Best credit card with best rewards

Forget points and mileage, Capital One does not charge the common, 3% currency conversion fee. Better than points and mileage.

I signed up for a United VISA Mileage Plus card this past spring. A friend of mine suggested it because the card partners with 25 different airlines when you want to use your accumulated miles to travel overseas.

My mom has an American Airlines card and she can only travel American for overseas.

I have already earned one free ticket to Europe and I'm only 20,000 points short for my 2nd free ticket.

When I signed up they had some really good deals, such as spend $750 and you get a 20000 point bonus, sign up with Netflix, get a 5000 point bonus, etc...

I'd go for something with no fees (or that Schwab one that gives you cash back, that sounds awesome). We usually don't use our credit cards much on vacation, we pay cash for most things, but when we've had something unexpected (lost luggage, for instance), we've gotten mired down in fees. And with a 6 week trip, you may well run into something unexpected that you have to charge that you didn't budget for.

The Mileage Plus card from United Airlines (VISA) has an annual fee. It will be charged at the end of the year. You can avoid this fee by cancelling the card before the fee is due. The fee ($60) cancels out some of the benefits of the card. I have the Business Mileage Plus card; the annual fee is $75, but came with 6,000 "free" miles when I paid the fee. Not a perfect deal, but I decided to keep the card.

I don't use the United card when I am traveling, since the Capitol One card is better for foreign transactions; there is no "foreign transaction" fee with this card. I use the United Mileage Plus card almost exclusively at home to rack up the miles. I've taken several "free" trips to Europe using this card. Of course, the trips aren't free, since I could be using a card that pays back 1% and has no annual fee.

Capital One and Schwab Visa. However in 3 wks (vacation)of atm withdrawals this summer my atm fees totalled $20 not from my credit union but from foreign bank atm trans action fees. Not too bad if you do not want to bother with the credit app. process. If your travels are business or frequent I suggest openning an acct with Capital One or Schwab visa for sure.

We got a Schwab VISA for our recent trip to France, and I highly recommend it. No foreign transaction fees, plus 2% rebate into a brokerage account. What's not to like? :)

REI Visa from US Bank. No annual fee, 1% back in CASH, no min or max. If you charge $20,000 in a year, you get a check for $200.

I have a Capital One World MasterCard that earns miles and/or rewards. There are no foreign transaction fees, but there is an annual member fee of $19.

I think the original question could be broken into TWO questions:

1) Which credit cards are the best when it come to accumulating miles/points that you can use for free travel?

and...

2) Once you're in Europe, which credit card should you use to pay for things or get cash at ATMs, that will also have the cheapest transaction fees?

Alexandra, you should NEVER use a credit card to get cash from an ATM, only use an ATM or debit card for that. Getting cash with a credit card is a "cash advance", and finance charges start accruing immediately (no grace period). In addition, depending on the card, the finance charge can be higher for cash advances than for purchases, and any payments you make will go to purchases first, then cash advance balances, so they can collect the maximum charge for as long as possible.

Yes, I should have clarified DEBIT cards for ATMs. I would never use a CC for cash advances.

This Schwab Card sounds nice. Who's getting a really low interest rate from them?

2% rebate is obviously twice as good as the 1% I'm currently getting from Capitol One.

However,... when you play the promotions right, Capitol One offers 0% interest on your balance!

This gives one the luxury of taking their time in paying off the cost of the vacation.

Yes, customer service is obviously in Asia and I can never understand what the agent is saying, but no interest loans make me quite able to overlook this "hassle."

Good advice from many... just to say that we switched to Capitol One several years ago (after 34 years with American Express Gold) and have had excellent service. That is not to argue that someone else may have had a bad time, this is anecdotal evidence.
Also, our recent "free" flight round trip to Portugal earned us miles on the the airline as well as no fee passage. George, Pittsburgh

We would NOT recommend USAir MasterCard. We've had a USAir credit card account for years and NEVER missed a payment. About 2 months ago we received notice that all fees were being significantly increased. I wrote a letter questioning the increases in light of our stellar record and, in response, the account was canceled.