Our last trip outside of the U.S. was back in December 2019. I’m getting ready for our upcoming travels and have to consider which credit cards to put in my wallet for our trip to Iceland.
This is a form of the pre-trip wallet shuffle. I used to be able to do this with my eyes closed but since my card portfolio has changed so much over the past 18 months, I need to make sure the cards I’m bringing with me are the best ones for our trip.
When it comes to thinking about which cards to bring, you need to know what your expenses will be while traveling and which cards are the best to maximize those charges. Since we’re traveling outside of the U.S., we’ll need to bring cards that don’t charge a fee for paying in a foreign currency.
I’ve prepaid our rental car and hotel expenses for the trip so the biggest expenditures will be for meals, gas, and random charges like souvenirs and entrance fees to The Icelandic Phallological Museum. (We love visiting quirky places so how could we not visit here?) (Note from Sharon: ALLLLL the souvenirs!!!)
Here are the cards we’ll be bringing with us and when we’ll use them.
American Express Gold Card
This will be my primary card for paying for meals, as the card earns 4x points on restaurants worldwide. I’ll also use it if we use any UBER rides for our time in New York City before heading to Iceland, to use our $10 monthly statement credit.
Barclays Arrival+
I’m bringing the Arrival+ with me for several reasons. It will be the major card I’ll use when buying gas. I’m currently targeted for a 7% rebate on those expenses so I might as well take advantage of it. In addition, this card also has true Chip+PIN functionality, in case we come across somewhere where we need to use that. This card earns 2% back on all purchases so it will be a good choice for all of the other charges where we’re not earning a bonus otherwise.
Finally, it’s a card from a different bank. That’s helpful because if Chase decides to put a hold on a card for fraud, we can use another card until we can straighten it out.
Chase Sapphire Reserve
The Sapphire Reserve will be the card I’ll use for any expenses at the hotels we’re staying at. It earns 3x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on travel expenses worldwide. In Iceland, several of the smaller hotels serve dinner to guests if requested and we may use that option, as some of the places we’ve picked are not close to towns. I’m not sure if this will code as dining or hotel, but I got it covered either way with the Reserve.
We’re starting the trip from NYC and I’ll use this card to pay for my Lyft rides and earn 10x points. Finally, the $300 travel credit recently reset and I’ll also be able to use that to cover some of our expenses.
Bonvoy Brilliant AMEX
We’ll be staying at a Marriott property for a night to use up a free night certificate. We can use our annual $300 Marriott statement credits to pay for any incidental charges we may have during the stay.
Other Cards
Sharon will bring her AMEX Green card. I won’t complain because it earns 3X Membership Rewards on restaurant and travel purchases.
I’ll also make sure these cards are in my wallet:
- Bank ATM Card – which charges no ATM Fees and refunds me any additional charges from an ATM.
- Fast Park membership card
- Priority Pass membership cards (from Sapphire Reserve)
- My CDC COVID-19 vaccine card
Final Thoughts
It took me way longer than I thought to pick which cards to use during our trip. It’s a combination of cards changing some of their benefits over the past 18 months and that I’m out of practice.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
