you should earn a sign up bonus on your spending like these 75k point offers: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1av8lk5/comment/kyj2c27/ More on reddit.com

There is no best travel card. Comes down to what do you value and what are your travel plans

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This all really depends on your spend. If you can provide a breakdown of your spend and which airlines or hotel brands you frequent it would be better to help. But I don’t believe there is any credit card that gives both lounge access and free hotel stays guaranteed. Some airlines like AA and Delta offer credit cards that give lounge access. Depending on how much you fly with a certain airline and if there’s a lounge at your airport it might be worth looking at. For hotel stays you need to look at hotel credit cards. But personally I don’t think airline or hotel credit cards are worth it unless you’re very brand loyal and are guaranteed to use the airline or hotel brand. You can also get a card with lounge access like the venture X or Chase Sapphire Reserve that comes with an annual travel credit you can use to then book a hotel. Depending on how much the hotel is you might be able to pay the entire stay with the credit or with the points you accumulate from other spend. For me personally, lounge access isn’t worth it so I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Has an annual $95 fee but it gives a $50 hotel credit, has good multipliers and useful travel insurance. My points have helped pay for entire hotel and airline stays. Some other solid contenders I think is WF Autograph and Autograph Journey and the Venture X. More on reddit.com

There is no best card. It depends on what you're looking for. Since you brought up Chase and Capital One, I'll assume those are the two companies you find most interesting. I think the two cards you should consider from those companies are the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Capital One VentureX. Both of them give great value. If you just want one travel card then get the VentureX. Even though Chase points are arguably worth more, I think the 2X on everything multiplier on VentureX makes up for any points value differences. It's also the card to get if airport lounge access is important to you. The lounges elevate your experience and the free food and drinks save you money that you would have spent on expensive airport restaurants. Capital One has great international airline partners but lacks domestic airline partners and good hotel partners, which Chase has. If you want a combination of cards, adding SavorOne gives you the Capital One duo. SavorOne points will transfer to VentureX and you'll be able to maximize points with a simple two card setup. The Chase Sapphire Preferred looks like an average card until you see the transfer partners. I think Chase has the most balanced list of transfer partners. If hotels are important to you, then Hyatt is the best way to go with Chase because their points are so valuable. The Chase trifecta is something you will hear a lot. Compared to the Capital One duo, it's not that simple but it's also more necessary because the CSP's multipliers are not that great. You should learn to like rotating categories because the Freedom Flex is the best points earner for Chase and I can't recommend Chase if you're going to skip this card because the multipliers on the Freedom Unlimited and CSP are suboptimal. More on reddit.com