Getting a travel credit card with “bad” credit: What you should know

Quick insights

• Travel credit cards typically offer rewards and perks to enhance your trip or help make it more affordable.
• While certain travel cards may be available to individuals who are building or repairing their credit scores, a high score may improve the chances of getting approved for cards with more robust rewards programs.
• Efforts you take to raise your credit score (such as lowering your credit utilization or improving other credit habits) can help you improve it.

Travel can be an enriching experience, whether your choice destination is near or far. However, paying for flights, lodgings and activities can become expensive. Many people choose to get a travel credit card to help offset these costs with features like air miles, hotel points or complimentary travel insurance.

For those with self-described “bad” credit, getting a credit card may have some additional challenges, but it’s not impossible. To clarify, the two credit scoring models, VantageScore^® and FICO^®, do not categorize any type of credit as “bad” in their rankings. However, those whose credit score falls in the lower scoring categories (such as “fair,” “poor” or “very poor”) may feel like their score is “bad” and not be able to get approved for a travel credit card.

In this article, we’ll explain how travel cards work, including discussing the potential advantages, drawbacks and strategies relating to applying for and using travel cards.

Travel credit cards: Know the basics

Travel credit cards typically have features that are meant to enhance your travel experience or help make it more affordable. Types could include general travel cards, airline credit cards or hotel credit cards.

• General travel cards: Some credit cards allow you to accumulate points through day-to-day purchases that can be redeemed for hotel stays, flights or other travel activities. They may also offer rewards for travel expenses.
• Airline-specific cards: An airline-specific card may be tied to an airline’s loyalty program and may make it more accessible to fly with them. These often include flight-related upgrades like early boarding or free checked bags. Airline cards are likely to track rewards in “air miles.”
• Hotel-specific cards: A hotel card may make it more accessible to stay with a specific hotel chain in different cities. This may be thanks to the possibility of redeeming points for a stay or offering special discounts for cardmembers.

Applying for travel cards with “bad” credit

As previously stated, credit score models often have credit scoring ranges that go from poor to exceptional. If your credit score falls in the poor category as referenced by some models, you might feel this is "bad credit." While there is technically no definition of a "bad" credit score, in this article the term "bad credit" refers to low credit scores.

A low credit score may impact eligibility in the following ways:

• Interest rates and fees: Those with a high credit score may be more likely approved for cards with lower interest rates. If you have a low credit score, you may be presented with card offers that have higher interest rates and fees.
• Credit limits: Cardmembers with lower credit scores may also have lower credit limits, which can restrict a person’s purchasing power and make it more difficult to accumulate rewards. With a higher score, you may be approved for a higher credit limit.
• General eligibility: A lower credit score may limit your options when it comes to travel cards you can be approved for. Those with higher scores may be approved for premium cards with more robust rewards programs that offer additional perks.

Strategies to improve your credit score

Because your credit score can be an important part of credit card approval, taking steps to improve your score could be beneficial. Before applying for a credit card, you may want to see where your score is currently. Some of the factors that impact your score are:

• Low credit utilization: Credit scoring models look at how much of your available credit you are using, which is called "credit utilization ratio." Keeping your credit usage at 30% or less of your total credit limit can boost your credit score and improve your chances of qualifying for premium travel cards.
• History of timely bill payment: Making timely payments to creditors can help improve your score. Missed payments can lower your score and stay on your credit report for several years, potentially lowering your chances of approval.
• Limited number of applications: Applying for credit results in a hard credit check that can temporarily lower your score. Multiple credit applications in a short period of time can cause a more significant drop in your score. If you’re set on getting a card, it may be helpful to skip excessive applications where your odds of approval are low, or to space out applications over time.

Chase Credit Journey^® offers a free way to check your credit score based on the VantageScore 3.0 model, and you don’t need to be a Chase customer to enroll. This free online tool also offers identity monitoring, which can alert you if your data is found in a breach.

In conclusion

Having a travel credit card can help you earn rewards that may be redeemed for travel. If you’re interested in getting approved for a general travel card, hotel card or an air miles credit card, it can be important to understand what your credit score is and what is means. Having a lower credit score may limit your options, but consistent healthy habits can help you make improvements over time and improve your chance of approvals in the future.