There are lots of reasons to pick up a credit card — some are worth getting for the welcome bonus, some for the return on spending they offer, and some for the long term perks that they offer.
There are a lot of cards that offer big welcome bonuses and a generous return on everyday spending. In this post, I figured it would be fun to look at some of the credit cards that offer the best long term perks. I’m not including spending bonus categories, and I’m also not including travel credits, because in many ways I view those as offsetting the annual fee, rather than being an actual “perk” of a card.
In this post, I’m focusing on six of my favorite perks offered by any credit cards, in no particular order.
In this post:
Nearly endless American Admirals Club access
The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (review) is the most premium American Airlines credit card, and it has a $450 annual fee. Like many premium credit cards, this one offers lounge access. However, the perk is a bit more generous than what you’ll find on other cards.
With the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card, not only does the primary cardmember get an Admirals Club membership, but you can add up to 10 authorized users to the card, and they each receive Admirals Club access as well.
Each authorized user is able to bring up to two guests or their immediate family into Admirals Clubs when flying American or an eligible partner airline the same day. So a single membership with this card can get up to 11 people (along with their guests) access to Admirals Clubs when flying with American or a partner. That’s a great deal.
Top tier Hilton status without credit card spending
The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review) is in my opinion the most lucrative hotel credit card out there. The card has a $450 annual fee, but offers incredible perks, including Hilton Honors Diamond status, an anniversary free night certificate, a $250 annual airline fee credit, a $250 annual Hilton credit, and a Priority Pass membership.
This card pays for itself over and over, in my experience, and getting top tier status with a hotel group without any sort of a spending requirement is pretty remarkable.
Valuable Marriott status without credit card spending
It’s not just Hilton offering valuable elite status without any spending requirement. Nowadays the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (review) is pretty lucrative in that regard as well.
The card has a $650 annual fee, and offers several worthwhile benefits, including Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status, an anniversary free night certificate worth up to 85K points, a $25 monthly dining credit, a Priority Pass membership (enrollment required), and more.
While I don’t think this card is quite the slam dunk that the Hilton Aspire Card is, I find the math still very much checks out. You’re getting up to $300 in annual dining credits, and the free night award can easily be redeemed at a property costing hundreds of dollars.
You’re then getting Bonvoy Platinum status, which offers perks like suite upgrades, complimentary breakfast, guaranteed late check-out, and more.
Too-good-to-be-true authorized user perks
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review) has a $395 annual fee, and that’s easy enough to justify based on the perks, which include a $300 annual travel credit, 10,000 anniversary bonus miles, a Priority Pass membership, Plaza Premium Lounge access, Capital One Lounge access, primary rental car coverage, cell phone protection, and more.
I’d argue what really differentiates this card is that you can add up to four authorized users at no additional cost, and each of the authorized users receives a Priority Pass membership and access to the Capital One Lounge DFW. There aren’t many premium cards that let you add authorized users at no cost and get perks that valuable, making this a great card for families.
Annual hotel free night certificates
It can be worth having hotel credit cards simply for the perks that they offer, as some cards offer both elite status and free night certificates. For example, the $99 annual fee IHG® Rewards Premier Credit Card (review) and IHG® Rewards Premier Business Credit Card (review) each offer an anniversary free night award.
These can be redeemed at properties costing up to 40,000 points per night. It’s even possible to supplement these with points to redeem at a hotel costing any amount. This is only one of the many great perks of the cards, as they also offer IHG One Rewards Platinum status, and more.
Travel & rental car protection
Nowadays we’re seeing a lot of travel disruptions, so having some kind of coverage when things go wrong really comes in handy. This could include trip delay coverage, lost or delayed baggage coverage, or rental car coverage.
There are many cards offering these kinds of perks, though I tend to think that the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (review) and Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card (review) are the leaders in their respective competitive sets. This is one of those benefits that’s hopefully not needed 99% of the time, but when it is needed, it really comes in handy…
Bottom line
There are lots of reasons to consider picking up a credit card, ranging from big welcome bonuses, to generous returns on spending, to valuable perks. The above are some of my favorite credit card perks, ranging from lounge access, to authorized user benefits, to hotel status, to hotel free night certificates. These are all perks that I think people could get a lot of value out of even if they don’t plan on spending a lot on a particular card.
What are your favorite perks offered by any credit card?
For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.
Pumping Brilliant is surely getting people Bonvoyed……
For anyone who travel reasonable often and doesn't actively avoid Marriott, Chase Ritz-Carlton is a much better choice comparing to Brilliant, $450 = $300 travel credit + 85K free night + 15 ENC, way easier than remembering to spend dining credit every month. And with a Biz card in hand, still pretty easy to get Platinum even Titanium.
The problem being in order to get this card you have to jump through hoops for over a year:
- Chase 5/24
- Marriotts card and SUB rules, did you get cards in the wrong order? Do you have the wrong card like the Marriott AMEX $95 card or the Bevy? Did you get a Marriott card SUB in the last 24 months? Too bad!
- Now you get to wait a year...
The problem being in order to get this card you have to jump through hoops for over a year:
- Chase 5/24
- Marriotts card and SUB rules, did you get cards in the wrong order? Do you have the wrong card like the Marriott AMEX $95 card or the Bevy? Did you get a Marriott card SUB in the last 24 months? Too bad!
- Now you get to wait a year while your Chase card ages to where you can get the RC…
All that to save $200 a year and you get to chat with a Chase rep any time you want to use your $300 annual travel credit.
I mean, sure, it’s a better card but you tell me where you can mattress run for $20 a night for 10 nights…
This article is written for the promotion of certain cards. Some of the benfits listed are offered on many cards. Others are targeted to specific cards. Also, you seemingly did not point out the best beneift of some of the cards or the benefit that pays for some or most or all of the annual fee. There are many great perks of various cards expecially when you compare it to the annual fee. As someone...
This article is written for the promotion of certain cards. Some of the benfits listed are offered on many cards. Others are targeted to specific cards. Also, you seemingly did not point out the best beneift of some of the cards or the benefit that pays for some or most or all of the annual fee. There are many great perks of various cards expecially when you compare it to the annual fee. As someone mentioned the Platinum fee for 3 additional people but that includes global entry and lounge access, etc. I think the $200 hotel credit on the Platinum is one of their better benefits because it is not divided into smaller amounts. Amex tends to have very specific offers tied to a specific company rather than a purpose and divides the offer to smaller increments. Consider a card like the Bank of America rewards card $95 fee but gives $100 in travel fees and global entry or pre-check. The beenfits for this card outweigh the annual fee. Also, it's down to the details. Chase Reserve, Amex Platinum, and most other cards that offer travel or airline money are different.
How about Amex Platinum's authorized users benefit? It's $175 for three people, but each has $100 Global Entry credit, Priority Pass, and Amex Centurion Lounge access.
Technically even free Gold cards of AMEX Platinum come with Global Entry credit no?
Excellent list. Hope my 85,000 signup bonus Cert still valid cause next up on signup list.
Will upgrade back to HH Aspire after dropping to no AF during COVID and HH extensions
love Cap One. Waiting for 300 travel credit to reset.
I still have the $49 AF IHG card with free night plus the other one :-)
For car rental I’ve had good karma with AmEx $25 full coverage, let them worry about it.
What do all those add up to $2,144 in annual fees? That's a lot of coupons from those programs you have to clip to pay yourself back.
AA ruined the club access with the Exec card. It used to be a sweet deal. You could use the club anytime you wanted regardless of the airline you are using. Then they cut that out. They should have gotten rid of the AU card access since...
What do all those add up to $2,144 in annual fees? That's a lot of coupons from those programs you have to clip to pay yourself back.
AA ruined the club access with the Exec card. It used to be a sweet deal. You could use the club anytime you wanted regardless of the airline you are using. Then they cut that out. They should have gotten rid of the AU card access since they battle overcrowding anyway. So many people have abused lounge access that way.
Hilton Diamond access isn't that awesome and is fairly easy to status match. Heck, a simple Amex Plat card gives you gold as a minor benefit. I hate to be so critical but thinking you will be able to use an IHG 40k cert at a Six Senses property (like the Israeli photo shown) isn't very accurate. Sure you might be able to cash up + the cert but they are typically astronomically priced.
Paging @DCS
Some blogs are absurdly pushing cards that can pay rent, even when I doubt that blogger doesn't even use it.
At least OMAAT is genuine.
Truly love Bilt, unmatched customer service in my experience!
United Credit Cards (Explorer/Quest/Club) offering access to saver level economy awards. Huge perk reserved for United elites that's extended to anyone paying for a card. Can easily offset the annual fee if you redeem miles somewhat frequently on United.
How much better do you think the access is? I know it's a perk and have the Explorer card, but never known how big an advantage it is.
I just closed my Bonvoy Brilliant card. The higher points limit on the FNA certificate did not offset the increased annual fee since last year, especially with the end of tiered award pricing.
I would have downgraded to the $95 Amex card with a 35k certificate.
Boingo. I value inflight WiFi highly and getting it free is a valuable benefit that more than pays for a mid-tier card costing under $150/year. This benefit is included in three Mastercards I know of (Canada) and may still be offered by Amex with a Bonvoy card. On recent AA flights in North America, I used this benefit and got full flying gt WiFi service without payment.
*full flight WiFi
For US residents, certain T-Mobile plans provide free in-flight WiFi. Also, certain US airlines are starting to provide free WiFi on domestic flights.
I'd throw in the Fine Hotels & Resorts perks of the Amex Platinum Card. In a world in which hotel loyalty members bemoan the denial of tier benefits, I've found that properties happily deliver on FHR's pseudo-tier benefits. Then, throw in a wider selection of airport lounges.