Going
Battle of the Premium Travel Cards
Preheader
Going with Points: 💳🥊🥂
Premium travel credit card feud |
|
If you’ve been following the news over the past month or so, you know that there’s an epic battle underway in American culture. It’s been on the news, it’s broken the internet, and it’s sparked countless think-pieces. I’m talking about Kendrick vs. Drake, of course. What else did you think? And if you’re not up to speed on the beef between the rappers, where have you been? Even Tom Hanks knows about how the two artists have been trading insults over diss tracks. Meanwhile, there’s a quieter beef simmering between premium travel credit cards. Just like Kendrick and Drake, two cards have been duking it out to compete for a spot in your wallet. In that spirit, this week’s newsletter is a versus of our own. Two premium travel credit cards will battle it out. Which one should you pick? Meet the cardsIf you’ve been reading these emails for a while, you know by now that I can’t use the actual names of cards in emails, so for argument’s sake, let’s call one card “Kendrick” and the other card “Drake.” One more thing: The actual beef between the two rappers deals with some pretty heavy topics (#NSFW), but when it comes to the battle between Drake vs. Kendrick the cards we’re going to keep it light. Kendrick the card: When it comes to premium travel cards, this card is the OG. Just like the artist himself, this card has iconic, GOAT status. If they awarded Pulitzers for travel cards, this card would have one. |
Drake the card: This card is a bit newer and comes from a less established brand. As we’ll discuss below, this card adopts many of the other features of the older, more established premium credit cards, just with a lower fee. (If there’s any similarity with the artist, well, let’s just say, I’ll let you read between the lines.)
Annual fee
Let’s get this one out of the way first. When it comes to premium travel credit cards, the annual fee is always the first place to look. Here’s how they compare:
Kendrick card |
Drake card |
Kendrick’s fee is $300 more than Drake’s. Is it worth it? That depends on what you’re looking for.
What about that other premium card?
If you’re curious, there is another premium card available ($550 annual fee) offering similar perks. But like the rapper J. Cole was not involved in the Drake vs. Kendrick beef, this card is not really relevant to this discussion.
Lounge access
If you’re looking for a premium travel credit card, airport lounge access is probably one of your top priorities. Both offer a Priority Pass™ membership, which gets you access to over 1,400+ lounges at over 500 airports. Enrollment required.
In addition, both the Kendrick card and the Drake card get you into specific networks of airport lounges affiliated with their card issuers. In full transparency, the Kendrick card’s lounge collection is much larger than the Drake card’s—much like the artists’ respective Grammy Award count.
But numbers don’t tell the full story. If you frequent an airport that has one of the lounges in the Drake card’s network, then it could be worth it for you.
Other perks and credits
Both cards include an application credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®, but that’s where their similarities end.
Drake card’s statement credits
The Drake card comes with a $300 annual travel credit for purchases through the card’s travel portal. This credit will be applied to the first $300 in purchases you make each year through the portal. So, if you booked a hotel for $350 through this portal, you’d owe $50 after the credit is applied.
By using this credit, you can effectively reduce the card’s annual fee from $395 to $95.
Kendrick card’s statement credits
Listing out the credits that the Kendrick card includes takes almost as long as listening to “euphoria.”
Some of the highlights of the credits that the Kendrick card includes:
- $200 annual airline fee credit
- $200 Hotel Credit: requires a minimum two-night stay
- $240 Digital Entertainment Credit: $20 each month
- $200 Uber Cash: $15 in Uber cash each month, plus $20 in December
- $189 annual CLEAR Plus credit
Heads up: Enrollment is required for many of these benefits.
Actually using all of these credits—and understanding how to maximize them—takes nearly as long as it would take to unpack all the references in each of the rappers’ diss tracks.
Welcome offer
A card’s welcome offer is the bonus points you earn after spending a minimum amount on the new card. Earning a new card’s welcome offer is one of the best ways to get a free flight.
Here’s how they stack up:
Kendrick card |
||
|
Drake card |
||
|
You need to spend only half as much with the Drake card to earn a nearly similar amount of points.
The Kendrick card’s spending requirement is double—$8,000 instead of $4,000—but you also have twice as much time—6 months from account opening versus 3 months.
This means that the pacing is similar. Kendrick just takes longer. Much like the runtime on his diss tracks.
Ongoing points-earning rate
The points-earning structure on the Drake card takes less time to explain than the time between when “Family Matters” and “Meet the Grahams” dropped. (The tracks came out within minutes of each other. #iykyk) It is:
- Earn unlimited 2X points on all other purchases
You can also earn 5X points on airfare booked through the portal and 10X points on hotels and rental cars through the portal.
On the other hand, the Kendrick card’s earning power is a little different.
- 5X points on flights booked with the airline or through the travel portal
- 5X points on prepaid hotels booked through the travel portal
- 1X on all other eligible purchases
Here is how they compare at a glance:
Kendrick card |
||||||
|
Drake card |
||||||
|
Transfer partners
Much like words are just words until they are arranged into a rap, points are just points when they sit in your account: What matters is how you use those points, just like words.
Both cards boast transfer partners to hotels and airlines, but if I had to choose which card’s network of partners is stronger, I’d have to say the Kendrick card. Here are some of the transfer partners that the Kendrick card has that the Drake card is missing:
- Delta Air Lines
- ANA (All Nippon Airways)
- Iberia Plus
- Hilton and Marriott Bonvoy
That said, the Drake card has some valuable transfer partners, too. Some partners that Drake has that Kendrick doesn’t include Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, Wyndham, and Choice hotels.
Both Kendrick and Drake count Air Canada, Air France/KLM, Avianca LifeMiles, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic as transfer partners—all high-value partners from which we regularly send Going with Points deals.
And the winner is...
Kurt is a writer with too many credit cards in his wallet. Before becoming a credit card points pro, he wrote personal finance and small business content. A graduate of Princeton, he lives in New York City.
A disclaimer about card names:
Due to the quirks of credit card compliance, we are sometimes not allowed to use the actual names of cards or certain banks in emails. This means we have to resort to using more generic language when talking about some credit cards. We know this can be confusing or frustrating, but we encourage you to click through to our site, where we can name and talk more candidly about the cards and their benefits. While we are bound by the rules of credit card compliance, our mission will always be to put our readers first and help you travel better for less.
Share with a fellow travel lover by forwarding to a friend.
|
Get the app today
|
©Scott’s Cheap Flights, Inc. DBA Going
4845 Pearl East Circle, Suite 118
PMB 28648
Boulder, CO 80301-6112
Advertise | Email Preferences | Unsubscribe
Note: Unsubscribing does not cancel your account or membership.
The editorial content here is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone.
This email may contain links through which we are compensated when you click on or are approved for offers.
QuinStreet, 950 Tower Lane, 6th Floor, Foster City, CA 94404