Earn A Free Summer Vacation With These Credit Card Sign-Up Bonuses

Summer vacation for the kids is about a month away, and that means parents everywhere are excited to book a summer vacation for the family. No, wait; they’re excited to book a summer vacation, but they won’t be excited to take the family after a few weeks of kids being home and driving them nuts for months at a time. On that note, maybe your summer vacation includes nothing more than a vacation for you and your spouse. After all, a vacation is where you relax. A trip is with the kids. My husband and I and our two closest sets of friends have already booked our summer vacation sans kiddos.

We’re headed down to the Keys for a week and we are ready (is it so sad that I’m a lifelong Floridian who has been to just about every Caribbean Island and even to Hawaii, but I’ve never been to the Keys?) to go out on the boat, lay by the pool and sip cocktails all day long while no one calls us by our nicknames (mommy and daddy). We also have a trip to North Carolina’s outer banks planned later in the summer, but that’s for the kids so it doesn’t count as being a real vacation. If you’re looking to book a trip or vacation this summer, you definitely want to consider doing it with a credit card that’s going to make the entire trip more affordable, which always makes it more fun.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

If you want to save some money on airline tickets or other travel arrangements this summer, consider the amazing sign-up bonus being offered by the Chase Sapphire card. All you have to do is spend $4,000 in the first three months of opening the account to receive 50,000 bonus points. That’s good for $625 in free travel. That’s a few nights in a hotel, a couple of plane tickets, a rental car or much more.

United MileagePLus Explorer Card

If you love flying United, you will need this card. By spending $1,000 in purchases in the first three months you have the card, you get 30,000 bonus miles. Depending on where you want to go, the price of the tickets you want to buy and how long you’ll be gone, you can get at least one ticket free of charge with these points and you might even be able to get more. What’s even better is that the card comes with two free one-time-use passes to the United Club lounge in any airport, which always makes family vacation a bit more enjoyable.

British Airways Visa Signature Card

This is my personal favorite. You can sign up for this card and spend $2,000 on purchase in three months to earn 50,000 miles. As you spend more and more, you earn more and more miles to use to make your flights cheaper. Additionally, if you put all your monthly expenses on this card and pay them off each month in full, you will have absolutely no problem spending $30,000 per year on the card. Spending this mean means you’ll have 100,000 miles free of charge, and you will earn 2 first class tickets anywhere in the world every year you spend that much. How can you resist that kind of vacation perk?

Gold Delta SkyMiles Card from American Express

When you spend $1,000 within three months of opening this card, you get 30,000 bonus miles. That’s at least one free flight, maybe more depending on the flight you choose. Additionally, you can make any purchase with Delta within three months of opening this card and receive a $50 statement credit on your next bill. That’s a lot of summer vacation savings if you’re looking for that kind of deal.

Capital One Venture Rewards Card

Capital one is famous for their no-hassle cards, and we find that we are a big fan of this one. To make your summer travel plans a bit more affordable, we highly recommend looking into this card. It offers you a chance to earn 40,000 bonus points in the first three months of your card being opened when you spend only $3,000. That’s more than $400 in free travel, which goes a long way toward saving you big bucks when planning your summer vacation. Additionally, this card has one of the lowest annual fees of only $59 per year, and it’s waived the first year you have this card.

If you are really good at using your credit cards and paying the off every month, and you have some time, you might consider using several of these cards to get the sign-up bonus. You could net serious savings on your next vacation by accumulating all that free travel and not paying much of anything out of your pocket at all.

Photo by Getty Images