With a reasonable annual fee ($95), a good sign-up bonus that earns valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points, and great bonus spending categories (like 3x points on travel and dining), this is the quintessential starter travel credit card!

We use the Chase Ink Business Unlimited for a lot of our business’ everyday spending that doesn’t hit a category bonus on one of our other cards. This is a great card to pair with other Chase cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, since you can pool your Chase points together. A normally-high sign-up bonus + no annual fee make this card a winner!

Although it comes with a high annual fee ($395), with the sign-up bonus, the $300 annual travel credit plus 10,000 bonus points at every card anniversary, it easily pays for itself! We also utilize the Priority Pass lounge benefits and TSA Pre-check reimbursement.

The Chase Freedom Unlimited is a great card to pair with the Chase Sapphire Preferred, since all spend earns 1.5 points per dollar, so putting spend on categories that don’t earn 3x on the Chase Sapphire Preferred makes a ton of sense. If you want to put in a little bit more work to track the quarterly spend bonus categories on the Chase Freedom Flex, that could make sense for you as well!

This is the opposite of a starter card, with its $695 annual fee! We have both the AMEX Personal and Business Platinum cards, but we prefer the perks of the Business card. It has less of a “coupon book” feel than the Personal card to us, as we get full value from the $400 Dell credit. In addition, we use the 35% rebate on “Pay with Points” when booking flights through the AMEX Travel Portal often.

This is by far one of our favorite travel cards! The bonus categories match up with where the bulk of our spending is (4x at groceries & dining, 3x on flights), the sign-up bonus is usually between 75-90k very valuable Membership Rewards points, and we often use most, if not all, of the monthly Uber and dining credits (totaling $240 in benefits from the $250 annual fee).

We love the perks of this card, with the yearly free Category 1-4 certificate and the automatic Discoverist status. However, it’s not one we often recommend for beginners, as the sign-up bonus has been low for awhile, as compared to other cards we recommend.

This is a bit of a niche card, but we love to use it for gas purchases, as it earns 8x Wyndham points per dollar spent! We especially like to use Wyndham points for Vacasa vacation rentals. We’ve also utilized the Wyndham Diamond status that automatically comes with the card for various status matches, like Caesars Diamond status (and received numerous free cruise offers as a result!)

Although this is a tough card to justify keeping open after Year 1, it’s amazing for the sign-up bonus. Typically, you receive 60,000 bonus points after only one purchase, without an annual fee (for the first year)! There’s some other supplemental benefits that are helpful if you travel on American airlines often (like free baggage and priority boarding).

With a waived annual fee for the first year ($95 thereafter), amazing bonus spend categories (like 6x on groceries!), and a sizable sign-up bonus, this is a great card!

***Note: This is a cash back card, not a travel card. We’ve seen benefit to having one cash back card to supplement.

Another business card that is a staple in our wallet! What’s not to love? No annual fee. Check. 2x AMEX Membership Reward (MR) points for your first 50k in spend each year? Check. Keeps your AMEX MR points active (since you lose your MR points if you don’t have a card open that earns them)? Check. This gets most, if not all, of our everyday spend that does not hit a category bonus on any of our other cards.

We really like our AMEX Hilton Business card! Earn 12x points at Hilton hotels, earn up to 2 free night certificates with 60k spend in a year, and automatic Gold status make it a keeper for us! If you don’t have a high-annual fee travel card that gives you unlimited Priority Pass lounge visits, the 10 free visits per year are a nice touch as well!

This is another card that we rarely recommend for beginners. The main reason we don’t? The $695 annual fee! So, why do we recommend it at all? Because, with the sign-up bonus and the benefits/credits, you can easily squeeze over $1k in value from the sign-up bonus!