6 Good Credit Cards With Little Or No Minimum Spend

I’m sure others sometimes find themselves wondering how to juggle budgets with minimum spends, so here are a few decent options that might fit the bill (pun intended):

JetBlue Plus Card

I’ve been meaning to pick this card up for a while. The JetBlue Plus Card offers 50,000 TrueBlue points after $1,000 spend in the first 90 days and pay the associated annual fee. Additionally you can earn another 50,000 bonus points after you spend a total of $6,000 within the first 12 months of cardmembership. The card also has no foreign transaction fees and offers a 10% rebate on points every time you redeem them for a flight. It also is a “chip + pin” card, which makes it extra easy to use abroad.

If you live in or near a city where JetBlue has a hub (like New York, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, etc.), I’d definitely recommend applying for this card. It has a $99 annual fee.

IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card

I already have this card, otherwise, it’d be a no-brainer. Getting a free night at any IHG hotel costing 40,000 points or less every year you have the card is a steal.

The annual fee is $99. If you don’t already have this card, you should consider picking it up with this excellent welcome bonus.

AAdvantage Aviator Red Card

This card is just like the Vuela Visa in two ways:

1. It has an alliterative name
2. It requires no minimum spend: you get 60,000 bonus miles after you make your first purchase and pay the annual fee ($95)

Sometimes it can be tricky to find a good redemption option for AAdvantage miles, but they certainly do exist (more often on partners than on AA itself).

It also gives you 10% of your redeemed miles back (up to 10,000 miles per year), effectively reducing the cost of award tickets.

Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card

This card has no annual fee (Rates & Fees). It offers 10,000 Delta SkyMiles after $1,000 in spend in the first six months.

Believe it or not, that’s enough for a free short-haul flight. (Flights between San Francisco and Los Angeles, or between D.C. and New York, for example, can be as low as 5,500 SkyMiles each way.)

You earn 2 miles per dollar spent at restaurants worldwide, 2 miles per dollar spent on Delta purchases, and one mile per dollar on all other eligible purchases.

This may not be the most lucrative card in terms of benefits and welcome bonus, but it’s got a low minimum spend and may be worth picking up for some extra SkyMiles if you have a use for them.

Chase Freedom Unlimited®

This no-annual-fee card offers unlimited 1.5% cash back on all purchases.

Ben has written many times about the benefits of using this card in conjunction with the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which can be a simple but effective strategy for acquiring points.

Of course, this card, as well as the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred, are subject to the 5/24 rule, meaning if you’ve opened 5 or more new card accounts in the past 24 months from any bank you likely won’t be approved.

Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card

Here’s another no-annual-fee card that gives you 20,000 Capital One miles after $500 in purchases during the first 3 months of account opening. (Rates & Fees)

Capital One miles can’t be transferred to airlines and other partners (unlike the points you’d earn on many Chase, American Express, and Citi cards), but 20,000 miles has a value of $200.

You probably won’t be using this card to fly international first class on a five-star airline, but it can help offset some of the costs of your next vacation. You earn 1.25 miles on every purchase.

Bottom line

These cards have attainable minimum spend requirements and offer some good benefits. Personally, I’ll probably go with the JetBlue card, because I fly them often and those 30,000 points will pay for a couple flights. Also, I don’t currently have a “chip + pin” card (you stick out like a sore thumb in Europe if you’re using chip + sign, and chip + pin is required at many automated kiosks for buying train tickets and other important stuff).

If you have a favorite card that I’ve left out, feel free to mention it!

The following links will direct you to the rates and fees for mentioned American Express Cards. These include: Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card (Rates & Fees).