Holly D. Johnson | (TNS) Bankrate

Travel credit cards make it easy to earn rewards — usually offered in the form of points or miles — for certain types of purchases. You can typically redeem your travel rewards for the big expenses associated with your next trip such as flights, hotels, car rentals and vacation packages. Some issuers also let you redeem travel rewards for statement credits and other non-travel options.

Some travel credit cards are associated with a specific airline or hotel loyalty program, whereas others let you earn rewards within a credit card’s rewards program. At the end of the day, you’ll want to understand the type of travel rewards your card offers, as well as available redemption options before you sign up.

Regardless of which type of card you choose, becoming a savvy travel rewards credit card holder can help offset travel costs and enhance your overall travel experience.

Types of travel credit cards

No matter your spending habits and rewards preferences, there’s likely a travel credit card that fits. Top travel credit cards include flexible rewards cards and those that are co-branded with another program, such as hotel credit cards and airline credit cards.

Flexible travel credit cards

Flexible travel cards offer a wide range of options. These cards typically earn rewards points within a credit card issuer’s own rewards ecosystem as opposed to an airline or hotel’s loyalty program. Though options may vary by card, you can usually redeem your rewards for travel through a portal or transfer points to an array of partner airline and hotel programs. The flexibility makes them a good fit for cardholders who don’t have allegiance to any particular airline or hotel chain. General travel credit cards can also come with some pretty nice benefits, which may include airport lounge access or travel insurance protections.Some examples of flexible credit card rewards programs or points currencies include American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One miles and Chase Ultimate Rewards, all of which have their own selection of cards for consumers and businesses.The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is one example of a flexible travel rewards card. It earns 10X miles on hotel and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, 5X miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel and 2X miles on all other purchases. Those rewards can be redeemed through the Capital One Travel portal or transferred to one of Capital One’s travel partners.

Hotel credit cards

Co-branded hotel credit cards involve a partnership between a credit card issuer and a particular hotel chain. These cards typically earn a high rewards rate for booking hotel stays with the brand’s portfolio, and the points you earn can be redeemed for hotel stays, room upgrades and other hotel-related perks.For example, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card earns 6X Marriott Bonvoy points on eligible purchases at hotels participating in the Marriott Bonvoy® program, 3X points at restaurants worldwide and on flights booked directly with airlines as well as 2X points on all other eligible purchases. You can redeem points for future stays at Marriott properties or for purchases with the brand and its partners.Many hotel credit cards offer automatic elite status (with higher annual fee cards typically granting higher status), as well as perks like early check in, late check out or free anniversary nights for cardholders.

Airline credit cards

Airline credit cards are also considered co-branded since they let you earn rewards within a specific frequent flyer program. An example of a co-branded airline card is the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, which earns 2X miles at restaurants worldwide (including takeout and delivery in the U.S.), U.S. supermarkets and on purchases made directly with Delta and 1X miles on all other purchases.When you sign up for a co-branded airline credit card, you can redeem the miles that you earn for flights, cabin upgrades and other airfare-related purchases, like lounge membership. Some programs offer non-airfare-related redemption options like hotels or vacation packages, though these typically provide worse value than redeeming points for an award flight. Other benefits of airline credit cards can include free checked bags and priority boarding. If you travel with a specific airline more than once per year, the added perks to your trips could make it worth your while.

How to redeem points and miles

Once you’ve met the requirements for a hefty welcome offer or earned enough miles to cover your next flight or hotel stay, how do you redeem them? The kind of travel card you have and its respective rewards program determine how you can apply those rewards. If you have a hotel or airline credit card, you can typically only redeem those points with their respective loyalty programs, with a few exceptions. However, there are more ways to redeem flexible travel rewards, like booking through your card issuer’s online travel portal or transferring your points or miles to an issuer’s travel partners.

Redeeming rewards on an issuer’s online portal

Your card issuer will typically have a portal on its website that lists redemption options and points values. Examples of redemption options include statement credits, travel purchases, gift cards and cash back.

Rewards programs typically use a 1 point:1 cent conversion rate, meaning every 100 points or miles is worth $1. Some issuers, like Chase, also offer boosted points values or other perks for travel purchases made through their online portal. To get an idea of how much your points and miles are worth, take a look at Bankrate’s points and miles valuations page for an in-depth look at airline, hotel and credit card program rewards values.

To redeem your rewards on an issuer’s online portal, log in to your account and locate the appropriate rewards or travel section.

Other ways to redeem points and miles

Some credit cards allow you to redeem your points and miles for things like statement credits, cash back, gift cards or other merchandise. This is usually the least valuable way to redeem your points and miles so you’d be better off using them towards travel most times.

Use your card responsibly

The most important rule of using a travel credit card is to always pay your bill on time and in full and never carry a balance if you can help it. To do this, make sure you never charge more than you can afford to pay off each month, and don’t let the prospect of rewards cause you to overspend. Credit card rewards aren’t worthwhile if you’re going into debt or racking up interest charges and fees to get them.

Don’t miss out on a sign-up bonus

Many travel credit cards come with generous sign-up bonuses requiring you to spend a certain amount within the first few months of opening the account. Although these bonuses are often an attractive incentive to apply for a card, make sure the spending requirement is realistic for your budget and travel plans before you choose a travel credit card. You don’t want to end up in debt for the sake of earning extra rewards.

Pay attention to a card’s fees

Credit card fees don’t directly affect the rewards you earn, but the cost of the fees does affect a card’s overall value to you. Take note of all the fees associated with any card you’re interested in getting.

One of the biggest fees to watch out for with travel credit cards is the annual fee some cards charge. Not all travel cards come with an annual fee, but those that do can range from an approachable $95 to $695 (or more). If you’re interested in a travel card that has an annual fee, be sure that the rewards and benefits will offset the cost. Otherwise, consider our list of the best travel credit cards with no annual fee.

Travel rewards cards for beginners

When you’re ready to earn rewards, it’s best to start with a beginner-friendly travel card so you can get the hang of things. Here are our picks for beginner travel rewards credit cards:

—Discover it® Miles. Earn unlimited 1.5X miles on all of your purchases without an annual fee. With a simple rewards structure and a mile-for-mile match on all of the miles you earn at the end of your first year, you’ll find plenty of ways to make the most of this flexible travel rewards card.

—Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. Get flexible travel rewards that are easy to use and understand, for a modest $95 annual fee. Earn 2X miles on all purchases and 5X the miles on hotels and rental cars booked through the Capital One Travel portal.

—Bilt Mastercard®. If you want to earn travel rewards by paying your rent, the Bilt Mastercard has you covered. Earn 1X points on rent (up to 100,000 points each year) without any transaction fees, 2X on travel and 3X on dining. Plus you’ll access exclusive benefits on the first of every month as part of Bilt’s monthly “Rent Day” promotions.

—Chase Sapphire PreferredⓇ Card. If you’re looking for your first travel credit card, but it’s not your first time using a credit card, the Sapphire Preferred offers tons of cardholder perks and high rewards on travel and everyday categories like dining. For $95 per year, you’ll benefit from a $50 annual hotel credit through the Chase Travel portal, a solid lineup of travel protections and 25% more value when you redeem your points through Chase Travel.

These might not be your forever cards, but they’re a good starting point for learning how travel credit cards work. They’ll also help you get familiar with earning, redeeming and eventually maximizing travel rewards.

The bottom line

To make sure a travel credit card is ultimately worth it for you, be sure to select a card that rewards you for the type of purchases you make most often or the categories you spend the most in. Ideally, it won’t charge a fee that costs more than you’ll earn in rewards. If you’re ready to jump into the travel rewards lifestyle and start earning points toward your next trip, take a look at the best travel rewards cards to make your decision a little easier.

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©2024 Bankrate online. Visit Bankrate online at bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Due to the severe weather forecast for Thursday, the Woodbury Fourth of July Hometown Celebration has been canceled.

Plans for the Woodbury Fourth of July Hometown Celebration, which was to have been held at the M Health Fairview Sports Center, included a 10 p.m. fireworks show, a performance by country band Thrillbillies, bounce houses and food trucks.

“Safety is our top priority, and we want to ensure everyone stays safe during inclement weather,” city officials said in a news release. “We will announce a rescheduled date soon.”

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By Anna Helhoski | NerdWallet

Gas prices could be about to get cheaper, just in time for summer road travel, as about 42 million gallons of gasoline makes its way into the fuel market.

In May, the Biden administration announced that the one million barrels of gasoline in the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve were up for sale. Contracts were awarded to five companies, and barrels were sold at an average of $2.34 per gallon. The gasoline was released to the contracted companies as of June 30.

Amos Hochstein, deputy assistant to the president and senior advisor for energy and investment, says the release of gas should soon help drive down costs at the pump or, at least, prevent the price from increasing.

“It’s not even oil — it’s a million barrels of gasoline directly into the gas market,” says Hochstein, who is the leading expert and advisor to President Joe Biden on gasoline. By contrast, when oil reserves are released it still takes time to refine into gasoline. This action will move gas into the U.S. supply faster, but it’s one that can’t be done very often, says Hochstein.

“This is a one shot deal,” says Hochstein, adding that it was timed before July Fourth to blunt the pressure on gas supply due to travel demands.

For context, 42 million gallons is about 11% of the total amount of gas that vehicles guzzle each day in the U.S., about 376 million gallons.

Lowering gas prices doesn’t just benefit the average driver, it also means trucks that deliver supplies and food can run on cheaper fuel. Gas costs are factored into overall prices of goods, so cheaper gas can, theoretically, bring down prices — or at least prevent them from going up.

Cheaper gas prices certainly can’t hurt Biden, whose campaign is still reeling from last week’s debate in which the president’s performance was so poor it prompted a bevy of outlets to call for him to bow out of his bid for reelection. Presidents don’t control gas prices, but they can enact policies related to drilling, refining and, in the case of today’s news, releasing gas from reserves. Those actions can ultimately impact what drivers pay at the pump.

Who will see cheaper gas?

Gas prices have come down since hitting a peak in June 2022 when the average price for regular unleaded gas was $5.016, according to AAA, which tracks gas prices. As of today, the national average gas price is $3.501, according to AAA. It’s up negligibly from last week’s average of $3.469 and slightly lower than the average of $3.535 at the same time one year ago.

This release of gas should flow supply into gas stations during the Fourth of July rush. It’ll primarily impact Northeast states including Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. But Hochstein says it could reach the Midwest, as well.

The Northeast will see cheaper gas because the barrels originate in the Northeast Reserve. “When we sell this gasoline into the market, it loses value if you’re trucking it across the country,” says Hochstein. “It is most valuable in the immediate area where it is in the Northeast.”

Average gas prices tend to be highest out West with California ($4.790) leading the pack, followed by Hawaii ($4.702), Washington ($4.306), Oregon ($4.051) and Nevada ($4.035). On the low end, typical prices are found in Southern states led by Mississippi ($2.957), Louisiana ($3.028), Arkansas ($3.060), Oklahoma ($3.080) and Texas ($3.099).

What influences gas prices?

Gas prices are set based on several factors including the price of raw crude oil — more than half the price — and the cost of refining that oil. The price of benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude is a bench market for oil prices in North America. Since its peak of $115 in the summer of 2022, West Texas Intermediate crude has fallen to around $83 today.

Today’s oil prices are influenced by global factors including the war between Russia and Ukraine and the war in the Middle East. Both areas producing oil and gas are under a lot of strain, says Hochstein. In 2022, following the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the administration announced a 180 million-barrel sale of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase gas supplies.

Beyond oil and refining costs, gas prices also include a federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and a state tax. On Monday, seven states hiked gas taxes.

Timing of the release of this gas was critical, says Hochstein. That’s because gas prices tend to go up during the summer largely due to several factors:

Higher demand due to summer travel. AAA estimates that nearly 71 million people are expected to travel over the entire July 4 week, with 60.6 million traveling by car — a record high.
The switch to summer-blend gasoline, which costs more than winter-blend gasoline.
Vehicles are less efficient during the summer months due to heat.
Hot temperatures that can make it difficult to refine oil, as well, which can take its toll on gas supplies.
Hurricanes and other extreme weather events in areas where oil drilling and refining take place.

Anna Helhoski writes for NerdWallet. Email: anna@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article Aiming to Lower Gas Prices, Feds Boost Supply in Time for the 4th originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and the conservative interests that helped him reshape the Supreme Court got most of what they wanted this term, from substantial help for Trump’s political and legal prospects to sharp blows against the administrative state they revile.

The decisions reflected a deep and sometimes bitter divide on a court in which conservatives, including three justices appointed by Trump, have a two-to-one advantage over liberals, and seem likely to reinforce the views of most Americans that ideology, rather than a neutral application of the law, drives the outcome of the court’s biggest cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, often viewed with suspicion by Trump and his allies over his concerns about judicial independence and worries about the court’s reputation, delivered the most consequential decisions. Those include the court’s grant of broad immunity from criminal prosecution to former presidents and its reversal of a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations.

“He’s got competing inclinations. One is to be the statesman and institutionalist,” University of California at Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen said. The other, Hasen said, is to dig in “when it is something that is important enough to him.”

The end of the court’s term marked a remarkable reversal of fortunes for Trump as he seeks a second term as president.

Six months ago, he was readying for a criminal trial in early March in Washington on charges of election interference following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 and he was in danger of being kicked off the presidential ballot in several states.

In the court’s final decision issued Monday, the justices handed him an indefinite trial delay and narrowed the election interference case against him. Last week, they separately limited the use of an obstruction charge he faces that should give him even more legal arguments, months after the court restored Trump to the presidential ballot.

Each of the three cases stemmed from Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. But Roberts’ opinions offered only dry accounts of the events of Jan. 6, insisting the court “can not afford to fixate … on present exigencies.”

The court also overturned the Chevron decision, stripped the SEC of a major fraud-fighting tool and opened the door to repeated, broad challenges to regulations that, in combination with the end of Chevron, could lead to what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described as a “tsunami of lawsuits.”

The decisions also provoked spirited, sometimes barbed, discussions of judicial modesty. “A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent from overturning Chevron.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chided Roberts for the “feigned judicial humility” of his opinion on immunity. Roberts mocked the dissenters’ “tone of chilling doom.”

In each of the Trump cases, the majority included Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of Trump’s three appointees, and two others, Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, who also rebuffed calls to sit out the Trump cases. Those same justices, plus Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, formed the majority in the cases about federal regulations. The conservatives also voted together on a major homelessness case that found outdoor sleeping bans aimed at homeless encampments don’t violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment – even when shelter space is lacking.

Roberts, though, has repeatedly defended the court from criticism that its justices were little more than politicians in robes.

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But the court’s public standing has taken a hit in recent years, particularly since Roe was overturned. Seven out of 10 Americans said the justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbiters of government authority, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that was conducted before the final round of decisions was issued.

Abortion was one issue in which the court sidestepped the liberal-conservative divide by avoiding major rulings in a presidential election year when abortion is an animating issue, mainly because of the justices’ 2022 decision that led to abortion bans or severe restrictions in most Republican-controlled states.

A one-sentence order in a case from Idaho cleared the way for emergency abortions to resume, despite the state’s strict abortion ban. But it didn’t end the court case or answer key questions about whether doctors can provide emergency abortions elsewhere, even in states where abortion bans would prohibit them.

In a second abortion case, the justices unanimously dismissed a lawsuit from anti-abortion doctors who sought to roll back decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration to ease access to mifepristone, a pill used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States last year. The decision explicitly avoided any ruling on the FDA’s actions, focusing entirely on the doctors’ lack of legal standing to sue.

The mifepristone case was one of several from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that made the court seem the picture of moderation. The justices also reversed 5th Circuit rulings that would have struck down a federal gun control law intended to protect victims of domestic violence, overturned the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and barred Biden administration officials from trying to persuade social media platforms to remove misinformation.

In a separate case involving guns, the court overturned a Trump-era Justice Department regulation that banned bump stocks, rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The court was divided along ideological lines, with conservatives in the majority.

A term’s final days often produce a torrent of heated exchanges in the most contentious cases, and this year saw more than its share of big rulings that waited until the very end.

In May, Justice Sonia Sotomayor telegraphed what the recent days might look like for her and the other liberal justices. “There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor said after receiving an award from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. “And there are likely to be more.”