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Check Out My New Site: Travelcreditcards.com

by on September 22, 2011 · 37 comments

in Credit Cards, General TPG Business, Travelcreditcards.com

As many of you know, I quit my day job in June and have been pursuing a full-time career as a blogger. So far so good, and I haven’t regretted my decision for a minute.

Making this decision has allowed me to focus more time on The Points Guy and also on branching out and exploring new business opportunities. As a self-employed person I always feel the need to stay ahead of the curve and innovate since there is no set career path for a full-time blogger. I know many TPG readers are business owners, so I’m sure many of you are familiar with the joys and horrors of self-employment!

In any case, for the past couple months I’ve been developing a new site, TravelCreditCards.com. It’s a comparison shopping site for those who want credit cards that offer rewards that can be used for travel. ThePointsGuy.com is still my main focus and nothing is changing with respect to my content here, but I created TravelCreditCards.com to allow people to browse card offers by many different metrics and explore card options that I would not normally focus on here on TPG (like student credit cards and APRs for example).

So if you have a minute, I’d appreciate if you checked it out, clicked around on the site and sent me any feedback you have. It’s still a work in progress and I’ll be uploading some videos and other unique content in the weeks to come. It also doesn’t currently have every credit card offer (there are some big ones missing that I’m in the process of adding), but hopefully you will like the overall layout and design and recommend the site to anyone who might be in the market for a new travel credit card.

As always, I appreciate your support and I look forward to your feedback!

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuer. Opinions expressed here are author.s alone, not those of the credit card issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuer. This site may be compensated through the credit card issuer Affiliate Program.

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  • http://www.euanross.com Euan

    Excellent looking site Brian.

  • Valerie M.

    Good luck with your new venture =)

  • Dave Op

    Brian,

    First, I am changing my posting from just “Dave” here to “Dave Op” to distinguish myself from all the Daves.

    Next, congratulations on your new site.

    Lastly, my 2 cents, the “Featured Rewards” cards area could use a “compare” feature. I would limit the compare 3 to 5 cards at a time. The ability to compare airline, hotel, etc cards will be great. So, I would have a little box to check, then a compare switch. After that, the criteria (such as fee, apr, etc) will be on the left side; top will have the name of the card. I’ll would have a “remove” and “add” addition card option. If you look at the Consumer Report’s website on car comparison, you’ll have a good template to use.

    Best of luck.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you!

  • Anonymous

    Thanks Valerie- Appreciate the support!

  • Anonymous

    Dave- great feedback. I am currently working on a compare metric that will evaluate all rewards. Its tricky because there are so many different types of rewards, but I’m hoping to come up with something that can offer a solid comparison even if you are comparing a hotel vs airline card.

  • Anonymous

    this could end up being a great resource for sure. I would imagine the keeping it up to date will be a lot of work. Especially with so many cards out there including lots of airline cards you don’t have up yet. I noticed for example that the Citi AA cards are listed under Citi but not under the airlines cards. And I also noticed that the FT thread says that 75K AA cards are still “expired but working” but you only have what must be the current offer from Citi for 30K bonus miles listed. Having the most lucrative offers listed would be better. Or having all of the possible offers listed. And that would be even MORE work to keep up with.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1423706237 Spencer Wheelwright

    The best part of your credit card site versus all the others is that it includes a human (pro) review. All the other sites just contain marketing specs. So nice to have insights from a real person who cares. Keep up the good work.

  • Kathy K

    you are a rockstar. I’m looking forward to reading travelcreditcards.com. all the best!

  • Eric Ganko

    Good start to the interface. I’d recommend a search box and/or a way to way to filter for a specific hotel or airline. For example, it should be easy to find just the United or AA cards under ‘Airlines’

  • Sara

    I’d like to see a section where you state your opinions of which cards you like better and why! Or which cards you recommend for person A or Person B…etc…

    Also I don’t see mentioned anywhere that the Hyatt card offers a free night after each anniversary…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1277136063 Curiouz Jorge

    Travelcreditcards.com not in Facebook? i would like to see the updates there

  • Bexho2000

    Added the site to my Favorites and The Favorite Bar….Hoping on doing quite a few future credit applications thru the site. Greta job and Congrats on your new venture!

  • Bexho2000

    As a suggestion – you might want to put “the reason” why you consider certain cards are Top Deals (the bonus offered?).

  • http://twitter.com/trentswanson Trent Swanson

    Great site, Brian.. Recommend a more strong value prop in the landing page header (e.g., your readership doesn’t make investment decisions on % APR). Also, please consider demoting or removing AMEX-branded cards until AMEX awards the bonus codes per their verbal and/or SM committments.

  • Mark

    Congrats on going full time as a blogger! Maybe one day you can do an article on that :) Love the site, keep up the great work.

  • Anonymous

    Good tips! As for Amex- Ive been getting emails lately from readers stating that Amex is finally caving in. I know its annoying, but it seems like persistent people are indeed getting the promised bonuses. Hang in there and let me know how you fare.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t know if my experience could be covered in a post- or even a series. Maybe I’ll just have to write a book one day ;-)

  • http://twitter.com/trentswanson Trent Swanson

    Have been updating my AMEX experience on FT. Have concall with regional mgr of MR cust svc this afternoon

  • Nick

    Like someone said, it’s going to be a lot of work with all the travel credit cards out. For instance, the Hilton HHonors Amex is a better free card I think. It’s 6/6/3 points on Hilton/Select Categories/Everything.

    Everything else looks great.

  • http://twitter.com/trentswanson Trent Swanson

    Perhaps also a section on how to best manage the lifecycle of the card (exit, downgrade, and/or churn strategies). Perhaps not what your sponsors want to see, but great tools for all who loaded up in 2nd half 2011 and will be facing disposition strategies when next sign-up bonuses appear and/or deferred annual fees kick in mid 2012

  • RG

    The “featured” feature raises a red flag with me. Does that mean that those issuers are compensating you in some way? If so, you should disclose it. If not, you should make it clear that you are un-sponsored and unbiased.

  • Aaaa

    A list of cards that don’t charge forex fees would be great.

  • Anonymous

    Awesome idea..

  • Anonymous

    Right now there are no sponsored positions, though that may change in the future. This brings up a good point- I’m going to put a disclaimer on how I rank cards and how it is unaffiliated with any ads or paid positions. At the end of the day I need to make a living, but my integrity is worth more than any amount of money.

  • Toula

    Like others, I would like to see some explanation as to how you arrived at the ratings. Overall, I think you have developed a site that will be very useful.

    Also think it would be helpful if there was a link to the current signup bonuses on the initial screen that you have describing the card. Would you also be able to list the promo code and keep a history for anyone who has to later fight for the points?

  • http://twitter.com/miffSC Susan

    Great job Brian! I think you are headed down the right track with this – combined with another fellow blogger’s site, your comparisons will help tremendously. I hope you are going to also cover negative behavior by CC companies, such as Barclay’s US Air Card bait and switch tactics.

  • Chris M.

    Does “no sponsored positions” mean you receive no compensation whatsoever from anyone who clicks one of your links to get to the credit card? If that’s not the case, then you really need to do some thorough disclosure. Can you imagine a restaurant reviewer who gets a cut of the bill from every diner who goes to a restaurant she reviewed after reading the review? Bullocks.

  • David

    he gets a commission from probably every single one of those cards on that site, as well as the majority of the links posted on this site. If you click his link for a card, frugal travel guys link, etc. they get $40-$100 every approval… Baffling, that most people don’t know that.
    I don’t have a problem with it, at all – I just thought everyone knew/should know.

  • David

    there’s no money in it for the bloggers on the 75k cards…

  • David

    there’s no money in it for the bloggers on the 75k cards…

  • Heather

    I would like to see new categories under Rewards Cards; Free, Annual Fee Waived, and Annual Fee not Waived. Or a way to sort them.

  • Red River

    Overall, nice job. I have a couple of critiques, though…

    I know you probably get compensated for people applying through your links, but I think you should include the best offers whether you get compensated or not. There are better offers out there than the ones on your site (i.e. Marriott 50,000 point offer vs. the ones you have shown).

    Also, why not include offers from all of the credit card players? I only see Chase, Citi, and AMEX… the big three. What about Discover, BofA, Barclay’s, etc.?

    Just my opinion.

  • Mark

    One minor quibble–is there any way you could make the name of the card link to the info page? I keep trying to click on it to no avail until I realize that I have to click on “view details”

  • Dr Lorraine M Wright

    I would appreciate you indicating which of the cards you can apply for when your residence is in Canada. Also, would appreciate the same on your Points Guy blog indicating which points are eligible from Canada.

    Enjoyed your interview on BNN in Canada!! Congrats on becoming a full time blogger. I will definitely follow your site.

  • Schpoontesq

    Do you have a recommendation for a credit card for a business? My law partner and I spend about $6,000 per month in credit card bills and are not receiving any miles for our spending. We tried to get a Chase Sapphire card and it’s only for personal, not business use. Thanks.

  • Anonymous

    Ink Bold is the business equivalent to Sapphire. Its a charge card so you’ll have the big limits you need for business spend and the points are Ultimate Rewards, so they transfer to United/Continental/British Airways/Korean/Hyatt/ Marriott/Priority Club and Amtrak
    http://thepointsguy.com/go/inkbold