Use AI to find the best credit card for your next trip
Reading Time: 4 minIt’s taken me a long time to get on board with AI, but I’ve finally found a use case that can make earning and redeeming points and miles a bit more efficient. If you use an AI tool like Claude or ChatGPT, you can reverse-engineer the best credit card for a specific trip.
Start by entering your trip information and current list of travel credit cards, then request a detailed report on how to optimize your credit card strategy. You can then easily identify which credit card to open before you start booking your travel without having to compare a dozen different cards yourself.
I’m heading to Amsterdam in late 2026, so I got a full analysis on how to strategically use credit cards for this vacation.
What to give your AI tool
Here’s a sample prompt you can input into your AI tool of choice:
I'm planning a trip and want you to help me find the best credit card strategy for it.
Here are my trip details:
Destination: [City, Country]
Travel dates: [Month and approximate dates]
Departure city: [Your city]
Trip length: [# of nights]
Estimated spend breakdown:
Flights: $[amount]
Hotel: $[amount] for [# nights] at [hotel brand if known]
Dining: $[amount]
Activities & tours: $[amount]
Transport (local): $[amount]
Shopping/misc: $[amount]
Preferred airlines (if any): [airline names]
Hotel loyalty programs (if any): [program names]
Credit cards I currently hold: [list all your cards]
Based on this, please:
Identify the single best new credit card to open before this trip, factoring in the welcome bonus and how I'd spend on this trip to meet the minimum spend.
Estimate total points/miles I'd earn from the welcome bonus + trip spend, and show the math.
Recommend the best way to redeem those points for this trip (flight, hotel, or combo), including the transfer partner and the estimated value per point.
For my existing cards, tell me which one to use for each spending category on this trip to maximize points.
Flag any risks: blackout dates, transfer timelines, minimum spend difficulty, or redemption pitfalls I should know before I book.
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Join 1M+ ProfessionalsWhat this looks like in practice
Before I entered this prompt into Claude, I asked it to estimate my expenses for a week-long trip to Amsterdam from Charlotte, North Carolina, at the end of the year.
Claude's estimate for one traveler:
- $600 for economy flights
- $1,120 for seven hotel nights
- $560 for dining
- $200 for activities
- $80 for local transport
- $200 for shopping
About $2,760 all in. I think this is a reasonable estimate of spending, so I used these values along with the prompt above.
Claude recommended that I apply for the Chase Ink Business Preferred card. I like this recommendation — I’ve actually considered applying for it for some time now.
Claude cited the card’s 100,000-point welcome bonus and 3x earning on travel, shipping, internet, phone, and social media ads. It noted that since business cards live in a separate ecosystem from personal Chase cards, holding a Sapphire card doesn't affect Ink bonus eligibility. The Amex Business Gold came in as runner-up.
All told, Claude projected roughly 113,000 Ultimate Rewards points from the welcome bonus plus trip spend — enough for a round-trip economy award to Amsterdam via Flying Blue, with points to spare.
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This luggage tracker costs a fraction of an AirTagAlways fact-check what AI tells you
AI can give you recommendations and an outline, but you’re always responsible for double-checking the information it gives you. For instance, Claude told me to use my Chase Sapphire Reserve to pay for transit purchases because these “code” as travel and would earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points. But Chase removed the Sapphire Reserve’s 3x general travel bonus category in 2025, so these purchases would now earn just 1 point per dollar.
Similarly, Claude recommended I use the Ink Business Preferred on a hotel to earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points. While this would make sense if I were working toward the welcome bonus, I’d earn 5x Membership Rewards points using my American Express Platinum Card to book prepaid stays through Amex Travel or 6x bonus Marriott Bonvoy points with my Marriott Bonvoy Bevy if I chose a Marriott property, so those would be a better bet.
It also recommended I transfer all of my points to Flying Blue, even if an economy award costs far less than my total point balance. I’m not sure why it recommended this, since it’s risky to keep your rewards in an airline account that can be subject to no-notice devaluations. You should only transfer exactly what you need to book your flight.
Despite those misses, I like Claude’s recommendation. The Ink Business Preferred would allow me to earn 3x on general travel purchases, which is better than anything else in my wallet. From my test, I enjoyed the baseline recommendation and structure of the analysis.
If you want to replicate this for yourself, I recommend exporting the report as an Excel file and swapping out the information as needed to build a more complete (and accurate) plan for your trip.
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