These Cards Are Making Points Travel a Lot More Accessible

This week, reports emerged that Capital One is adding a $100 annual credit to the $95 fee Venture Rewards card for hotels booked through the bank’s travel portal. This is huge news for that card, but I think it represents part of a massive shift in the credit card points landscape—one that is great news for people looking to get started with rewards points. 

For years, I never understood the value proposition of mid-tier cards like the Venture Rewards or competitors like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Amex Green card. These cards charged $95 annual fees or more, while typically offering statement credits that either offset only a portion of those fees or applied only to large or luxury purchases that might not come naturally to a middle-class traveler. If you wanted to get one of these mid-tier travel cards, it would generally cost you. 

The higher-fee cards, meanwhile, could actually be more economical. My wife’s first premium card was the Venture X. Before that, she had the Venture Rewards, but was paying $95 annually with nothing concrete in return. Once she learned that she could pay $395 for a Venture X and get $300 toward travel and $100+ worth of points annually, it was an easy switch. When I started getting into points, I jumped straight into higher-end cards, starting with an Amex Gold and a Venture X of my own. It just didn’t make sense to pay for a mid-tier card when the more premium versions delivered more benefits at a lower net cost. 

But 2026 has changed all that. In February, Bilt launched the Obsidian card. It offered semi-annual $50 hotel credits—clunky to use, but enough to cover the $95 annual fee. Then in June, Chase refreshed the Sapphire Preferred, so it now offers a $100 hotel credit to justify the $95 annual fee. In July, the underrated Delta Gold Amex added $120 in Uber credits to its $100 hotel credit to make the $150 annual fee much more manageable. Now the Venture Rewards is joining the party. And the Amex Green card, one of the worst offenders of the old paradigm, has been pulled with a possible refresh on the way. The landscape is now completely different than it was in January, and I hope that more positive changes are coming. 

Lazy Take 🦥

I think the best premium cards can still offer the most overall value. But travelers no longer have to choose between a mid-tier card with an annual fee they may never recover and an intimidating premium-card fee. There are finally more sensible entry points into transferable rewards. And that means getting into points is going to be a lot more accessible and affordable for ordinary travelers. 

This week on the blog 📝

Thanks to credit cards and points, I spend less on travel than I used to, all while traveling more often and usually with perks like lounges, priority service, and upgrades. It’s great, but sometimes I worry about the lifestyle creep—especially when I could never afford these things on my own.

Also, we had another Global Getaways drop, so I updated the guide. I couldn’t pounce on the 55k-point round-trip to Japan this time, sadly, but I hope we’ll see more of those in future editions.

Quick Points of the Week ⚡

Extra points 🪙

New to Delta SkyMiles? Earn up to 5,000 miles. Delta is out with a “Starter Pack” for new members, with miles for signing up for emails, joining their dining program, or booking a flight through the app—and a bonus for doing all three. Even if you don’t fly, that’s a better deal than usual for joining the dining program. (Delta)

Enter to Win 🎟️ 

Watch football 🏈 in Australia. Qantas is giving away flights, hotels, and tickets to the game in Melbourne. (Qantas)

Devaluations 📉

The declining value of AAdvantage miles. Thrifty Traveler catalogs a series of negative recent changes, especially for business class availability. Economy redemptions still look solid from what I’ve seen, but it remains to be seen how American Airlines can maintain the value of its program with so many more miles coming from the Citi partnership. 

Product Refresh 🔄

American’s fanciest card gets even more expensive. The Executive card’s annual fee will rise from $595 to $695, while adding some new benefits like a statement credit on AA Vacations. That might be more useful than it sounds, but the card is still more of a luxury splurge than a travel card that pays for itself. (TPG)

Notable Transfer Bonuses ⬆️

Amex → Avios (30%). I prefer to save my Amex points for those crazy Delta deals rather than deal with the headache of managing Avios. But some people love them. 

Citi → Turkish (40%). Turkish miles don’t have a lot of easy value these days, but there can be some value specifically for travel to Istanbul. 

New partnerships 🤝

Earn Avios on rent with a Qatar credit card. Like Bilt’s existing deals with Alaska, United, and Flying Blue, you can now earn Avios when using a co-brand card to pay rent via Bilt, albeit with a 3% fee. This option doesn’t make much sense to me, but could work for certain Qatar or Avios devotees. (Bilt)

Sign up bonus of the week 🎯

The co-branded Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express card is back with arguably its best-ever offer: 150,000 points + a $250 statement credit after spending $6,000 in the first six months. The previous best offer was 200k points, but personally I would rather have $250 than 50,000 Marriott points, which can be tricky to redeem for value and are prone to devaluation. 

The Bonvoy Brilliant has a hefty $650 annual fee, so it’s not for the faint of heart. In return, you receive $300 in dining credits, issued as $25 monthly credits, and an annual free-night award worth up to 85,000 points. Personally, I value those benefits at about $450. That’s a tough sell for me, especially for a card that doesn’t earn points at a competitive rate outside of Marriott purchases. (There’s also a Priority Pass, but that’s easy enough to get with a Venture X or other premium card.)

But if you stay at Marriott properties often enough, things start to get really interesting. The card comes with Platinum status with Marriott, which includes benefits such as a welcome amenity, eligibility for room upgrades—including suites—and late checkout. The card also offers 25 Elite night credits, a head start toward the 75 required for Titanium status. That unlocks both United Silver/Star Alliance Silver statusandJAL Crystal/Oneworld Ruby status.

I just don’t travel or stay enough at Marriott properties to make this a compelling proposition, at least long-term, but this best-ever offer at least warrants a close look. 🔥🔥

(A few important notes. First, Bonvoy card bonus eligibility is complicated. Second, Amex also offers the $250-fee Bevy, which is also offering a compelling bonus of 125k points plus a $150 statement credit, but isn’t a compelling card on its own terms. Third, the Brilliant doesn't have any no-fee downgrade options.) 

Honorable Mention

Just like last week, Frequent Miler spotted an elevated bonus on an interesting foreign-airline card: this time, it’s the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard. You can earn up to 80,000 Virgin points: 60k after spending $4k in the first three months, then 20k more by reaching a total of $6k in spending in the first six months. Most people would not get enough value from this card to fully justify the $99 annual fee after the first year, but for a quick injection of points, it’s a respectable option. 🔥

Other great sign-up bonuses this week

50,000 points+ $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)

80k miles on the Citi AA Platinum Select (our take: 🔥🔥)

100k miles on the KLM Air France KLM Flying Blue Card (our take: 🔥🔥)

60k points on the Choice Privileges Mastercard (our take: 🔥) 

45-75k points on the World of Hyatt Card (our take: 🔥)

Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)

How we rate bonus offers. 

Lazy Pick ✅ (Referral)

Last chance for Roame’s summer sale. When I want to see what I can do with my points, I use Roame’s “SkyView” search feature. That lets me search flight options from dozens of loyalty programs to dozens of locations all at once to find a great deal. I’m too lazy to manually search programs one at a time, but Roame helped me find a deal to fly to Portugal with Virgin points and back with Air Canada points this fall. And they just added EVA Air searches, and I’ve seen incredible business-class availability to Japan. If you want to give it a try, you can take advantage of the discounted summer sale pricing and save another 25% on your first payment with code LAZYPOINTS25. The sale ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on August 16. 

Enjoy the weekend! 🦥

I should have taken that Global Getaway to Rome, but I think I can find some pasta around here. 🍝

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