Which Airline Credit card is the best?
My husband is in the Airforce and i always have to buy expensive tickets for him to come back home on leave. I thought it would better to get a Airline credit card so that we can rack up some frequent flyer miles. Which is the best one?
It sounds a bit counter intuitive but I find the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex is the best. It is affiliated to a hotel scheme but you can transfer the Starpoints earned to airlines at a better rate than you can by earning with the airline’s own affinity cards.
For example with most airline cards you earn 1 mile per $1 spent. With the Starwood Amex if you hold out until you have 20,000 points in your account then transfer them to the airlines they give you a 5000 mile bonus. So your $20,000 spend earns 25,000 miles.
Starwood and the airlines often have some great promotions. Earlier in the year British Airways (who we mainly collect with) gave a 30% bonus on transfers of Starpoints.So for $20,000 spend we got 32,500 miles.
However, if you are buying tickets at short notice you might not always be able to get frequent flyer miles tickets as they are only available on a limited basis. Some airlines (American Airlines, US Airways for example) allow you to use double the miles and get a ticket if they are selling seats on the flight.
There is an alternative though, you could get an American Express chargecard and enrol in Membership Rewards scheme or perhaps the Capital One Miles card. These allow you to use points towards revenue tickets, the more expensive the cash value of the ticket the more points required. Personally I think these (particularly the Capital One card) are a waste of time as the amount of spend to get a free ticket is so much higher than with cards that earn you miles or points directly.
It depends on what airline he uses. I use Delta, and have a Delta American Express card for just about everything, including gasoline purchases. If he uses Continental or Northwest he will get Delta miles on the trips and extra miles from the ticket purchase, and can get extra miles from things like check-in at home. Offers change, but I rack up a lot of miles from non-airline purchases. Be certain to sign in to the Delta Frequent Flyer program, and put that on the NW or CO tickets.
Regards,
Dan
The thing with airline credit cards is that there is an annual fee which can range between $60 and $85 just for the basic card. Also with airlines cutting flights and so many people now being able to earn miles without even flying, I think it will be frustrating trying to cash in your miles when you are ready because everyone else is trying to do the same thing.
You can also look at a Capital One card. There is no annual fee.
Someone already mentioned the Starwood Preferred Guest card from American Express. That’s basically a 1.25% rewards card for travel.
The Blue Sky card from American Express is a 1.33% rewards card ($100 toward travel for every $7500 you spend).
The Capital One No Hassle Miles Ultra for Professionals card is a 2% rewards card in which the earnings can be applied toward tickets on any airline without restrictions. Another good one is the Capital One® No Hassle Miles(SM) Rewards - MasterCard Excellent 1x - 2x Miles Rewards card.
You can use this credit card rewards calculator to see which of those cards (and many others) will pay you the most in rewards (travel, cash back, etc.) for your entered spending profile: