if you transfer your points to an airline partner and issue the award that way, the refund comes back in points to the airline partner frequent flyer program not to the credit card programs, and they cannot be transferred back to the credit card program. 

Another unique feature is that you combine all points from American Express cards that accrue MR and where you are the primary cardholder into one MR account and redeem all of them with the benefits of any of your cards, whichever is most beneficial.  Although with Citi and Chase, you may see the points accrued through multiple cards of the same bank through one login, you can only redeem each balance in accordance to the rules of the card where the points were earned. 

Here is one example where the Amex system provides additional benefits.  Business owners who also have a Business Platinum card as primary card holders get a 35 percent bonus up to 500,000 points annually when redeeming their points for travel booked through American Express Travel Service.  You can, however, redeem points that were earned on your personal platinum card the same way.  If you have both cards, you can redeem your combined balance through the Business card and get a 35 percent balance on your whole purchase.  This is actually almost the same offer as Chase 50 percent calculated backwards, albeit with some limits. This also works on Gold (25 percent) and invitation only Centurion cards (50 percent), but the bonus amounts and annual limits for these benefits are different.

American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts (FHR) program is much bigger and offers better benefits than the hotel amenity programs of the other cards.  Their International Airline Program offers some additional discounts on airfare which other programs do not.

The statement credit options with Amex are only given at 0.67 of a penny per MR point, so it is 30 percent less than both Citi and Chase and it is not as good as transferring miles to airlines or redeeming them through Amex Travel Service.

Travel Insurance benefits on AmEx are great, but not quite as good as Chase Sapphire.

Which card(s) is right for you?

I would suggest looking closely at how much you spend, what you spend it on and how you use  points to make a decision.  You may even choose to have all 3 cards if you spend a lot and find ways to use the benefits the cards provide.  The signup bonuses offered by all more than offset annual fees for the first year. Each card offers some unique benefits. For married couples, it may be worthwhile to get two different supercards and add your spouse as an additional member on each one. Every road warrior should choose one and make it the top of their wallet card.