Best cards for other travel

How to choose

Other Travel remains the catchall for car rentals, cruises, vacation rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo, and tours — and it has a new leader with an even narrower catch. Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard earns 10x AAdvantage miles on car rentals, but only when booked through aadvantagecars.com, and that rate covers nothing else in this category. Behind it sits the familiar 10x tier — Venture X Business and Venture X Rewards at $395, Citi Strata Premier Card at $95 — and a 5 percent tier that includes two no-annual-fee cards.

The channel rule still runs the whole table: every top rate requires the issuer's booking site. The new leader wants aadvantagecars.com, the Capital One cards want Capital One Travel or Capital One Business Travel, Citi Strata Premier Card wants Citi Travel, and Prime Visa wants Chase Travel plus a membership. Book directly with the rental counter, cruise line, or host and none of these headline rates apply — and note that the leader's 10x pays in AAdvantage miles, not cash back or flexible points.

The fee math is sharper than ever. Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard costs $595, which only pencils out if you fly American — Admirals Club membership and 4x on American Airlines purchases are what carry that fee; the car-rental 10x is a side benefit that skips cruises and Airbnb entirely. For the full category, Citi Strata Premier Card still reaches 10x through Citi Travel for $95, and occasional bookers keep Quicksilver Cash Rewards: 5 percent, no annual fee, and none of the membership requirement Prime Visa carries.

The math

On $150 a month of other travel, Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard returns about $216 a year at our valuations — a flat 2% card returns $36.