Decided to get the CapitalOne Venture X card for $395 annual fee. Our "premium" card right now is the Chase Preferred (not the Reserve) for $95.
From my research, the Venture X is the "best budget premium travel card".
The rationale and benefits are:
- It gives you $300 credit if you book travel through their website (supposedly competitive with AMEX, Chase etc.).
- A one-time 75k miles if I spend $4k in first 3 months.
- An annual 10k miles every annual year.
- Basically 2x dollars for point for anything
And the 2 really nice perks are:
- Free 2nd card for wife
- Access of Priority Club lounges worldwide
There's other stuff but those are basically why I'm going with the Venture X.
We know we'll travel and spend more than $300 on flights & hotels. So that makes it effectively $95 annual fee.
The miles are nice, not sure how really good they are, but supposedly transferrable to their partners.