Best airline reward card?

[ML_LovesDisney]

Hi all! With ticket prices OUT OF CONTROL (just looked for February trip tickets on usairways.com, with my husband's ticket free with his miles, and buying mine and our two daughters was $1583!!!!!), which is the best airline reward card? We have a USAIR card but are looking to get another one.

 

[mdsd8700]

Well I am not sure I am expert on this and I don't actually have an "airline" card so others may be able to give you better advice, however I thought I would at least post about the card we use for travel. It is the Amex Blue Sky Card. There is no annual fee and you can carry over from month to month if that is something that you would want to do. It is a points system and for every $7,500 that you spend you get 100 points. Which is just about a 1.3% return, which is a bit better than the average 1% most cards offer. It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but it does add up! You redeem the points in increments of 100 and they count as $100 on your statement. So if you have 15,000 points you have $200 to apply to pretty much any travel expenses you have. So plane tickets, hotel costs, rental cars, etc and you can use the points towards those. It is a very simply process and takes just a couple clicks of the mouse to complete. There are no restrictions on which airlines, hotel, rental car companies at all or any black outdates of any kind. Pretty much if you have a travel expense you just apply the credit no problems.

I don't recall how many years we have had the card not that many years, but we have saved a lot I know. I currently have a $400 credit right now that I am saving up (and still trying to add on more points) for airfare to Hawaii next year.

Anyway, I know that wasn't exactly what you asked, but hoped it might have helped a bit.

Good Luck!

LOL ML LovesDisney I realized after I posted the reply that we are DVC Neighbors

 

[sydneysmom]

it's so funny you posted this, because I was JUST wondering this today too. I found Southwest Visa has an offer that when you sign up and use it once, you'll get 20,000 points towards a free flight. plus you get 3,000 each year on your "anniversary" of having the card.

So I had no idea how many points would be required to actually get a free flight, so I "priced out w/ points" us flying from Jackson, MS (our airport) to Orlando and it was about 19,000 miles. So I figured that if my DH and I each got one, we would get points for our flight and just pay our DD's flight. I'm loving that idea. (now I have to sell him on getting a credit card. )

I'm waiting for an email back from them because I want to know if points expire. we're not planning to go till 2013, so it makes no sense to get it if they're going to expire by then.

But you may want to look into this card and see if it'll work for you as well.

 

[ytown818]

DH and I just got approved for the Southwest cards, we are hoping to use the combined points to at least get the family covered one way. I also saw somewhere in addition to the 20,000, you get 10,000 more points for balance transfers (Not sure how that works)

 

[mdsd8700]

it's so funny you posted this, because I was JUST wondering this today too. I found Southwest Visa has an offer that when you sign up and use it once, you'll get 20,000 points towards a free flight. plus you get 3,000 each year on your "anniversary" of having the card.

Actually I have this card as well and got it for the free flight (same with DH). Almost forgot about it till I read pp. We do use it on occasion and keep it for several reasons and I am not sure how good of a program it is. I might want to look into it since I already have the card.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

For the OP looking to fly on US on domestic flights, you might look into the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex card. You earn 1 SPG point for each mile charged and can convert 20,000 miles into 25,000 US miles. Those points can also be converted to many other airlines (my parents have used them on Virgin Atlantic and Air Berlin), as well as for stays at Sheratons, Westins, W , Four Points, Aloft and some other hotels. There is a sign-up bonus of 10,000 points on first charge and 15,000 more when you charge $15,000 in 6 months. If you meet that spend, you would have 40,000 points, enough for 50,000 US air miles.

For domestic flights, Capital One Venture earns 2% when the points are used to pay for travel. However, they just finished a massive bonus point sign up promotion where its estimated they gave away a billion points. I personally received a credit of $1120 for any travel expense after spending $1000. Some couples received 4 times that amount by each getting both a personal and business card. As a result, I wouldn't expect another decent sign up bonus anytime soon and it possible we will see some changes in the awards to reduce the value of all those points.

Both flyertalk and milepoint have a lot of good info on the best current sign up bonuses. If you see one you like, jump on it; the most generous ones expire pretty quickly. Best of luck -- Suzanne

 

[jenmcnitt]

I really like my USBank FlexPerks Travel card.

For every $ spent I get one point and receive bonus points at the end of the month for whatever category I spent the most in that month.

For every 20,000 points, you can get a airline ticket worth up to $400. You can also spend the points on other things, but I usually use it for airline items.
When you purchase an airline ticket, you also get a $25 credit to use toward any airline related expense for that trip...like checked luggage.

I used to have a Delta AMEX card, but the yearly fee is $95 I believe vs $35 for the USBank FlexPerk card. What I liked about the AMEX card though was that you always got your first bag checked in for free, but I've been finding that I need more and more points to get a ticket. On average it seems like I needed 35,000 points (or at a minumum 25,000 points) for something I could spend 20,000 points on with the Flexperks card.

 

[JDUCKY]

Chase's British Airways card has a new promotion that can net you enough points just about right off the bat for *two* transatlantic tickets.

also, check out flyertalk
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other-credit-card-programs-599/

 

[bear_mom]

I really like my USBank FlexPerks Travel card.

For every $ spent I get one point and receive bonus points at the end of the month for whatever category I spent the most in that month.

For every 20,000 points, you can get a airline ticket worth up to $400. You can also spend the points on other things, but I usually use it for airline items.
When you purchase an airline ticket, you also get a $25 credit to use toward any airline related expense for that trip...like checked luggage.

This is what we have also. We used 40,000 miles last Dec to pay for 2 of our 4 tickets to WDW. Worked well, we used the two airmile tickets to pay for our luggage fees and then got reimbursed $50.

I am hoping to have enough miles next year (which we should easily have) to pay for all 4 of our tickets saving us airfare. Even if the tickets cost up to $600, we should have enough (30,000 miles/ticket).

Emily

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

THanks all! I really want the Southwest card. I am going to wait a little longer to apply, since I just got the Disney Visa in October and Chase is kinda strict with their credit, and not wanting to give you too much. We love flying Southwest. The nice thing about my husbands USAIR card is he gets 2 $99 buddy passes a year with it too if we buy one full price ticket. Might do that this year.

 

[deide71]

Capital One Venture card

http://www.capitaloneventure.com/#/Welcome

Pays 2% in rewards for any travel related purchase. I love it.

 

[mariacj]

I get 1.25 miles/points...plus they often have get an extra 1-10 points per dollar spent through certain retailers... right now Starbucks is 1 extra and Barnes and Nobles is 10ish.

You don't have to buy through them... if you find the tickets cheaper through any other website... they will reimburse you dollar for dollar. This makes the math super easy.

Example one round trip ticket could cost 30,000miles/300 dollars on their site, but through Southwest its 250 dollars... they would reimburse your credit card 25,000.

I like this a lot more since I am constantly jumping airline and travel websites to see where can I get the best deal.

No yearly fee, no interest for the first year. I use mine like a debit and make sure that the balance is cleared weekly. I am heavy budgeter so I already have the cash for the things I need in an envelope type system, so I have no fear of not being able to pay it off.

Good Luck and find one that fits your lifestyle!

 

[deide71]

I get 1.25 miles/points...plus they often have get an extra 1-10 points per dollar spent through certain retailers... right now Starbucks is 1 extra and Barnes and Nobles is 10ish.

You don't have to buy through them... if you find the tickets cheaper through any other website... they will reimburse you dollar for dollar. This makes the math super easy.

Example one round trip ticket could cost 30,000miles/300 dollars on their site, but through Southwest its 250 dollars... they would reimburse your credit card 25,000.

I like this a lot more since I am constantly jumping airline and travel websites to see where can I get the best deal.

No yearly fee, no interest for the first year. I use mine like a debit and make sure that the balance is cleared weekly. I am heavy budgeter so I already have the cash for the things I need in an envelope type system, so I have no fear of not being able to pay it off.

Good Luck and find one that fits your lifestyle!

Are you sure you have the Venture card and not the Capital One No hassle Rewards card? Venture definitely pays 2 points per dollar . Check the link (not a referrral). If you don't have a Venture card you should get one.