Credit card treasure hunting

Maximize credit card travel benefits and perks with this quick guide to rental car status, Global Entry credits, and hidden airline benefits. Learn how to audit your credit cards to uncover hundreds in travel savings before your next family vacation.

In this Quick Tip Tuesday episode, Melissa shares how to maximize credit card travel benefits most families overlook. Discover how to unlock rental car status upgrades, activate TSA PreCheck and Global Entry credits, stack rideshare benefits, and create a simple system to track all your perks.

Episode highlights:

• How to status match rental car perks across brands
• Getting free Global Entry for your whole family
• Stacking rideshare credits with United and Chase cards
• Simple spreadsheet system to track card benefits
• Be mindful of advance activation

00:00 Introduction and Quick Tip Overview

00:16 Unlocking Hidden Benefits of Travel Credit Cards

00:44 Real-Life Examples of Credit Card Benefits

01:57 Maximizing Value from Credit Card Benefits

03:50 Creating a Credit Card Benefits Tracker

04:39 Automating and Tracking Your Benefits

05:24 Final Tips and Conclusion

Resources:

Chase Sapphire credit cards

United credit cards

Best Travel Credit Cards for Families

CardPointers+ App

Southwest Companion Pass

Four Reasons I LOVE Award Travel

How to get discounted rental cars

Chase Freedom credit cards

Chase Ink Business credit cards

Capital One Venture X credit card

Amex Platinum card

Hosted by Melissa Conn, founder of The Family Voyage, certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and mom of two who proves family travel is achievable for everyone.

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Chase Sapphire credit cards

Transcript

0:02

Hey everyone. Melissa here with Family Travel Unpacked and it's Quick Tip Tuesday. Today I am bringing you one of my favorite tips that could honestly save you hundreds of dollars on your next trip, and it won't take you more than an hour or two to implement. So here's the thing, before you book your next vacation, I want you to do something that sounds incredibly boring, but it's actually kind of like a treasure hunt. Sit down with all your credit cards. Yes, even the one you forgot about in your sock drawer. And actually read through what benefits they offer. I know, I know reading credit card benefits sounds about as exciting as reading your homeowner's insurance policy. But stick with me here because I'm gonna give you a few examples of how some of these hidden benefits save us real money. One benefit I love on my husband's Capital One Venture X card is the free top tier status with Hertz. Since I'm an authorized user, it applies to me too. You just have to activate it and link it to your Hertz account. But here's where it gets even better: once I activated that Hertz status, I was able to match my Avis status to it by emailing them a screenshot from the Hertz account. So now I have top tier status with two rental car companies, which means free upgrades, expedited service, and more, all from a car that we're already paying for. Here's another one: just last month I was chatting with a friend who loves to travel with her family on points and miles too. She knows a ton and sometimes she even helps me with these puzzles. We were doing some math on a British Airways flight I was looking at and I said,"well, the taxes and fees are really high, but at least I could get 250 back from the card rebate." She asked me what I meant. I reminded her that the British Airways credit card that we had both gotten earlier this year. Comes with up to$600 in statement credits for BA award flights. She had completely forgotten about it and unfortunately, her family had just booked their BA flights the previous week and they would've been eligible. Even a Chase Sapphire Preferred, which only costs you$95 a year and unlocks huge value for points, it comes with a$50 hotel credit every year. You just have to book through the Chase Travel portal to take advantage of it. This isn't unique to my situation. Most credit cards that charge an annual fee give you something in return. You may be eligible for hotel or rental car status, TSA pre-check or global entry credits, free wifi in flight, rideshare credits and more. Some of those benefits need to be activated in advance, like that Hertz status from Capital One or lounge access. Don't wait until you're standing at the Hertz counter to figure it out. With statuses, you can also match them to other brands like I did. Usually I'm booking cars with Avis because I have a great small business right there, so matching with Hertz from my Capital One card is a huge win. I also have Hilton and Marriott Gold status through my Amex Platinum card. Again, I had to activate those, but they're really useful on their own and can also get me matches with brands like Wyndham Best Western and Choice. Here's another example of how I stack benefits. I get discounts on Lyft by linking to my DoorDash dash pass, which is included for free on lots of Chase credit cards. Then I get a credit back when I use my United Card to pay for the Lyft ride. I also have my Lyft account linked to my Alaska Atmos account, so I'm earning three points per dollar if it's an airport ride. Am I squeezing every possible drop of value outta these transactions? Probably not, but enough value to offset those annual fees without making myself crazy. Because once you set these things up and do it a couple of times, it's pretty much automatic. So here's what I want you to do. Set aside an hour this week. Pull out all your credit cards and go through each card's website to look up the full benefits. Then create a simple spreadsheet. Nothing fancy, just three columns, card name, benefits and notes. List out everything: TSA PreCheck credits, hotel statuses, lounge access, dining credits, streaming credits, whatever. And then make a note if there are any steps that you need to take. Some benefits, like rental car status, you have to enroll in before you can use them, and don't wait until you're already on a trip. If I want free breakfast from my Hilton Gold status, my account needs to show gold before I'm at the desk. Be sure to make a note if there are any spending requirements or limitations. Some of those credits are quarterly, some are monthly and some are annual. It's really annoying, but if you figure out the timing, you don't leave too much money on the table. If there's a monthly credit you know you can use, easily set up a reminder on your phone to make sure you're actually using it. You could also try to automate some of this. There's an app called WalletFlo that I use that does an okay job of tracking the perks and credits, but it definitely misses some things like a few of my DoorDash credits. I mostly use it for the cheat sheet function that tells me which card to use for each spending category. There's also the card pointers app, which is really powerful. It tracks all those benefits and credits, but also you can set it up to automatically add card linked offers to all of your credit cards for extra money saving. Another option if you're more tech oriented, is to use your favorite AI to make a benefit tracking tool. I'm still toying around with that, and to be honest, I did have to correct chat GPT on a few of the benefits and credits. But I could only do that because I've gone through my cards beforehand and I made notes about what's really in there and what isn't. One last thing, and this is important, don't let these benefits trick you into spending money you wouldn't spend otherwise. The best credit card benefits are the ones that either save you money on things you were already planning to buy, or give you genuine value on things that you really want, like global entry credit that lets you skip the passport control line when you're exhausted and just wanna get home. So that's it. That's the tip today. One evening, one spreadsheet, and suddenly you're getting way more value out of the cards that you're already paying for. And when you're planning trips, the way we do, maximizing points and miles and trying to keep your hard costs down, every little bit helps. Next time, I'll be back with a longer episode, but I wanted to get this one out there because we're heading into that time of year when people really start booking their winter and spring trips. And trust me, activating that rental car status before you book could mean the difference between squeezing your whole family into a compact car or getting upgraded into an SUV for free. Until next time, happy travels and happy treasure hunting through those credit card benefits.