Travelers Are Sitting on Piles of Unused Credit Card Rewards

NerdWallet’s recent survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults, including over 600 who have travel rewards credit cards that earn points or miles for spending (rather than cash-back rewards) found that Americans have largely relegated their travel rewards cards to the back of their wallet since the pandemic started.

With travel, by and large, was off the table for most of 2020, 39 percent of travel rewards cardholders reported using their cash-back credit cards more than their travel rewards cards since the onset of COVID-19. And, 34 percent of travel rewards cardholders said that they used their travel rewards cards more prior to the pandemic than they do now.

Only 17 percent of travel rewards cardholders reported presently putting all of their credit card purchases on their travel rewards cards, while and 19 percent made clear that they’re not currently charging any of their purchases to their travel rewards cards at all.

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Seven percent of respondents said they’d had a travel rewards card, but canceled it in 2020 or 2021, while 14 percent said they’ve opened new travel rewards accounts since the pandemic began, perhaps in hopes of a rosier outlook for travel on the horizon.

Fifty-six percent of those polled are planning to take their next vacation that will include air travel and/or hotel/resort stays within the current calendar year. Eleven percent were planning to wait until 2022 or after, while 27 percent of respondents admitted that they weren’t at all certain when they’d start traveling again.

What about all those unused travel rewards that have been accumulating over the past year? On average, the survey found, travel rewards card members have banked 64,800 points/miles. Assuming a value of one cent per point, that’s $648 worth of travel expenses waiting to be used.

The median, however, measures much lower at 5,000 point/miles saved, and 56 percent of travel rewards credit cardholders actually have under 10,000 points/miles in their accounts. Among the set of travel rewards cardholders, Millennials were revealed to have far fewer points/miles saved up (28,300 on average) than older generations. for Gen-X cardholders had accrued an average of 90,500 unused points/miles, while Baby Boomers averaged 93,100 points/miles.

Even with the pandemic having massively impacted and disrupted people’s travel plans, 53 percent of Americans who possess travel rewards credit cards reported that they’ve redeemed points/miles within the past 12 months on travel expenses, including airfare (29 percent) and hotel stays (33 percent). Another 19 percent said that they’d redeemed their rewards for something besides travel costs, such as gift cards or toward statement credit.