We all get excited about planning our next holiday - until it comes to expensive flight options, crowded airports and booking hotels during peak season. Luckily, there are ways to make this better.
Travel credit cards can give you cheaper travel bookings, lounge access for a more relaxed time at the airport and even reward flights to make the next holiday that much cheaper. Read on to learn about:
- Types of travel cards and what benefits they bring
- Our selection of best UAE travel cards
- In the news: A year on from the floods, home insurance prices are still rising.
What do we look for in travel credit cards?
There are various benefits that travel credit cards can offer to make your next trip easier. Although the market is competitive, none of the cards offer all the benefits, so it's important to choose a card based on what's important to you:
- Miles or points (and vouchers) with airline or hotel chain - Collect loyalty points with your favourite airline or hotel chain when you spend on your card.
- Fast-track to premier status with airlines or hotels - Premier status (diamond, gold, silver, etc.) can be hard to achieve. Some cards provide accelerated pathways to even more benefits.
- Cashback/discounts on travel bookings - This can cover both airline and hotel bookings (even via travel agents!) and get you up to 20% off.
- Airport lounge access - Business lounges in airports offer some peace, food and drink whilst you wait. The best cards provide a high number of visits for you and a guest per year.
- Airport transfers - Vouchers / discounts to use on getting you to and from the airport either via private bookings or Careem / Uber.
- Low FX costs for spending abroad - Paying in foreign currency can attract high FX conversion costs but some cards minimise those so it's worth looking out for.
3 types of travel credit cards
- Airline / hotel programme cards - These are usually co-branded between a bank and an airline or hotel chain and the benefits are tailored to that company. Whilst some benefits can be very attractive, redemption will be restricted to the partner company.
- Generic mileage / points cards - Banks that offer their own points programmes, which you can exchange for miles or points of your favourite hotels/airlines as and when you need them.
- Non-point cards with other travel benefits - Cards that come with great travel benefits but don't offer any miles or points collections. These can give you more flexibility and not tie you into a specific programme.
For the remainder of this article, we'll focus on the first category - Airline programme cards. But stay tuned, as we'll cover the other types in our upcoming editions soon (let us know which ones you'd like to see prioritised!).
Best UAE travel credit cards - Airlines
As a frequent flyer in the UAE, you're likely reliant on Etihad and Emirates / FlyDubai. Both have a good selection of partner credit cards with local banks that earn you points and vouchers.
The level of benefits depends largely on the annual fee you're willing to pay. So as we do, we scoured the 30 airline credit cards in the market to bring you our top picks by annual fee bracket, considering miles earning rates, status upgrades and welcome bonuses available.
Emirates Skywards
| Annual fee | Credit card | Why we like it |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 | ADIB Skywards Signature | Automatic silver status, decent miles earning rates, 25,000 pts welcome bonus. |
| 2,500 | DIB Skywards Infinite | Automatic silver status, decent miles earning rates, up to 100,000 pts welcome bonus. |
| 4,500 | ADIB Skywards Infinite | Gold status upon USD 5k spent with Emirates, automatic Silver status, good miles earning rates. 50,000 pts welcome bonus. |
Etihad Guest
| Annual fee | Credit card | Why we like it |
|---|---|---|
| 699 | Emirates Islamic Etihad Ameera | Silver status upon 2,000 spend with Etihad. 25% miles discount voucher on 100k annual spend. Decent miles earning rates. 20,000 miles welcome bonus. Annual fee can be waived. |
| 1,500 | Emirates Islamic Etihad Premium | Gold status upon 4,500 spend with Etihad. Up to 2x 60% miles discount vouchers on 165k and 300k annual spend. Best miles earning rates. 25,000 miles welcome bonus. Annual fee can be waived. |
| 2,100 | ADIB Etihad Platinum | Gold status upon completing 2 return flights. Companion voucher (any class) on 150k annual spend. Decent miles earning rates. 50,000 miles welcome bonus. |
| 2,100 | Al Hilal Etihad Infinite | Immediate gold status (2 return flights to retain). Good miles earning rates. Quarterly 10,000 miles bonus on spends of 37k, welcome bonus 60,000 and anniversary bonus 40,000. |
| 2,625 | ADCB Etihad Infinite | Gold status upon completing one return flight. 4 class upgrade vouchers (one every USD 35k spend on card). Card also grants tier miles as well as guest miles. Good miles earning rates. 60,000 guest miles welcome bonus and 5,000 monthly bonus. |
All cards above come with other travel benefits such as lounge access, airport transfers, insurance and many more (though they do vary slightly, so as always do your own research!).
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How do you benefit from airline programmes?
To get value out of an airline programme card, you need to be using that airline. A lot.
With the annual fees fairly high, and restrictions on miles earning rates for everyday spend (yes, you earn less on groceries, government, utilities, fuel etc.), it's very important to check how much you'll actually be able to get out of the card to see if the benefits are worth it.
However, if you fly a lot and book your own business travel then the status and vouchers will very quickly become worth the annual fee.
Lastly, remember, these are still credit cards and should be handled with care. Refer to our credit cards DOs and DON'Ts article for a refresher.
IN THE NEWS - A year on from the floods, home insurance prices are still rising
Last week marked a full year since the floods that brought chaos to the UAE (yes, time flies!). While it's natural that insurance prices would adjust following such an event, recent data shows that the period of recalibration is not over yet.
Home insurance premiums went up 15% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025 and they will take time to stabilise. Read more about it in this Gulf News article.
