Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Card Review 2024

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card is a new travel credit card that has what it takes to compete with the top cards in this class. It has a generous welcome offer, earns rewards points at a high rate and, starting on April 4, 2024, the card will allow you to transfer rewards points to partner travel loyalty programs.

If you’re looking for your next travel card, CNBC Select has the details you need to know to decide if the Autograph Journey card is right for you.

New Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card members can earn 60,000 rewards points after spending $4,000 on purchases with the card in the first three months of account opening. You can currently redeem Wells Fargo rewards points for one cent per point (though they’ll likely be worth more when you can transfer them to travel loyalty programs) which means the bonus is worth at least $600.

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card has a $50 annual airline credit, which you’ll earn when you make an eligible purchase of at least $50. This easy-to-use benefit applies to anything from airfare to baggage fees. If you take the airline credit at face value, it makes the card’s effective annual fee $45 (down from $95).

Cardholders will also appreciate this card’s travel protections, which include:

• Travel and emergency assistance
• Rental car coverage (secondary in U.S.)
• Lost baggage reimbursement
• Roadside Dispatch
• Trip cancellation and interruption protection
• Travel accident insurance
• Cell phone protection

As a Visa Signature® card, you can use Visa Signature Concierge and book stays with the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection. The concierge services can help you get travel, entertainment and dinner reservations. And when you reserve a stay through the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection, you’ll receive benefits such as free breakfast for two, room upgrades (when available) and a $25 food and beverage credit.

Earning

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card is one of the most rewarding cards for booking hotels and flights. A nice convenience with this card is that you don’t need to book through a specific site or travel portal to earn the following high rates on your purchases:

• 5X points on hotels
• 4X points on airlines
• 3X points on all other travel
• 3X points on restaurants
• 1X points on all other purchases

Redeeming

You can redeem Wells Fargo Rewards in many ways, including gift cards, travel (booked through Wells Fargo), statement credit and ATM withdrawals. All of these redemptions provide a value of one cent per rewards point, so 10,000 points are worth $100.

Once travel partner transfers go live on April 4, 2024, you’ll have an opportunity to dramatically boost the value and versatility of your Wells Fargo Rewards. The initial lineup of partners is:

• Choice Privileges®
• Air France-KLM
• Flying Blue
• Avianca LifeMiles
• British Airways Executive Club
• AerClub
• Iberia Plus

Wells Fargo plans to announce new transfer partners, but this is a useful starting group. With these partners, you can book flights with every major airline alliance and most of the biggest U.S.-based airlines.

If you’re interested in flights on domestic U.S. airlines, you can book American Airlines and Alaska Airlines flights through British Airways, with flights under 650 miles in distance for just 7,500 points and flights under 1,151 miles for just 9,000 points. You can reserve flights on United Airlines through Avianca for as little as 7,500 miles one-way. And if you want to book a flight on Delta, you can book through its partner Air France-KLM.

Let’s say you want to visit Europe — you could transfer the 60,000 points you earn from the welcome bonus to Avianca and book a round-trip award from almost anywhere in the U.S. to your European destination. Avianca often charges fewer miles for certain trans-Atlantic flights, so you could have points left over after visiting Europe

If you want to fly in style, Iberia offers one-way business-class awards from cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York to Spain for only 34,000 miles each way. That’s a great deal for a ticket that can easily cost more than $3,500.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is similar to the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card. Both cards have a $95 annual fee, travel protections and offer a variety of redemption options (including points transfers).

However, the Sapphire Preferred stands out in a few ways. It has a more robust list of travel protections including, trip delay reimbursement, primary rental car insurance, purchase protection and extended warranty protection. Unless you need cell phone coverage, the Sapphire Preferred has a better set of built-in insurance benefits compared to the Autograph Journey.

The Autograph Journey card earns more for most travel purchases, but the problem is Wells Fargo currently has a much smaller list of transfer partners. You can transfer the points you earn with Chase to 14 airlines and hotels including, Hyatt, Marriott, Southwest, Air Canada, Virgin Atlantic and United. As Wells Fargo adds more partners it may catch up, but right now Chase Ultimate Rewards points have a higher potential value and provide more versatility.

Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card vs. Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

If you don’t spend much on travel or dining, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card can be more rewarding because it earns at least 2X miles on every purchase. That means you could earn double the rewards on any purchases that fall outside of the Autograph Journey’s bonus categories.

Capital One has 18 travel partners and direct access to all of the programs partnered with Wells Fargo except for Aer Lingus and Iberia. However, both of those airlines are part of the Avios program and you can transfer your Capital One miles from British Airways to Aer Lingus and Iberia. The only clear advantage the Autograph Journey has in the points transfer department is a better 1:2 transfer ratio to Choice Hotels. Unless you base your travel plans around using Choice points, the Venture Rewards card may be a stronger option for consumers who don’t spend heavily on travel and dining.

It won’t be hard for anyone interested in travel to justify having and holding the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card. The points you’ll earn for hotel (5X) and airline (4X) purchases are stunningly high and apply to any purchase in those categories. Even if you didn’t earn bonus rewards points with hotels and airlines, you could make a strong case for getting this card because of the 3X points it earns for general travel and dining purchases. Plus, the $50 annual airline credit shouldn’t be hard to use and helps offset more than half of the card’s $95 annual fee.

However, if you want to earn rewards on spending other than dining and travel, other cards might be a better fit. And while the Autograph Journey has many good insurance benefits, it’s missing a few key coverages such as primary rental car coverage.

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card has come out of the gate running and already compares favorably to the top travel credit cards. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more rewarding option for hotel and airline purchases. Cardholders will also soon have access to transfer partners, and although the list of partners is smaller than comparable programs, it will grow from here.

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