Timeshare Traveler Episode 106... My all time favorite Travel Credit Card

[Clifbell]

After traveling for a year (almost) and using credit cards for almost 100% of my payments, I thought I would do a video on why the American Express Aspire Card is my favorite. My travel is greater than most people so I do have a lot of experience using different cards. It is possible that you can adjust what I have learned to your travel needs. I think I would have the same choice even if I were not traveling as much.

In this video I provide an overview of the airline cards and hotel cards I have. The most surprising was how much better the American Express Aspire card was than the cash back card... but only if you know the key benefits and you use them. I have some amazing experiences with Aspire card and would love for you to have a similar experience. Enjoy!!!

Timeshare Traveler Episode 106... My all time favorite Travel Credit Card

Map of all my timeshare reviews

 

[Carolinian]

One of the countries I worked in while in eastern Europe had only one business in the entire country that took AmEx, a luxury hotel in the capital, and a year after I started working over there, they got in a dispute with AmEx and quit taking it, so nobody did in the entire country. Another country I worked in, there were a handful of places in the capital that took it but I never saw anywhere outside the capital that did. My corporate card was AmEx, so it was almost useless. That was a problem in enough countries that the head office in the US changed all of the corporate cards to a Diners Club branded Mastercard, and that one could be used many places in the countries I worked in. It was also a great card for travel because it included free airport lounge priveleges in many airports, which was particularly useful in Europe, and in some airports I flew thru in the US.

One thing that is important for a credit card for international travel is to have one that does not charge a foreign use surcharge, and not many banks issue those. Does this AmEx card have a foreign usage surcharge?

 

[Clifbell]

One of the countries I worked in while in eastern Europe had only one business in the entire country that took AmEx, a luxury hotel in the capital, and a year after I started working over there, they got in a dispute with AmEx and quit taking it, so nobody did in the entire country. Another country I worked in, there were a handful of places in the capital that took it but I never saw anywhere outside the capital that did. My corporate card was AmEx, so it was almost useless. That was a problem in enough countries that the head office in the US changed all of the corporate cards to a Diners Club branded Mastercard, and that one could be used many places in the countries I worked in. It was also a great card for travel because it included free airport lounge priveleges in many airports, which was particularly useful in Europe, and in some airports I flew thru in the US.

One thing that is important for a credit card for international travel is to have one that does not charge a foreign use surcharge, and not many banks issue those. Does this AmEx card have a foreign usage surcharge?

Here is the link to the cards with no foreign fees... Most of the travel cards follow into that category including the Aspire card.

American Express

www.americanexpress.com

I traveled a lot overseas with corporate Amex cards and sometimes had to use my Visa... That seems to be less now as 20 years before.

 

[Carolinian]

Here is the link to the cards with no foreign fees... Most of the travel cards follow into that category including the Aspire card.

American Express

www.americanexpress.com

I traveled a lot overseas with corporate Amex cards and sometimes had to use my Visa... That seems to be less now as 20 years before.

I used to have both a personal Amex and a corporate Amex for my law practice. I earned Delta Skymiles on both which had been the reason to get both cards. When Delta radically changed their SkyMiles program, I comped my airline elite status over to Northwest, which I also found to be a better airline in many respects, not just a better ff program. I dropped one of my Amex cards the very next time renewal fees were due again after switching airlines, and the other one the year after that. I got the cards that earned Northwest air miles as replacements. I did find their rental car insurance very good. I used my personal Amex on a car rental in Athens on a t/s exchange, and got rear ended on Corfu. They swapped out cars on Corfu, and on the car return at the Athens airport, the rental car company said that since I had rented the car on Amex, they did not need a deposit from me while they negotiated with the insurance. Most of my travel in those days was in western Europe, and Amex was accepted more there than I later discovered in eastern Europe when I was working there. i learned the truth of that punch line in TV ads for Visa - "and they don't take American Express."