You’ve heard all of the tricks credit card companies can play on you.
Raising your interest rate, changing the due date of your payment, pushing you into paying extra for fraud protection, or forcing you to pay questionable fees whenever you break just one obscure term.
But you’re a responsible credit card user and always try to avoid these traps.
You set up your bill to pay automatically online to avoid late fees and due date changes, you pay it off in full every month to avoid interest charges, and you pick one that offers you rewards like cash or free travel.
But even if you do all of these things right you can still get socked with unwanted fees or enough frustration to make you never want to use a rewards card again.
Why?
The Biggest Credit Card Traps
Two of the biggest traps for responsible credit card users are fees added to charges you make while traveling overseas and rewards that are hard to use.
Most credit cards charge you a 3% fee on all of the money you spend outside the United States. And that’s on top of you having to deal with exchange rates that make things more expensive.
It’s a nasty surprise when you use your favorite travel credit card on a trip and open the statement when you get back to find your rewards are washed out by these hidden fees.
Or, you try to use your hard earned awards only to find you need a lot more points than you expected to get the free flight you want.
The credit card companies don’t make it easy to figure this out. Here are a few tips that you should consider, to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Tip 1: Amex might not be the best for international spending
You might think American Express is the best choice for international travel, since they have such great rewards and so many travel protection benefits.
But the reality is almost every American Express card charges a nearly 3% fee on foreign spending. You’ll need to pay $450 a year for its Platinum Card to avoid them.
Instead consider Chase and Capital One for spending you’ll make outside the U.S. They have the most cards with no foreign transaction fees.
In fact, the Capital One VentureOne Rewards card has no annual fee, so you can keep it as a spare. Use your American Express card in the U.S. and your Capital One when you travel.
Tip 2: Use flexible points to avoid frustration
One of the biggest frustrations with travel rewards is trying to use your points only to find the airline doesn’t offer seats for awards on the day you want to travel. One way to avoid this is to get a card that lets you use your points in multiple programs.
There are several cards that let you earn points you can transfer into multiple airline mile programs.
For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred earns points you can move into your United or Southwest mileage accounts at any time with no additional fee. So if United doesn’t have the reward you want, you can look at Southwest and double your options.
Tip 3: Use CardFinder to find a better card
Not all miles are created equal and one card’s claim of enough points for a free flight might not be the best deal for you. Every card earns a different number of points based on where you spend.
For example, many offer double the points when you eat out. Others give you more points when you spend more each year. It’s a lot to think about.
One way to cut through all that is to use the Card Finder tool at MileCards.com. It factors in all of these things — how fast you’ll earn points, the fees each card has, and how useful the points really are.
You just enter how much you plan to spend each month and it will rank all of the most popular travel rewards cards for you.
You’ll see exactly where and how you can use the points for each card, and see exactly how many points you could earn each year based on your own spending.
You might find that a card with an annual fee may give you bigger travel savings. Or that the card you have now isn’t the best one for the rewards you want.
And with that knowledge you can earn that award trip a little bit faster.
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