Reward credit card: specific airline frequent flyer miles or generic travel?
I want to sign up for a reward credit card to get frequent flyer miles as a reward. Is it better to sign up for a credit card with a specific airline as the reward (AAdvantage), or one with generic travel rewards? BofA has a “WorldPoints” card that seems promising, but I don’t understand exactly how those points convert to miles.
Any help would be great.
Thanks.
The generic rewards cards do not actually earn airline miles. You buy enough to accrue the required number of “points” and then can request a free ticket. I don’t know if it actually works.
Airline-affiliated cards let you earn miles that you can use to either get a free ticket or “upgrade” from Economy to Business or First Class. Some airline-affiliated cards let you earn miles toward elite status with the airline (ex. Delta’s AMEX card and United’s Visa card).
The American Express “Rewards” program allows you to choose, but the better deal (in my opinion) is converting points to miles for transfer to a specific FF account.
American Express rewards is the best, unless you know you will be travelling on one particulat airline of alliance!
Getting the right reward card that ‘really’ helps your cause is the first thing that should be kept in mind while going for a reward card. There is no point in taking a credit card with gas reward if you don’t drive much. Similarly, if you rarely fly, an airline miles reward card will be worthless for you.
What are the limitations to reward program? Get clear about it. Ask the credit card agent or representative about store preferences, gas outlets to which the credit card is affiliated, airlines, blackout dates, travel restrictions, reward expiry, reward point accumulation and what is required to earn rewards. A reward credit card with lots of restrictions and difficult to redeem gift vouchers or reward points will only frustrate things on your end.
A reward program with balance transfer option with 0% intro APR is a good thing to have. It saves you money on high interest rates, and if used properly 0% intro APR credit card can be a good asset.
A good credit history helps you get a good credit card with excellent reward programs. Credit cards with reward programs have very low tolerance for repayment defaults. Get all information about airline reward card at:
Try this site, there is a filter for travel rewards (among others). So it will only show you cards with travel related rewards/miles/etc.
The place has a bunch of cards you can compare. Once you find one that looks good, click on it and apply on-line…
Let me try to broaden your perspective on this question. What you really want is the rewards credit card that will pay you the most value in dollars. So, for example, if you can have a cashback credit card that pays you twice what you could earn in frequent flyer miles (valued at 1 cent apiece or whatever), then you should go for the *cash*, because the cash can be used for airline tickets or *anything*.
To quickly determine which rewards card (including miles cards) will pay you the most for your spending profile, you can use this rewards calculator:
Now, if you’re still set on a card with rewards that can only be used for travel, then I’d lean toward something like the AmEx Blue Sky card which can be used across all airlines and basically earns you a 1.33% return on all your spending. You can compare the Blue Sky card to other rewards cards using that rewards calculator I mentioned.
I use the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express. You can also use them for reward nights at Starwood hotels (Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis, Four Points by Sheraton, W Hotels, etc…)
You can also transfer Starwood points to most airlines. If you transfer lumps of 20,000 points, Starwood throws in 5,000 more. So for example, 20,000 Starwood points transfers into 25,000 AAdvantage miles.