Best Credit Cards For Travel & Overseas Spending 2024
Before you go on your vacations or business trips, there are some things you’ll probably have in mind to bring along, and your go-to travel credit cards are definitely one of the best things that you’ll need.
If you’re just starting to look around for better travel credit cards, you may find MoneySmart's credit card page helpful for you to compare different credit cards in terms of free flights, hotel stays, dining rewards, cashback, lowest fees, frequent flyer programme benefits, and more. This guide includes the best travel credit cards you can get in Singapore, plus some useful tips on how to maximise them so you can pick a suitable card for your travel needs.
Best Credit Cards For Overseas Spending
| Best For | Credit Card | Benefits | Minimum Spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dining | Standard Chartered Rewards+ Credit Card | 10 Rewards Points per $1 spent overseas 2.9 miles for every $1 spent overseas | None |
| Shopping | Citi Rewards Card | 10 Rewards Points per $1 spent overseas and/or locally on online transactions 4 miles for every $1 spent online (excluding travel-related purchases) overseas and/or locally | None |
| Complimentary airport lounge visits | HSBC TravelOne Card | 2.4 miles for every S$1 spent overseas 1.2 miles for every $1 spent locally 4 complimentary airport lounge visits for primary cardholders | $800 per month |
| Family trips | HSBC Visa Platinum Credit Card | 5% cashback on dining 1 Rewards point per $1 spent locally or overseas | $600 per month |
| Hotels | UOB PRVI Miles Card | 2.4 miles per $1 spent overseas 1.4 miles per $1 spend locally 6 miles per $1 spent on Agoda, Expedia and UOB Travel | None |
| Cruises | CIMB Visa Signature | Up to 10% cashback on cruises | $800 per month |
| Cashback | Citibank Cash Back+ Card | 1.6% cashback on all purchases overseas and locally (no cap on cashback earned) | None |
| Air miles | DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card | 5 miles for every $1 spent on online flight and hotel transactions 5 miles for every $1 spent overseas (at point of sale) 2 miles for online spending and 1.2 miles for every $1 spent locally | None |
| Lowest foreign transactions fees | Standard Chartered Rewards+ Credit Card | 10 Rewards Points per $1 spent overseas 2.9 miles for every $1 spent overseas | None |
| Business travel | American Express SIA Business Card | 8.5 HighFlyer Points for every S$1 spent on eligible SIA and Scoot flights 1.8 HighFlyer Points for every S$1 spent on all other eligible purchases 1 complimentary Accor Plus Membership worth S$418 | $4,000 for 2 consecutive 3-month periods (to receive 74,400 HighFlyer points) |
| No conversion fees for reward points to air miles | American Express SIA KrisFlyer Credit Card | 3.1 miles for every S$1 spent on Grab transactions 2 miles for every S$1 spent overseas during June and December 1.1 miles for every S$1 spent locally | $1,000 within first month of card approval |
How To Maximise Your Travel Credit Cards
Tip #1: Get cards that offer travel perks fast
Depending on your spending habits, if you’re one who prefers air miles or rewards points for you to convert to air miles or other travel-related discount vouchers, picking an air miles card that offers you a generous amount of air miles for signing up is the fastest way to get the best benefits out of your card.
Travel credit cards which offer higher bonus air miles include Citi PremierMiles, DBS Altitude Card, and Amex KrisFlyer Ascend which gives you up to 45,000 miles, 38,000 miles and 21,000 miles respectively, each with a different minimum spend requirement.
Tip #2: Use a combination of credit cards for different travel benefits
Different cards offer different advantages, i.e. some will offer you bonus air miles upon your annual fee payment like Standard Chartered Visa Infinite X Card (30,000 miles upon annual fee payment), while others offer attractive cashback that is great for cruise vacations and family spending overseas or reward points to redeem shopping vouchers.
In order to maximise your credit card rewards, cashback or air miles, tap on multiple credit cards with each card specialising in a particular spending type or card feature that best suits your travel needs.
Tip #3: Picking cards with flexible rewards
Flexible rewards points programs give you a wider range of options such as redeeming points for a variety of gift cards, cash back and even airfares, hotels, cruises and car rentals.
Depending on the type of rewards points program and credit card you get, this can be a reasonable option to get more rewards from your credit cards. Usually these flexible rewards points programs are more beneficial for those who fly often for business trips and value the international business class cabins on flights or stay in budget and/or luxury hotel suites overseas.
3 Need-To-Knows About Cards For Overseas Spending:
Using your air miles credit card or cashback credit card or rewards points credit card to convert your points to air miles also means that you’ll have to pay for certain fees in exchange for all these benefits. Here are a few things to consider as you leverage on the rewards from your travel credit card for overseas spending.
- Choose flexible rewards whenever possible
Flexible rewards points like those offered by Standard Chartered Rewards+ Credit Card, OCBC 90°N Card and UOB PRVI Miles American Express Card are transferable to a variety of different airline and hotel loyalty programs while others which are more brand-specific like American Express Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend Credit Card and KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card only gives you the option to redeem them for a specific airline, which is Singapore Airlines in this case.
- Waiver of annual fees or foreign transaction fees or other conversion fees
It’s good to know which cards offer what types of fee waivers so that it’s more worthwhile to use it to gain cashback and other perks. Cards like UOB PRVI VISA Miles Card and DBS Altitude Visa Signature Card offer 1 year of fee waiver, while cards like Maybank World Mastercard will have your conversion fee waived for each conversion of points to frequent flyer miles. Others like American Express Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend Credit Card do not offer any annual fee waivers.
- Split spending over multiple cards
By using platforms like CardUp to split your overseas spending, it can actually help you to maximise your benefits so that you can gain reward points, cash rebates and air miles at the same time while using all of your cards.
Best Credit Cards For Overseas Spending
If you’re looking for a generous welcome bonus air miles, Standard Chartered’s Journey Card offers 45,000 miles upon sign-up as a new primary cardholder and meet the required minimum spending. To qualify for the 45,000 air miles, you’ll have to spend $5,000 within 30 days of card approval, transact $5,000 worth of spending on overseas transactions, and pay the annual fee.
This card lets you earn 3 miles for every S$1 spent on various categories including transportation, food delivery and online grocery merchants. Moreover, you can enjoy 2 complimentary visits to Priority Pass lounges around the world each year, complimentary travel insurance coverage of up to S$500,000, and more.
The welcome bonus of 20,000 air miles may not seem as attractive as what Standard Chartered Journey Card offers, but the HSBC TravelOne Card’s minimum spending requirement is definitely lesser than that of the SCB Journey Card, and you’re entitled to more lounge benefits including 4 complimentary airport lounge visits per year.
Besides that, the HSBC TravelOne Card’ offers you up to 2.4 miles (6X Reward points) for every $1 spent overseas, upon payment of an annual fee and a minimum spend of S$800. Annual fee waiver benefits are available with a minimum total annual spending of $25,000.
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3 Need-To-Knows About Cards For Air Miles:
With so many types of credit cards out there offering air miles, you may wonder which card suits you the most. To get started, you’ll need to know a few things about air miles credit cards before getting one.
- Avoid air miles cards with high fees
Paying off the balance of your account every month can get rather expensive for some air miles credit cards, because the high interest charges will cost more than the value of any miles you could earn.
- Go for cards with lower foreign transaction fees
For those who plan to pay in SGD instead of overseas currencies, it’ll be better to use credit cards offered by banks like CIMB and Standard Chartered that charge some of the lowest foreign transaction fees in Singapore.
- Compare miles earn rates & bonus air miles
Highest mile per dollar spend ratio, most bonus air miles and air miles with no expiry are some of the factors to look out for when choosing your air miles cards. Some cards offer higher miles per dollar spend ratio so you don’t have to spend as much to get more air miles, while some banks offer generous welcome bonus air miles upon signing up for certain air miles credit cards which gives you a lot of air miles in a short amount of time without having you to spend a minimum amount over time to get more air miles. Other cards offer earned miles that don’t expire, which comes in handy in uncertain situations like the COVID-19 pandemic that made travel plans a challenge at times.
Best Air Miles Credit Cards
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Best Credit Cards For Hotel Stays
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