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Summer travel: 5 great travel rewards programs

Summer travel can be cheap with the help of credit card rewards. Here are five great credit card rewards programs to fit your vacationing style.

5. International explorers

Peter Lehner/dapd/AP/File
Visitors enjoy the weather in a beer garden of a restaurant on Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, in this May file photo. International travelers should consider using credit cards abroad that don't charge a foreign transaction fee.

International travelers need credit cards without foreign fees, simple as that. Roughly 90 percent of all credit cards assess surcharges for purchases processed outside of the United States. Paying them is simply a waste of money when you can get cards like the aforementioned British Airways Credit Card or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, both of which offer attractive initial bonuses and charge neither international fees nor annual fees during the first year.

Now, you might be wondering what the most rewarding credit card would be for someone with damaged or limited credit history. Initial bonuses aren’t targeted to these demographics, so your best bet is to focus on getting as many loans and lines of credit as possible to report positive information to the major credit bureaus on a monthly basis. This will dilute the negatives currently in your credit reports and put you well on your way to excellent credit, which certainly has its benefits for anyone hitting the road this summer.

– Odysseas Papadimitriou is the CEO of the credit-card comparison website Card Hub.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

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