Can the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card break my annual fee boycott?

Five years of being a digital nomad have certainly been enriching — spiritually, that is. But the many unavoidable expenses of globetrotting have made me wary of adding nonessential items to my budget. If it’s not a travel visa or a tropical disease vaccination, it might not make the cut. 

This frugal mindset has informed my attitude toward credit cards. While I’m obsessed with maximizing the travel rewards I get back for my spending, the concept of paying an annual fee for those rewards always seemed extravagant.

That’s why the Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card appeared to be the perfect travel buddy for my itinerant life on the cheap. It doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, it has competitive rewards rates for several different purchase categories and its points transfer to loyalty programs for some of my favorite airlines and hotel chains.

But in a bid to convert fee-phobic travelers like me, Wells Fargo recently introduced an enriched version of the Autograph card, and the new Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card * The information for the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Visa® Card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer. ’s pumped-up travel rewards and ancillary perks are tempting enough for me to give it a close look.

I’ll take you through my analysis of whether or not the Autograph Journey is worth its $95 annual fee. And while this assessment is based on my own lifestyle and travel preferences, it will save you some number-crunching if you’re a frequent traveler who’s similarly frugal.

Flyer-friendly features

The Autograph card earns 3 points per $1 at restaurants, travel, gas stations, transit, popular streaming services and phone plans and 1 point per $1 on other purchases. This is a decent return on travel spending for a no-annual-fee card.

The Autograph Journey kicks that rewards earning potential up to 5 points per $1 on hotels, 4 points per $1 on airlines, 3 points per $1 on other travel and dining and 1 point per $1 on other purchases. This gives it added appeal for folks like me who allocate a disproportionate amount of their budgets toward airfare. 

Last year, I spent nearly $3,000 on air travel. If my flight expenditures stay at that level and I continue to use the Autograph card, I’ll earn an extra 3,000 Wells Fargo Rewards points by using the Autograph Journey.

Those extra 3,000 points are worth $30 when redeemed for a statement credit, but they can potentially be worth far more when transferred to the loyalty program of a partner airline or hotel network. For instance, Wells Fargo points transfer into Choice Privileges points at a 1:2 ratio, and I’ve found deals for Choice hotels that give Wells Fargo points more than triple their normal value at that conversion rate.

Aside from the extra points I’ll earn on flight purchases, the first flight I buy with the Autograph Journey each year will provide me with a $50 statement credit, which is more than half the card’s annual fee. That credit isn’t offered by the Autograph card.

The additional 3,000 points worth at least $30 and the $50 statement credit already almost cover the entire $95 annual fee.

Hot hotel rewards

The Journey’s highest rewards rate is reserved for hotel purchases. At first glance, this seems to align nicely with the lifestyle of a frequent traveler.

But in my case, I usually look for long-term homestay opportunities when choosing accommodation overseas, which inflated my Airbnb expenditures in the past year to about $4,500. Unfortunately, Visa assigns Airbnb a merchant category code for “travel agencies and tour operators” rather than hotels.

So even if I use the Autograph Journey, all the money I throw at Airbnb will earn the same general bonus rate for travel rather than the Journey’s higher rate on hotels.

However, I am planning to visit spots where Airbnb is so heavily regulated that it’s preferable to book directly with hotels, like Singapore. And other countries that I’ve spent considerable time in previously and hope to return to, such as Portugal, are now starting to restrict Airbnb as well.

With that in mind, I estimate that I’ll shift about 20% of my usual homestay spending toward hotels, which will give me an extra 1,800 points ($18 statement credit) annually with the Journey.

If you frequently stay in hotels, you may get even more value from the Journey than I will.

Clutch insurance

Given the many miles I’ve flown, it’s a minor miracle that I’ve never experienced the headache of a lost bag. But I don’t expect that luck to last forever. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that in December 2023, 1 in every 200 bags loaded on an aircraft by the largest U.S. air carriers was mishandled. That may sound like no big deal, but it means at least one bag is likely to be mishandled on a large fully-booked flight.

When my luggage luck does eventually run out, the contents of my lost bags will be covered up to $3,000 if I use the Autograph Journey to pay for my flights. The regular Autograph card, however, doesn’t have this coverage, which is something I’m reminded of each time I impatiently wait for my uninsured suitcase to drop onto the conveyor belt at the airport.

Another one-up that the Autograph Journey has over its sibling card is trip cancellation and interruption insurance. This coverage is particularly worthwhile for me given my penchant for traveling to parts of the world that are prone to unrest, like Latin America and the Middle East. And its terms are generous, as it provides up to $15,000 worth of coverage per covered traveler per trip. That’s higher than the maximum offered by a number of premium travel rewards cards with far higher annual fees.

Big bonus

The Autograph Journey’s welcome bonus of 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in purchases in the first three months of account opening has a value of $600 when redeemed for a statement credit. That’s more than six times the annual fee.

Granted, the minimum spending requirement to qualify for that bonus isn’t exactly a low hurdle, and it’s a disproportionately big jump from the Autograph’s welcome bonus of 20,000 points after spending $1,000 in purchases in the first three months of account opening. But I’ll hedge my bets by getting the Journey card just before I buy a few pricey items, like a long-haul flight and/or a lengthy homestay.

Flexibility

Though I’ve been a reasonably satisfied Wells Fargo customer for nearly 15 years, I have no qualms about jumping to another issuer that offers a better travel credit card for my needs. And while there are plenty of flight-oriented rewards cards with comparable annual fees, they all seem too restrictive for my freewheelin’ ways.

For instance, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card encourages cardholders to use its rewards ecosystem for purchases and redemption by offering the highest rewards rate on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ portal, and that cramps my style a bit. The same logic applies to its annual $50 statement credit, which is only valid for hotel stays purchased through Chase Travel.

My need for freedom also keeps me from gravitating toward cobranded airline cards. Cards like the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® * The information for the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer. and the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card * The information for the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer. catch my eye, because I typically fly both American and Alaska Airlines in a given year. Both of these cobranded cards have generous welcome offers, too.

But those are only two of nine different airlines that I hit the skies with last year. Free checked bags, priority boarding and inflight purchase discounts might make up for a cobranded airline card’s annual fee if you know you’ll use those features frequently. But these kinds of cobranded airline cards are better suited to those who repeatedly fly the same routes and carriers, not nomads like me who have unpredictable travel patterns and use whatever airline offers the lowest fare.

Unlike other rewards cards that shepherd you into their own travel portal or cobranded airline cards that offer special perks when you fly with them, the Autograph Journey offers more flexibility when it comes to travel. It doesn’t box you into a particular rewards ecosystem that may or may not offer competitive travel deals, or limit you to perks with a particular brand or chain. Its highest rewards rate and its annual statement credit applies to purchases you make directly from any hotel or airline, respectively.

Final verdict

All considered, using the Autograph Journey rather than the Autograph card will net me an extra $100 or so of added annual value and a one-time punch of $600 value from the welcome bonus. Those factors, combined with the Journey card’s travel insurances and flexibility, make its $95 annual fee a worthwhile investment for my near future.

That said, if you’re not ready to make the leap to an annual-fee card, reexamining the regular Autograph card’s features has made it clear to me that it remains one of the best no-annual-fee travel cards on the market. And it actually has a few worthwhile bonus rewards categories that Wells Fargo skipped out on for the Autograph Journey, like bonus rewards on transit and phone plans.

Ultimately, I may end up keeping both cards and use them in combination to cover all my bases.