Gunnar’s gone, so Kyle and Nick go head-to-head in a fantasy football style draft to build the perfect five-card travel wallet ... with a lot riding on the outcome, thanks to a last-minute bet. But before the draft, they unpack American’s (long-overdue) reversal to seatback screens, United’s splashy 2027 international expansion, and Flying Blue’s horrible news. Plus, they answer a listener’s questions about insurance that comes from top travel credit cards.
Gunnar’s gone, so Kyle and Nick go head-to-head in a fantasy football style draft to build the perfect five-card travel wallet ... with a lot riding on the outcome, thanks to a last-minute bet. But before the draft, they unpack American’s (long-overdue) reversal to seatback screens, United’s splashy 2027 international expansion, and Flying Blue’s horrible news. Plus, they answer a listener’s questions about insurance that comes from top travel credit cards.
Thanks to our sponsor, Saily! Download Saily’s app and use code THRIFTY at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. Learn more at saily.com/thrifty.
Join the conversation! Sign up for the free Thrifty Traveler Podcast Slack community today.
00:00 - The state of travel credit cards in 2026 is…
03:44 - Igor welcomes us back from Torrey Pines
05:57 - American’s seatback-screen reversal and United’s 13 new routes
12:20 - Boo: Flying Blue’s new three-tier award pricing
19:45 - A word from our sponsor, Saily
20:45 - The Extra Mile: Drafting the best five-card wallet
46:22 - A listener asks: Which cards have the best built-in travel insurance?
49:55 - Fantasy draft punishment
Vote for who had the best wallet on our YouTube:
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I am not Gunnar Olsen, who could not be here either because he is on vacation or because his s- his head is so big after being recognized in the KLM Crown Lounge in Amsterdam last week while he was on a work trip. So instead, across the table from me is Nick Seroti, our resident, uh, credit card guru. W- Nick, welcome back. Thanks for having me on the show, Kyle. Excited to be here. W- so which, which option would you take there on why Gunnar couldn't join us today? I, I... He may be outside of the studio here. I'm surprised he even made it onto his flight. Like, how did his head fit through the boarding door after, after he was recognized, like you said, by a, by a TT Pod listener? Um, yeah, it, it's hard to say. My favorite part of that is that, uh, this TT Pod listener, Staley her name was, I believe, asked if I was with him, and we had to tell her, or Gunnar had to tell her that we follow the designated survivor rules where we can't travel together, much like, you know, somebody from the, uh, presidential cabinet has to stay outside of the chamber of Congress during the, the, uh, State of the Union address. That's the rule here. We need to keep the longevity and the continuity of the show alive. So today on the show, Nick and I are going head-to-head building the ideal wallet in an fantasy football style draft, drafting our favorite credit cards out there right now, from the cards we swipe every single day, uh, to the premium cards, airline and hotel cards. Y- you'll see all what we have in store, plus we're gonna break down some surprisingly good moves from both American and United, and some shockingly, woefully, pitifully bad changes from our beloved Air France KLM Flying Blue program. But first, Nick, I wanna find something out from you. It's been a crazy year of travel credit cards and credit card news so far, uh, with Bilt 2.0. Yes, that was in fact earlier in 2026. I checked the calendar. Chase revamped its popular Sapphire Preferred card and paired it with a massive bonus. Citibank is still being Citibank. What's the biggest story, uh, in travel credit cards so far this year, and what do you think that means for the rest of the year ahead and beyond? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I think, you know, when I think about 2026 in terms of the credit card landscape, uh, it's hard to, to overlook what Chase has done with both the Sapphire Reserve, which Uh, they refreshed last year, and then most of the, the start of this year was on a, a pretty l- a g- a great limited time offer. Um, they then, you know, relaunched the Sapphire Res- Sapphire Preferred, uh, kept the annual fee at $95. Just, just came off a huge limited time offer on that card as well. But I think importantly, they have really reworked the eligibility requirements of those cards, just making a lot more people eligible for both of those. So, um, just looking at 2026, Chase has, uh, it seems like they've kind of admitted that Amex, uh, took a, a pretty big leap forward in 2025 with their relaunch of the, of the Platinum card and just how much buzz that card was getting. Um, Chase has made more people eligible for, for their flagship cards, and, uh, you know, they've really come into 2026 trying to acquire customers, and I think, uh, I think that's the headline that, that sticks with me. Yeah, I mean, I think the big story from 2025, what we spent a lot of last year talking about, was just how seemingly badly they fumbled the new Chase Sapphire Reserve card. And the story, at least so far in 2026, is kind of how Chase got its groove back. That now I think the onus and the expectation is that Capital One is next, because it's t- probably time for Capital One to do something with both the Venture card as well as the Venture X, which at this point, you know, is going on five years old without any really significant changes- Yep since that card first hit the market and made a huge splash. So today on the show, some of these cards may fit into our wallet in our draft. All that and more. This is Igor coming to you live from the Torrey Pines State Preserve and the Pacific Ocean in beautiful Southern California. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Okay, welcoming us back this week was Igor at, uh, Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego. Nick, have you ever played that course? I have played Torrey Pines, and I can tell you the exact date that I played it, um, which is kind of a fun backstory here. So I played it on November 9th, 2021, which was also the day that Capital One launched the Venture X card. Uh, I was in San Diego with my wife cel- we were celebrating our, our seventh wedding anniversary, which was November 8th of 2021. Uh, and we found out Capital One was launching this card, which was, like, probably one of the biggest things to happen in travel cards in quite some time. Our team was a little, a little leaner back then. We didn't have Jackson, uh, so I woke up very, very bright and early on the West Coast to get our website, uh, ready to rock and get everything ready, and we had a tee time at Torrey Pines later that morning. But, like, an hour before we teed off, we had the website in a good spot. I applied for the card for both my wife and I. We both got immediately declined. And I was like, "What is going on?" I was so flustered by it, and then I played just a horrible round of golf. But, uh, Torrey Pines itself is, is beautiful. It was a very fun, very fun afternoon, uh, right on the ocean, and it's surprisingly cheap for a course of that stature, and it's even cheaper if you're a San Diego resident, which I'm not. But that round will always remind me of, uh, the Venture X launch day. Uh, that's, that's a fair, fair, uh, correlation. I, I think of, uh, our friend Max Miles Points, who is a San Diego resident and plays it all the time. I also think of the time one of, when one of my coworkers asked whether I played golf the same way that you do, and I had to say, "No, I have enough other reasons to hate myself-" without playing golf constantly." All right. Let's move to something hot and something cold, a look at the good and the bad from travel in the last week, and we'll start, as always, with something hot, which this time, surprisingly, is American Airlines, which is waving the white flag on seat back screens and admitting they're actually important. Just don't expect to have a seat back screen on your next AA flight anytime soon. So last week, American announced it's reversing course and will begin outfitting its entire fleet of narrow body planes with seat back screens. The good news, they will all be 4K screens, probably quite big, though they haven't said what. They have said, however, that every single one of them, from first class all the way to the very final row of economy, will be outfitted with Bluetooth connectivity. The bad news is that this won't start for new deliveries until sometime in 2028, and to retrofit its entire existing fleet of hundreds of Airbus A320s and Boeing 737 Maxes, that won't be done until sometime in the 2030s. So here's the, the best part about all of this, which you pointed out. While they began ripping out seat back screens from their domestic fleet, you know, basically a decade ago, they haven't actually finished that work, so the final American Airlines domestic narrow body plane is currently scheduled to go into the factory and have those screens ripped out sometime this month before, a couple of years from now, they're put back in. This is just- The most classic American Airlines move of all moves. The airline called it, quote, "One of the most significant investments in the onboard experience in our history." Leaving out the fact that Delta has been doing this for the entire decade that American has been reversing course. United beat them to it and saw the error of their ways when they began ripping out their own seat back screens about a decade ago before reversing co- course within the last few years Is, I mean, this is good news. It's just hilarious, right? It's, like you said, it's, it's just such an AA thing. And, uh, as somebody... I've flown AA probably three or four times in the last year, a couple of those times with my family and, uh, my daughters, uh, who are, who are ages eight and six. I, I'll never forget this. They, they got down into the plane. This is the first time they had flown American, and they sat down and they looked at me like, "Where are the TV screens?" Right. And so when you're, as a, as a parent, like, y- I have to figure out some other form of entertainment. When we fly Delta, like, they just plug in and there's lots of stuff for them to do on the, on the seatback screen. So, you know, when American first made this decision back in 2017, they, the whole premise was that people wanna bring their own devices, they wanna bring their own content. Which, yes, that's true, but even if I bring my own content, like, I still want something on that screen, whether it's the map or, or whatever else. It just seemed like a very shortsighted decision at the time, and 10 years later, it seems like American has, is agreeing on that. I think above all, it has just sent a very present signal for the better part of the last decade that American just doesn't care as much about the user experience as, uh, Delta or United. Yeah. And that when you walk on one of those planes and see there aren't seatback screens, it says something about where American is spending its money, and it was not on making sure that users and passengers and customers were comfortable and happy and willing therefore to spend more money flying American, which is the core of the problem that they're trying to fix right now. Yeah. Even, even though that this is coming, like you said, we're still, like, years away from this. So, um, it's gonna be a while before you start to see screens on, on AA planes. All right, and then quickly we'll move on to United, which just this week on Tuesday announced a baker's dozen of new routes. I'm gonna take a deep breath. I'm gonna try and get through all of these in one breath. There's no way this is gonna work, but let's try it. Okay. United next year is adding flights from Newark to Luxembourg, Ljubljana, no way I pronounced that correctly, Slovenia, Olbia in Sardinia, Italy, and Catania in Sicily, idiot, Ibiza in Spain, Valencia in Spain, Terceira in the Azores of Portugal, Marseille in France, uh, from DC Dulles to Toulouse, as well as DC to Milan in Italy, Denver to Paris, San Francisco to Okinawa, LA to Osaka, and they're also resuming San Francisco to Tel Aviv, Israel. Take a breath. How'd I do? Uh, you did great. All right. Anything here really exciting to you? What stands out? Yeah, it's, I mean, I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of these routes are really fun and interesting and, um, you know, United flying the new Airbus A321XLR is making a lot of these routes possible from the US Um, I think just looking at this list, uh, you know, the San Francisco to Okinawa in Japan is, is a super fun and exciting route. Um, I've never been to Okinawa, but it's, it is high on my list, and this is, I believe, the first s- the first US airline that's flown directly from, uh, the mainland. I think United did, like, in the '80s very briefly. Okay. But it's, it has been decades- Yep ... since there has been nonstop service to this southern island of Japan. And then y- you know, some of these, uh, some of these European routes like this, the nonstop to Slovenia, that's super cool. And then, uh, one of my good friends, Luke, is very excited about this new Ibiza route. Uh, he might be the biggest Ibiza fan of anyone I know, but, uh, I sent him our article on it on Tuesday morning, and he is sharing it like wildfire, trying to find somebody to go back to Ibiza with him 'cause his wife said no, she's not going with him. Uh, yeah, Luke, you're gonna be alone on that one. Sorry, buddy. Um, no, on the whole, really exciting. United does this better than everybody, kinda packaging in, in it, into this thing that, yes, of course, it's exciting that you can fly nonstop to places like Slovenia or Sicily or Sardinia or the Azores, and a smaller island, island in the Azores than where most airlines fly. But I think big picture, United just gets that doing things this big and this bold just makes that airline as a whole more exciting. Yep. That, you know, more than half of these are destinations where not just no US airline presently flies, but no airline, period, flies nonstop from North America to s- to many of these destinations. And, you know, this new narrow body A321XLR, which can fly these long distances with 150 seats on the plane instead of, you know, as many as 300 seats to fill, allows them to fly to somewhere like Ibiza or Valencia, places that, you know, you just can't possibly fill a full 787 Dreamliner with these seats. So really, really fun. I'm personally... The Slovenia one is number one on my list. Slovenia has been high on my list for the last several years. Um, really excited at the prospect of being able to get there nonstop from Newark. You ready to talk about something cold? Let's do it. So Air France KLM Flying Blue is one of the best airline mileage programs on the planet and has been for years. We talk about it all the time because it's got pretty cheap award rates, reasonable-ish fees, and just insanely easy miles to earn because you can transfer them from all the major banks, Chase, American Express, Capital One, Citi, the list really goes on. And over the last, I don't know, let's call it two years, they've steadily increased surcharges on their award tickets, gotten s- much stingier with award space, especially if you're trying to book business class with Air France miles. And then last week they really dropped the hammer with a new three-tier pricing system that means, in essence, you're gonna pay more no matter what you're trying to fly to get what you previously got. So effective September 8th, there will be a new, quote, "light award fare in all cabins." And I- you should really think about this as a basic award fare option. So, uh, a standard fare, the one step up, what you're currently booking today, the prices of those go from, in economy, 25,000 miles each way from the United States to Europe to 30,000 miles, so a 5,000-mile increase. In premium economy, that jumps up 10,000, from 40,000 to 50,000 each way, and in business class from 60,000 to 75,000 miles each way. I'm not gonna do the math on the fly of what that percentage difference is, but it's brutal. And so these light fares, like basic economy for award tickets, and like all basic fares, whether you're paying cash or redeeming miles, it is not a discount, but it's a prike hi- price hike in disguise because you can't even bring a checked bag if you book an economy award ticket with one of these light fares, um, or in premium economy for that matter. There are no changes or cancellations, period, which is probably the single mo- the single worst part about this new option. And if you book a business class light award ticket starting September 8th and onwards, there's no lounge access, period. Air France is also rolling out, uh, even higher priced flex awards with, uh, higher prices, sometimes drastically higher, i- in exchange for reducing the cash costs that you'll pay on these award tickets. So on a business class ticket, for example, you'd pay, uh, as many as 100,000 miles or more each way, but significantly cheaper, um, surcharges on that same ticket, like half as much as what Air France would charge you on a standard or a light ticket. As always, Air France uses dynamic award pricing, so while the base rate for a business class award may be 60,000 miles for a light ticket or 75,000 miles for a standard, you may see higher rates, and the buy-up from a light to a standard fare will be relatively set at a 15,000-mile surcharge. All of that said, how are you feeling about this about a week later? Yeah, I think, uh, you know, as we've talked about around the office is this is not necessarily new. Uh, this is something we've seen Delta and United do on the cash side of things already. It's, uh, it's a price hike in disguise. If you want what you're getting today, whether you're booking an economy ticket, a premium economy ticket, or a, a business class ticket, you're gonna have to pay more to get that, the, the same things that you're getting today. Um, you know, one thing that, that I started thinking about with this is I'm gonna be interested to see what Air France or the Flying Blue program does with transfer bonuses. Hmm. Um, you know, they've been one of the programs that pretty regularly has a transfer bonus from some bank. Um, and if that continues to happen, I, I think the, the case for booking, uh, booking a n- a, a Flying Blue award ticket without using a transfer bonus is getting harder. Um, that said, you know, if we see those 20 to 30 to 40% transfer bonuses regularly, that might be a time where I would, you know, maybe preemptively transfer some miles just to, to get them in my, my Flying Blue account as, as a way to, in some way to hedge the, the devaluation. But, uh, yeah, there's, there's no way to, to sugarcoat it. This, this stings. It's, uh, it's a devaluation and, um, I think as, you know, a- as you've touched on before, um, this is just the latest example of foreign airlines kind of trying to box Americans out of, out of their programs. Yeah. I, it's, it's almost surprising because no airline has been, like, more eager to get Americans' business to the point where, you know, they hired Tiffany Funk, who worked for Point.me here in the States, and before that for One Mile At A Time, an American citizen, to run their program earlier this year, and that's the point that she made with me when we spoke about these changes, which is, you know, if we, if Air France KLM Flying Blue didn't care about American travelers, they probably wouldn't hire an American. Yeah. So I do think it's an interesting point of does this mean that Air France does have to get a little bit more liberal or even more generous with these transfer bonuses- Yep ... to keep those points flowing if that's what they want? Um, you know, I think an interesting wrinkle to this, unlike, you know, say, the likes of Emirates, which has made pretty negative changes within the last year, Cathay Pacific and a handful of others to a lesser extent, you can really see here how, what Air France is trying to do. They're trying to thread the needle by raising prices for, you know, us Americans who can earn just an insane amount of points unlike any other country, uh, on the planet where this, the credit card ecosystem is nowhere near as strong or as lucrative. So they're trying to increase the points rates for us while giving, uh, you know, their most loyal flyers in Paris and in Amsterdam an avenue to escape this because, you know, those flyers who maybe have the top Flying Blue status, like say Flying Blue Platinum status, can escape almost all of, if not all of the restrictions with these light award tickets, which means, you know, if you are based in Paris, you can still book that 60,000 mile light ticket and still pick your seat. You can still get free change and cancellation. If you're booking business class, you'll still get lounge access just by having that status. So that's a, it's an interesting element to this, which I think maybe we haven't talked enough about- Yeah ... is just how difficult it is for some of these foreign airline programs to raise prices as they may need to for some of us, namely Americans, without really penalizing their home-bound flyers who just can't earn the same amount of points as we can. Yep. Yeah, I think, you know, just another quick point I wanna make here is, um, you know, business class awards going from 60 to 75K, I mean, that's ... We've seen that ac- just really across the entire points and miles ecosystem, like 60, a 60,000 mile, uh, transatlantic business class award is, is getting harder and harder to find, uh, to the point where what airlines even still offer that? So, you know, in some regard, um, they could have just done a blanket, like, "This is what it's gonna cost now," and, you know, I think they did get a little creative with how they did it in a way that protects their, their most loyal flyers, um, and makes Americans that have more points really be the ones that, that bear the, the cost of this. So, um, it'll be interesting to see, and like I said, I think the, the The points transfer element of this is gonna be really interesting, or the transfer bonus element. I just checked what is probably my single most frequently visited website, uh, Calculator Soup's percentage change calculator- ... which tells me that going from 60,000 to 75,000 miles for a one-way business class award is a 25% increase. There you go. It stinks. It does. All right. Uh, we're gonna move on to our credit card fantasy draft, but first we're gonna take a quick break. Okay, we're back, and it's time for the Extra Mile, where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic, and it's inspired, as always, by our awesome daily Extra Mile newsletter that hits your inboxes every weekday morning to give you the best, latest travel news, some fun deep dives, some mini reviews, and our hottest takes. Sign up, start getting it now for free at thriftytraveler.com/extramile. Nick, fantasy football season is here. I have never once in my life played a season of fantasy football, so you may smoke me on- ... knowledge of how this world works alone, but you and I are going head-to-head to draft the perfect wallet, and then we're going to ask all of you out there, our beloved listeners, to crown a champion between the two of us. All right, let's go over some ground rules for this thing. Let's do it. So we have agreed on five slots that we're trying to fill. We're gonna build a five-card wallet, each with specific categories, or maybe we call them roster slots to fill. The five categories are one premium card, an everyday earner, an airline or hotel card, a no annual fee card, and finally, a flex position or a catch-all card, whatever random thing we wanna cl- to pick there. So we can each fill a roster spot in any order we want, and there can, of course, be some overlap. You know, an airline card could also be considered a premium card. Um, so there's some pretty serious strategy about what we pick where and in which order. We have not discussed our picks in advance. There's no collusion on this podcast. We respect the sanctity of this draft. We did, however, discuss, uh, imposing a salary cap or a total annual fee limit for the cards we would pick, and we both pretty immediately agreed that that would be a disaster trying to do that m- uh, math on the fly. Uh, we are limiting this to personal credit cards only. While small business credit cards are in many ways like the cheat code for earning a ton of points, it just adds a layer of complication that's not worth it in this one. Um, I'm just gonna say welcome bonuses on these cards can kind of count, but the idea is to create a w- good long-term wallet to earn points over the lifespan, not just five cards to rack up a ton of points w- in one fell swoop. Um, and we are going to determine a draft order on the fly here. Uh, travel is not a contest, but this is, so Nick, you and I have agreed to pull up our Flighty accounts, and the person who has flown the most miles gets to go first, and then after that, we're gonna do a snake order. So you go one, two, and then two, one, one, two, two, one, and so on. You wanna go first with your Flighty stats? I do. I think you're gonna blow me out of the water here. Um, so my Flighty data goes back to 2016, and my total distance flown is 335,447 miles. You were not incorrect. Uh, I've got you at 488,066- Yep ... miles going back to 2016 as well. So with that, any questions before we begin? Any, anything you wanna say to tee this up? Uh, I've, I was hard at work in my, in my war room last night preparing for the draft, so I'm, I'm looking forward to this. I just wanna say, uh, Gunner smoked me in the public vote- ... for our first draft last year of airline programs, and so if I were a smart person, I would've picked someone other than our resident credit card expert who has been studying this landscape for more than a decade, but apparently, I just really like losing, and I don't know that the number one pick is gonna help me. That said, for my number one pick, I am going to fill my everyday earner slot with the Amex Gold card. This is, to me, this is the single most recommended card that I give to people in my life, especially to people, say, between the ages of, you know, 25 to 45 because we all gotta eat, whether you're spending a ton of money in restaurants or at grocery stores, and definitely both. Earning 4X points on all of those transactions makes this probably the single best card to rack up a ton of points on an annual basis. My wife and I probably earn at least 50,000 points a year just on restaurant and grocery store spend between our two Amex Gold cards, and this is maybe One of the few cards in my wallet that has an annual fee north of $100. The annual fee on this card is $325. This is probably the only card where I can make sense of that annual fee just on earning points alone. Yep. And then the other things, like $10 a month for both Uber and dining, and a handful of other things just make it even easier to come out ahead on the annual fee on this one. But I've got the Amex Gold on everyday earner. That puts you on the clock for your number one pick. That's a great pick. I, uh, I didn't think it was gonna last long. In fact, you know, knowing that you were picking first, I was gonna either do it for pick two or three. Uh, like you said, that card earns a ton of spend in my wallet, um, so I gotta take it off of my, my draft board here. Um, so now I have picks two and three. I am going to go ... I'm gonna fill my premium slot and I'm gonna fill my everyday earner slot. Um, my premium slot, I'm gonna go ahead and take the Amex Platinum card And for pick number three, I am going to take the Bilt Palladium card, which could also be considered a premium card, but I am gonna fill that for my everyday earner slot. Um, so this is a card I have in my wallet. I, I did add this card, uh, shortly after Bilt 2.0 launched. Uh, sorry, I'm just updating my draft board quickly here. And, uh, this card earns 2X on every dollar you spend, so I find it earns a ton of my, my everyday spend. I have a lot of spend that doesn't earn a category bonus elsewhere. Um, primarily I can earn, I can s- uh, put my, my daughter's daycare bill on a credit card, so the Bilt Palladium card gets all of that spending. Uh, and it also earns on my mortgage payment, so I'm racking up a ton of Bilt points. Um, this is a card that, that does offer some, some premium benefits like, uh, Priority Pass lounge access and a couple of semi-annual hotel credits, but, uh, this is another one just with how valuable Bilt's program is and the transfer partners that it has, um, it's earning a lot of my everyday spend. So, and then on the, on the premium card, the Amex Platinum, uh, this is a card that really doesn't earn any of my spending outside of, uh, flights. It earns 5X at, on hotel... or I'm sorry, 5X on flights. Um, but there's a ton of other benefits that I think are relatively easy to earn and doesn't necessarily require me shifting my behavior to, to use the benefits. So, um, a lot of the, the, the benefits that it provides, are they travel related? Probably not, but, um, it's a card that's in my wallet, and I probably am gonna keep it until, until, you know, redeeming, uh, all the credits and getting the value out of it becomes more difficult, if it does. I was gonna take the Amex Platinum next with my premium slot, so I gotta rework some things on the fly here. I'm gonna take an airline credit card next that I'm pretty sure you would take, and I'm gonna steal it from you. It is the Alaska Atmos Summit card. Uh, not the cheapest airline credit card in the world with a $395 fee. I will note I'm not picking the, a Delta card like the Delta Gold or Platinum card, despite the fact that I am a f- very frequent Delta flyer. Alaska miles are just so incredibly valuable. There's a sign-up bonus of 80,000 Alaska Atmos rewards. It's been as high as 100,000 in the past. Uh, the annual fee at $395 is at least reasonable. The main things that I really like here There's a 25,000, uh, point companion award, so if you book tickets for two on any airline, not just Alaska, you get a discount of 25,000 points for your companion, which my wife and I will y- no doubt use every single year. The biggest thing, though, is, uh, in addition to all the usual points earning that you get in restaurants, which I don't really need because I've got the Amex Gold and a handful of other categories, earning 3X on all foreign transactions, three points per dollar no matter where you are in the world, will just make this absolutely top of wallet every single time my wife and I travel abroad. That is maybe the single coolest, um, bonus spending category that I've ever personally seen on a credit card. And then there are great things like, um, you know, the ability to share free points with up to 10 others by creating a pool. So if my wife, say, opens an Alaska Atmos card, whether it's the Summit card or a cheaper one, then we can pool our points together, where other airlines would charge you as much as three cents a piece- Yep which just makes it exorbitantly expensive to pool your miles and book tickets. Um, you get, uh, eight lounge passes a year to Alaska lounges. It waives partner award fees, which, you know, at $12.50 per ticket- They just went up, actually. I think it's like 20 bucks per ticket ... uh, yeah, so I, I mean, that's just gonna add up over the course of, you know, not just one year, but for the long term. So the Alaska Atmos Summit card is my airline or hotel choice here. And then, do you, do you have a critique of my choice? I was gonna say, that's a, that's a great pick. I'm a little, I'm a little bummed. I thought it was gonna, I thought that was gonna last a little longer on the board, but, uh, a great pick. Well, I, I knew that I could wait to pick my premium card, which I will select next, uh, the Capital One Venture X card. I had, uh, like I said, planned to pick the Amex Platinum, and w- was going to take the Capital One Venture as probably a flex card, but I would rather have the Venture X here than any other premium card, in large part because it's only $395- Yep with by far the easiest way in the world of credit cards to make that back with a $300 travel credit, which you can use to book hotels or rental cars and other things through the Capital One travel portal, portal. My wife and I use this every single year so easily, as soon as it resets, plus 10,000 miles every anniversary when you re-up your card. Those two things alone already offsets, erase that $395 annual fee. I think the big thing for me here that sets it apart, two things really, um, Capital One lounges to me still are the best in the country, at least among the credit card issuers like Chase and American Express, and certainly Priority Pass lounges. So having access to those in, you know, Dallas and Denver and DC, all airports that I go through at least once a year, um, as well as, uh, New York City, um, and their new Capital One landings in LaGuardia and DC Reagan, love those. And then 2X on all purchases makes this just so easy to become that catch-all card. I think there's an argument here that this could be a good flex card as well, but I'm gonna take it as the premium card. Yep, that's a great choice. Uh, I had this one just in my different categories. I had the-- Like you said, this is kind of a, a card that fits nicely in a lot of places. I had this, uh, potentially in my flex, in my everyday, in my premium. Um, so Capital One Venture X is a great card. Uh, so I'm on the board with the next two picks, and I still have to fill my airline hotel, uh, my no annual fee card, and my flex. Uh, so I'm a little surprised this card is still on the board, but I am gonna go ahead and take the Sapphire Preferred and put that in my flex spot. Um, so just looking at what I have, I now have a card that earns membership rewards in the Amex Platinum. I have, uh, Bilt points with the Bilt Palladium, and I now have the Chase Sapphire Preferred in my flex spot. Um, like we mentioned at the top of the show, Chase made some pretty big updates to this card, uh, in the, uh, the first part of the year here, and, uh, they kept the annual fee at $95. So now you get a $100 hotel credit, you get some Apple, uh, streaming credits. Uh, they did devalue Hyatt transfers, so instead of a one-to-one transfer ratio, you now have four to three. But, um, that's okay for me because I now have the Bilt Palladium card, which also transfers to Hyatt and still at a one-to-one, uh, ratio. So if I do need to get Hyatt points, I can get them from Bilt. Um, but this gets me into the Chase Ultimate Rewards ecosystem, and the Sapphire Preferred is just kind of a, a no-brainer, rock solid card that, like others, can fit into a lot of categories on this list. Can I tell you something? I honestly forgot that nobody had picked the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Yeah. And I think I just shot myself in the foot by not picking it with my final pick there. I was a little surprised that you went Atmos Summit before the, the Sapphire Preferred. I thought that was gonna get, get picked, but uh- And I thought for sure you would pick the Atmos Summit, 'cause I know you love that card. Yes. Uh, I was looking at that for my flex card, but I thought I would've had more time to draft it, but, uh, that's, that's why this is fun. You just, you gotta react to what's happening on the draft board. All right. Airline and hotel is next for you. Yeah, so I've got, uh, airline and hotel, or a no annual fee card, but I'm gonna use this next slot. Um, this is not a very exciting pick, but I'm gonna go and fill the airline and hotel with m- the Delta Gold Card. So, uh, we live in Minneapolis. Uh, we're Delta hub captives. It's kinda hard to not q- carry a, a Delta card. Um, that's just kind of the, the price to pay if you, if you wanna travel out of Minneapolis. So the Delta Gold Card is, um, not gonna earn towards Delta status at all, which is totally fine with me. I'm not interested in earning Delta status, but it is gonna get me access to the Take Off 15 benefit, uh, where you get 15% off any award ticket on Delta-operated flights. Uh, so that's a huge deal, and then it's also going to get me free checked bags, which I believe are, uh, is that, what are they? $45? $45 each way. Yeah. So, uh, the card has a, uh, $150 annual fee that, uh, is not charged in the first year. You get a free first year with it. So, you know, if you take a couple of flights a year where you're checking a bag, that card pays for itself. It's not gonna earn a lot of my spending, um, maybe not any of my spending, but it's just one to have in my wallet for, um, for the benefits it provides. All right. My final two picks, I have no annual fee and flex card spots to fill. Uh, because I don't know what I'm gonna pick for flex, I'm gonna start with no annual fee. Uh, we considered, uh, having a category called the sleeper pick, and this one fits both of those, both no annual fee and sleeper. The Wells Fargo Autograph Card- No is the perfect no annual fee card. I'm surprised this was on your list. Oh. I felt like I, I found something here. Uh, Wells Fargo doesn't get enough credit, and there are some really good reasons for that, namely because they've gotten into this game of transferable points quite late compared to the likes of Chase and Amex and others. Um, no annual fee, uh, 3X on all restaurants, which I don't really need, but earning 3X on all travel, including hotels that you book direct and transit, you know, for train fare or whatever, I think is really incredible and incredibly underrated. Earning 3X points on both gas and EV charging, my wife has a G- has a Jeep, I have an EV, so I cover both bases there. 3X on streaming services as well. On the one hand, I don't love how disperse my points earning is, that I'm basically playing in a bunch of different systems, but the nice thing about Wells Fargo is how much overlap there is between their transfer partners and all of the other big banks. So you can transfer Wells Fargo rewards to Flying Blue, British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Cathay Pacific, Avianca Lifemiles, and a handful of others. They're, they basically don't have anything unique, which to me is a strong point for a no annual fee card. So I'm taking the Wells Fargo Autograph Card for my no annual fee. I can't believe you stole that from me. I, I thought for sure I would be able to slide that one in with my last pick. Uh, funny enough, I was doing my research for this, and Jackson on our team sent me this. He's like, "If you wanna blow Potter's socks off for the, for the no annual fee card," he's like, "look into the Wells Fargo Autograph." Oh. I was like, "It's already on my list." Okay, that's collusion. That's breaking the rules. Ah. You're not supposed to enlist help from our employees. I wasn't enlisting help. He was, he was- Oh, he just offered it offering. Well, you know, Jackson's gonna get a demotion- ... a- after this podcast is done. I will say, you are maybe the most even-keeled person on our team, maybe the most even-keeled person I've ever met. The level of anger you showed- ... banging the table when I picked the Wells Fargo Autograph Card is about as much as I've ever seen from you- I couldn't believe you took that in eight years working together. I couldn't believe you took that from me. Um, I thought I was for sure gonna just pull that from under the rug, but, uh, it is what it is. You gotta, you gotta react to the draft board. All right. My final pick is my flex spot, and I'm just gonna talk this through as quickly as I can. I'm torn between the Bilt Obsidian card to earn points on mortgage and, uh, the Delta Platinum card, uh, to have a Delta card and a Delta hub. I am, against my better judgment, gonna go with the Bilt Obsidian card because earning the, what are, I would say inarguably the most valuable points in this entire ecosystem, this sandbox that we play in, in Bilt points that can transfer, you know, now one-to-one to Chase, which you won't be able to with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, at least as of October 1st, to me trumps the value, the undoubtable value of, um, the Delta Platinum card. So I'm going Bilt Obsidian with my final flex pick. Um, you know, earning 200 Bilt cash right off the bat as a welcome bonus is gonna cover, uh, at least a decent chunk of mortgage payments for the first two months or so in order to earn those points thanks to this, you know, crazy convoluted new system of Bilt cash that, uh, this company has created with this new Bilt point, Bilt 2.0 lineup. Um, beyond that, I may just do some math and decide, you know what? I'm gonna spend, do my everyday spend on some of the other four cards I have on my wallet and just eat the 3% trans, 3% transaction fee to earn points on my mortgage go- on an ongoing basis. That's a, that's a problem for future me, but I think the Bil- earning, just earning points period on what is the largest, by far, expense in my day-to-day life, in my mortgage, I think is well worth the trade-off of not getting Delta Takeoff 15, of not getting Delta's companion certificate. I'm gonna have a lot of points to book other flights and, in some cases, book Delta flights when I want to, where that is gonna matter less Yeah, hard to argue with that pick. Uh, so your wallet is solidified, and I have the last pick with my no annual fee spot. Um, and I'm gonna go a little bit outside the box here. Um, I think the, the obvious choices might be the Chase Freedom Flex or the Chase Freedom Unlimited, so these are both of Chase's no annual fee cashback cards. Um, the, the Freedom Unlimited earns one and a half percent back on every purchase, or one point five x Chase Ultimate Rewards points if you have a Sapphire, uh, a Sapphire card or the Ink Business Preferred or Ink, uh Sorry, the Sapphire Reserve for Business. Since I have the Sapphire Preferred, I could turn those into, uh, Chase points. However, um, with the Bilt Palladium card also in my wallet earning two x, there's just not a lot of situations where I would actually swipe that card. Mm. So I don't know if it makes a lotta sense for me, so I'm gonna go with a little bit of a off-the-wall pick and take the United Gateway card, which is United's no annual fee card that doesn't offer a lot of benefits. However, it does offer expanded United Saver space as long as you spend $10,000 on the card in a year. So- That's a really good pick ... uh, United, as if, just to get everybody up to speed, is really kind of gatekeeping their program, and you have to have a United card if you want the best, uh, the best access to award rates. Um, without it, uh, they're, they've basically taken what Delta's done with Takeoff 15 and put it on steroids. Um, I did not know this until I started researching, uh, for this draft, but as long as you spend $10,000 on that free card, you do get the expanded Saver Award access. So, um, that's gonna be my pick to fill the no annual fee slot. So I, I considered this with a different wrinkle, which is I was gonna try to make the argument that the United debit card, which qualifies for expanded Saver Award access without a spending requirement, should count. Um, I mean, I obviously didn't pick that because I didn't think I had it in me to argue with whether a debit card should count in a credit card draft. I'd probably lose that argument. Uh, I will just say Great pick. Also, a $10,000 spending requirement is a lot of opportunity cost to earn, you know, uh, probably tens of thousands of points on one of your other four credit cards here. So I'll... I'm just gonna point that out for our- No question ... dear listeners. No question. All, all right. We are set here. Let's quickly recap what we picked, and then N- Nick, maybe just say, like, one or two things that you like or dislike about your picks or- Yeah ... a, a mistake you made, a, a pick I made that you liked, or vice versa. So go run through your full wallet and say a few, few things. Yeah. So my wallet, I've got... My premium card is the Amex Platinum, my everyday earner is the Bilt Palladium, my airline hotel card is the Delta Gold Card, my no annual fee card is the United Gateway, and my flex card is the Sapphire Preferred. Um, I don't love my premium choice. I feel like there's no other place that the Amex Platinum fits into this list. Mm-hmm. But, uh, in terms of a card that, you know, is gonna build a, a good long-term wallet, I really use this card for, you know, spending to earn the credits it provides, and then, like I said, the, the 5X on flights. But other than that, it's, it's... it stays in my wallet. Um, and I think a case could've been made that the Bilt Palladium card could've been in that premium slot, but I do love that card as an everyday earner. Um, and like you said, the, the no annual fee United Gateway, it's a, it's an interesting wrinkle, but, uh, $10,000 is a lot of spend to, to unlock the best part of United's award program Yeah. Um, I mean, that's probably the only quibble I would make with, with your picks. I'm still having... I'm second guessing myself on, on one of mine. I'll get to that. My, my roster here is, my premium card is the Capital One Venture X. My everyday earner is the American Express Gold card. My airline or hotel card is an airline card, the Alaska Atmos Summit Rewards card. My no annual fee slot is filled by the Wells Fargo Autograph, and my flex pick is the Bilt Obsidian card. I do like that, you know, with the, with the, um, exception of the Alaska card, all of these ecosystems of points play well together. It's, it's a little bit too much complexity for, I think, the average person. I would like a little bit more overlap b- to have, like, two cards in the same family or keep it to, you know, three maximum instead of four, if not five. Um, I'm just... The one thing I'm gu- I'm second guessing here is taking the Bilt Obsidian card over, like, the Delta Platinum card. I think Delta's cards, and especially their companion certificates, have gotten a bad rap over the last few years because of how much more difficult it seems to have gotten in order to redeem them and find flights that are eligible. I'll say I've had no problem redeeming these companion certificates and coming out well ahead just on that alone before you get into all those cards' other benefits. So- Yeah ... I think that is the one thing. Um, you know, I think your choice of the United Gateway card on the no annual fee side is a really good one with the caveat that that spending requirement to unlock- Yeah those United awards you really want is a little steep. And then, you know, the, the Flex card at a Sapphire Preferred I think on the one hand I'm really jealous of. I wish I would've picked it. On the other hand, I am souring on Chase because of all of the changes- Yeah ... Hyatt has made, not just to, you know, their award rates, which are much steeper than they were just a few months ago, but also because effective October 1st, you know, you can't transfer Chase points to Hyatt one-to-one anymore, which makes those increases even harder to stomach. Yep. So I think, I think we've got a at least decent wallets here, but it's up to our listeners to decide. Check out the show notes to find links to vote. You can go to our site and leave a comment once this, uh, podcast is out. Go to our YouTube, where you'll find a poll, polls on Instagram and Twitter as well. Let us know what you think, um, and we will decide the winner and announce the winner in a future podcast. But for now, should we help out a listener? Yeah, I've got one more quick observation. This probably isn't gonna help my cause for the listeners voting, but- If you wanna put yourself down, be, be my guest. Uh- If you're gonna put me down, we need to move on. No, uh, this is actually, this is in favor of your choices. Uh, the Amex Gold and Venture X is, like, a hard one-two punch to beat in terms of everyday spending. Like, you're getting 4X on groceries and restaurants, and then 2X everywhere else. I love that setup, and it's, it's generally what I do in my own wallet except for the Venture X has been largely replaced with Bilt Palladium. So I'm jealous of that, and then I also, uh, just looking at my roster, I don't have a way into Capital One's ecosystem, so, um, you know, maybe rethinking that no annual fee option of, of the, uh, uh, the Capital One VentureOne just to get into that ecosystem would've been a better choice. Um, 'cause as you know, Capital One miles are incredibly valuable for a lot of things that other points just can't cover, so having a little regret there. So what I'm hearing there is vote for Kyle, not Nick. Um, so with that, I think we can move on. If you have any questions about any of these cards or wanna learn more, we'll have plenty of stuff linked in the show notes, uh, so you can learn more about each and every one of these cards. We've written a ton of stuff over the years about every single one of them. But now I think we can finally move on to help a listener. Uh, this week it is Melanie S., who wrote in with a slew of questions all around the same topic, the built-in travel insurance on a handful of different top travel credit cards. Melanie pointed out, and she's absolutely right, that this merits an episode of its own- Yep just dedicated to travel insurance on credit cards. Um, but there were two questions I wanted to highlight and quickly answer for her. The first is, "Which cards have the best protections?" And the second is, "What is covered if I book with a points currency from one bank, but pay taxes and fees with a card from a different bank?" So as an example, you know, you use Capital One Venture miles to book a flight, but then you pay the taxes and fees on that flight with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, for example. So what do you have for Melanie, Nick? Yeah, these are great questions. Uh, taking, taking Melanie's first question of what are the, you know, the best cards for offering coverage, I'd, I would just- Really narrow this down to like three cards that you should be thinking of, and they're the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and the Capital One Venture X. Mm-hmm. Um, the Reserve and the Preferred largely provide the same coverage. You just get access to it quicker with the Reserve, so like for trip delay coverage, um, the, the Sapphire Reserve will kick in after six hours, I think. With the P- the Preferred it's like after 12 hours. So really, really good coverage. All three of these cards offer primary, uh, rental car coverage, which is- Which is something neither of us pointed out in the draft. Yep. Which was one of my main reasons for wanting that card. It's just so huge to get the best travel insurance, just neg- absolutely negating and doing better than the add-on policies you get from- Yeah rental car companies just by charging that to your Chase Sapphire Preferred card with a $95 annual fee. No question. And I think, uh, with the latest round of updates to the Sapphire Preferred, they added a medical... emergency medical evacuation coverage, which previously was only on the Sapphire Reserve. Hopefully something that you never have to use, but, uh, for, for that coverage to be on a $95 card is pretty impressive. Mm-hmm Uh, and then the second piece of that question, um, if you pay for just the taxes and fees on a card, does that, does that cover, does that give you the coverage? That's the question, right? Yeah. Uh, to my knowledge, as long as you pay the taxes and fees on a card that has this coverage, you are covered. Um, you just have to pay some l- some portion of the trip, uh, on a card that offers the coverage. Yeah. I think what Melanie is asking here is if, you know, say you transfer points from a Capital One Venture card to Air France KLM Flying Blue, and then book an award ticket and charge those taxes and fees to your Chase Sapphire card, what does, what does the provider care about? And the answer is, the only record anyone would have would be that you charged the taxes and fees to your Chase Sapphire Preferred card- Yep ... or whichever card you charged it to. So that's really only what matters here. Even if it's just $5.60 on a domestic flight, you wind up getting delayed or stuck somewhere overnight due to weather and need to book a hotel, you're gonna be able to submit that claim through Chase, in this example, in order to cover it. All that matters is the, the card you ultimately pay for that flight or hotel with. Yep. Great questions, and I agree that we need to do a full episode on, on this topic. There's just a lot to cover with credit card and just travel insurance in general really. I need, like, five months of emotional prep- ... to discuss travel insurance, uh, because that is, in some ways, the bane of my existence, but it is no doubt important. Yeah. Great question, Melanie, and great idea. If you'd like us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com and we might feature your question on next week's show. To close, as always, we go on the spot, and I am putting Nick on the spot. Uh-oh. Uh, not with a question, but with an idea. So we just drafted our, our ideal five-card wallets, and we're gonna have the listeners decide who wins. The hallmark of any good fantasy football or fantasy competition is the punishment for the loser. So Nick, will you agree with me now, the loser of this draft, when we go to Mexico City for our annual Thrifty Traveler retreat in October, the loser of this draft has to clap when the plane lands in both directions? Yes. I love that. I was very, very scared for where you were, uh, where you were going with that, but I think we can make that work. We shook on it. Yeah. It's official. It's happening. You won't see the footage of this until sometime in probably late October. But it is, in fact, happening. I love it. Let's do it. I hate myself for suggesting it. Thanks so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast this week. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice. Like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation or some credit card intel, and tune in to our new Starter Kit series, which is dropping new episodes every Tuesday morning to help you get smarter quick on all things travel. If you have feedback for us, send me- send us a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you. Nick, can you tell us about the TT Podcast team? This episode was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited for video by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.