Hi, new user here. Also not a frequent traveler. Thank you in advance for your help.

I will be taking a trip to Osaka, Japan in September. I've been saving for the trip but will not have the funds necessary to purchase the plane ticket in advance.

I'm from the US and am planning to fly out of BWI or MDT (Harrisburg, PA).

I currently don't have a credit card (and therefore no credit debt), and am thinking that the best option to purchase this ticket on credit would be to open a card with a carrier or frequent flier program.

What are my options here? What do you recommend? Should I open the line of credit and purchase the flight now, or closer to my trip in September? Anything else I should look out for?

I have been tracking flight prices using Kayak and Expedia, am not sure what carrier I am going to use (and don't have a preference). I don't plan on doing much more traveling within the next five to ten years (maybe 1 trip abroad every 2-3 years if I'm ambitious).

Please let me know if I can provide any more detail. Thanks!

Welcome to Flyertalk.

If you will not be able to pay the credit card bill in full you should look for a card with the lowest possible Annual Percentage Rate. The value of rewards are trivial compared to the finance charges, and rewards cards typically have very high rates.

Do you have a credit history? If you are not sure you should retrieve your credit reports from here:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

There are a number of facets to your question.

I gather that what you are saying is this: "I will need to borrow money to pay for the trip. As long as I have to do that, I might as well open a credit card account that will give me the most benefits when I buy the ticket."

Let me step through this one aspect at a time.

One possibility - which I don't think you were proposing, and would be hard to do - is to get the ticket from frequent flier miles that you get as a signup bonus for the card. No card gives enough miles for a round-trip ticket of that distance. It is possible you might get a signup bonus of enough miles for a one-way ticket, IF the associated airline has availability. But you would need to get the card and meet the spending requirement, then have the points posted, and then find award availability, all in a fairly short time.

Moving on, you can get credit cards that will give both bonus points when you buy a ticket on that airline and flight benfits, such as a free checked bag, priority boarding, and lounge passes. I don't sense that the non-monetary benefits are that useful to you, and you usually get one free checked bag on international flights anyway. If the bonus you get is in airline miles, you would have to accrue enough miles to actually get an award of some sort. That might not be so hard, since you'll get a nice chunk from the flight itself, but you have to know what airline you'll be flying on.

The suggestion that stands out to me is to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. After you spend $3000 in the first three months, you get 40,000 bonus points. These can be redeemed for $500 toward your ticket. When you buy the ticket, you will get double points, as well as double points for other travel-related items such as hotels, taxis, etc., and also for restaurants. These points can at worse be redeemed for 1 cent each in cash.

The Chase points post quickly once you meet the $3000 spending requirement. If you have trouble meeting that quickly, there are a wide variety of strategies, but two that might work are (a) make a large one-time payment against your cable and/or wireless bill and (b) find a close friend or relative who will use your card to charge on, and pay in in cash to pay the bill.

(Note, if you use this strategy, to get the $500 off the ticket, you have to book it through the Chase Ultimate Rewards website, but you will get the same prices as on any other site.)

The only downside to this is that you have to meet the credit requirements. If you are declined, you can call Chase and they will often reconsider, especially if you ask for a smaller credit line. They gave me a $25,000 credit line initially, which was vastly more than I needed.

Who knows, the $500 might even keep you from having to carry a balance on the card for the trip.

A related suggestion, if you find a fare you like, I would book it. It might be tempting to wait so that you pay interest on the unpaid balance longer, but you'd feel really bad if you saved $10 in interest and the fare went up $100.

@mia-
That makes sense. I pulled my credit history a few months ago and it was "good." I'm hoping that I can land a line of credit with that.

@redtop43-
That is exactly what I'm asking.
You're correct in that the non-monetary benefits don't seem as much value of to me. When I have traveled, I travel light and frugally.
I will do some research on the Chase card. What you've put here seems reasonable, although I don't see myself putting $3K on the card. Although now I'm thinking that I could use the card for all of my expenses while over there (to get to the $3K threshold) and then just pay off a portion of the balance with the money that I saved (and would have spent anyway).
Good advice on when to book. Thanks!!

Is "good" your assessment or some service's estimate of your credit rating? The government requires free access to your credit reports, but not to your credit scores. You can obtain "estimated" scores at advertiser supported sites.

Another option is the Chase Freedom card. It offers points on the same rewards program redtop was mentioning, but that card has a 0% for 15 month offer, currently. It doesn't have quite the value (in terms of transferring points) that the CSP does, but it's a fantastic starter card. It has no annual fee, and would most likely be much easier to get than the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Breakdowns of the cards:

Freedom

• 0% APR for 15 months
• No annual fee
• $100 (10K points) cashback after $500 spend
• 5% bonus in rotating categories each quarter

Preferred

• $95 annual fee
• $400 (40K points) cashback after $3K spend
• No foreign transaction fees (this could be a big one, depending how much you're planning to spend in Japan)
• 2x points on spend on dining and travel

Honestly, I work for Citibank, but I tell ALL my friends that their first CC should be the Chase Freedom. If you don't have the funds for the ticket, I'm assuming hitting a $3K spend requirement for the CSP bonus would be difficult, plus you'd be paying interest on that card, which is never a good idea. The Freedom gives you 15 months at 0% APR to pay off that ticket and other expenses.

The CSP is a fantastic card to have, but it does have some of the highest credit/income requirements of the cards Chase offers. If you are declined, that could mean needing to apply for another card, such as the Freedom, which would mean another credit pull on your report.

Also, any points that you earn on the Freedom can later be merged with the CSP points if you get that card in the future.

I think this will indeed be my first preference. I would really hesitate to try and put $3K on a card. Plus the 15 month interest freeze is exactly what I need. It's also nice to have in case I need it while I'm over there.

Arigotou!!

Spending money at a faster or more aggressive rate than you can afford simply for a bonus completely negates the whole purpose of this game, 99% of the time. That's why I figured a card with 0% APR and a low spend requirement that still got rewards would be a good fit. Just be wary of the balance; 15 months feels like a long time, but it's very easy to rack up spending at 0% and then find yourself in a crunch with only a few months left!

Also, not being a premier card, you'll have your foreign transaction fees on every transaction while over there (3% I believe?). That can add up, so just be aware! Hopefully this has been helpful :]

Correct.

I will need to be aware of that transaction fee. The goal is to not need to use it all, only for emergencies.