How Do Travel Reward Credit Cards Work?

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Travel reward credit cards - including air mile credit cards - allow you to earn points or miles that can be redeemed for or towards free travel.

The strongest selling point of a travel reward credit card is that as a cardholder you'll become able to earn rewards that could save you money, just by using a different piece of plastic to pay for all your everyday shopping items.

Compare travel reward credit cards, or read on to find all about how travel reward credit cards and the reward schemes work.

How do I earn travel reward points?

- Travel reward credit card spending
The primary way you'll be able to earn travel reward points is simply by spending on a travel reward credit card.

Most travel reward credit cards will award any card purchases you make with a number of points or miles for each pound spent.

Purchases include buying goods or services from retailers or companies. It's important to bear in mind that travel reward points or air miles will never be awarded on cash transactions (e.g. ATM withdrawals, buying foreign currency) or balance transfers.

Fundamentally, the more you spend on a travel reward credit card the more reward points or air miles you'll collect. However, an easy mistake would be to go out of your way to buy things just to earn travel points - this may earn you points but it really won't pay you back in the long run.

The best way to clock up the most travel points or air miles is simply to switch all your everyday purchases - such as grocery shopping and petrol - over to your travel reward credit card. Similarly, anything you currently pay for with your debit card or with cash would be the ideal purchases to move to your travel reward credit card.

Changing how you buy and not what you buy will set you well on your way to really enjoying the money-saving benefits of a travel reward credit card - and hopefully see you feet-up relaxing on your first travel reward holiday or flight!

- Loyalty spend additional travel points or air miles
Many travel reward or air mile schemes will award you with additional points or miles when you spend with the travel reward credit card's partner travel operators, companies and airlines.

Airline specific travel reward credit cards will often offer automatic entry onto the airlines' frequent flyer program. This means that you'll be able to earn miles for the distance you fly as well as the cost of the flight - if you buy it on your travel reward credit card.

However, the partners you can spend with to earn additional points or miles are rarely restricted to just the named airline or one main travel partner. Even airline specific travel reward credit cards usually have quite a range of partner travel companies and other airlines you can also earn additional miles with.

Make sure to check out exactly who and where you'll be able to clock-up some additional points or miles - you never know, your night-over trip to London might even earn you double points or miles if you stay at the right hotel!

There may even be partner companies you wouldn't be expecting to see on a travel reward program too. If you buy your groceries at Tesco, did you know you could exchange Tesco Club Card points for air miles with the British Airways credit card?

- Introductory earnings and bonus travel points or miles
Most travel reward credit cards will offer joining incentives for new customers opening an account.

These joining incentives are usually in the form of bonus points or miles - a lump sum of points or miles awarded with your first card purchase.

Bonus points are really worth claiming, as they can often be enough for your first free reward!

Check the offer conditions though, as they will often require you to make your first purchase within a set time period to qualify for the bonus points.

Travel reward credit cards may also, or separately, offer introductory earnings too - which means that for an initial period your spending will be awarded with double or even triple travel reward points.

Any joining incentive should be taken advantage of - not only are they effectively free point giveaways - but they can also give your point collection a real head start.

How will I know how many travel reward points I've earned so far?

It will depend upon the travel reward credit card you choose.

However, most travel reward credit cards will either allow you to log in to an Internet account where you can see how many points or miles you've collected so far, or the number of points you've earned will be sent out with your monthly card statement.

How do I spend my travel reward points?

Travel reward points or air miles can be spent by redeeming them for a travel reward of your choice.

Most travel reward credit cards will have an accompanying website where you can log in and see how many points or miles you've collected so far and all the different travel rewards you could spend your points on.

The website will let you know how many points or miles are required for each travel reward listed.

You can often choose to pay part points and part cash, which is a handy feature if you want to fly to Australia but only have enough points to get you to Spain!

What rewards will I be able to spend my points on?

The actual travel rewards on offer will vary from card to card and is dependent upon the travel reward scheme and it's partner airlines, operators and companies.

Air mile credit cards, for example, will usually allow you to spend your miles on flights with the airline and it's airline partners, as well as the frequent flyer program's partnered travel operators and companies.

Don't be fooled into thinking an airline specific travel reward credit card would be restrictive in the terms of rewards on offer. Many air mile credit cards are actually partnered with just as many, if not more travel companies as a more general travel reward credit card program.

It is however important to find out who and what you'll be able to spend your travel points or air miles with. To really start saving money with a travel reward credit card, you'll need to be earning rewards you really want to use!

The travel rewards on offer usually include stuff like:

- Airline flights
- Brochure holidays
- Hotel stays
- Car rental
- Days out and experiences
- And many more...

How many travel points or air miles will I need for a reward?

Again, it really depends upon the travel reward scheme and the available rewards.

However, a good way to compare travel reward credit cards by how much money you could actually save is to find out how much each card's points or miles are really worth.

That may sound like an arduous, if not a 'how on earth?' task to accomplish, but luckily for you our travel reward credit card calculator not only lets you know how many points or miles your individual spending will earn - but actually how much those points or miles are worth as a monetary value.

Compare travel reward credit cards