Best Airline Rewards Card??

[dancer_mom]

My DH is hoping for a traveling position and we should hear in the next couple of weeks. He books the travel himself and then the company reimburses!!!
So he wants me to look into getting a good airline rewards card.

We would like to specifically earn miles for flights. So what do you guys think? Which cards earn good points and are not too difficult to redeem? Do most let you redeem for an international flight? That's what we would want to use it on.

TIA

 

[MinnieForMe]

I'm not a frequent flyer but he should sign up with the loyalty program for the Airline he travels the most or all of the airlines he will be using. As far as which Credit Card, again, it depends on the airline he uses but most have alliances with other airlines for international travel.

I like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Barclay's World Mastercard for their sign up bonus to be used for travel.

Hopefully, you'll get other opinions!

 

[calypso726]

The latest hobby for DH and I is what we affectionately call travel hacking. We use credit card sign up bonuses and the points they earn on category spending for airline miles or hotel points so that we can cut costs on our vacations. The first year we started we wound up earning nearly 2 million miles between the two of us.

We got to fly class on miles round trip from Miami to Edinburgh when we went on our first Adventures by Disney trip last August. This year we also managed to get first class on miles to Vancouver for our Disney Wonder Alaska cruise. I got my parents to begin travel hacking and the 4 of us are flying first class on miles to London/Paris with Adventures by Disney.

Some cards we get for the sign up bonus only and then they might sit in a drawer. Some we keep on us and use exclusively. If you don't plan to make travel hacking a hobby and just want some basic bang for your buck all around cards for miles then I will narrow it down to 3 of my go to keeper cards and why.

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card.
Initial sign up bonus is 25K miles for $5K spend in the first 6 months. The points on the SPG card can be transferred to over 20 airlines. For every 20K in miles your transfer SPG gives you 5K in miles. So, essentially you are earning 1.25 miles for every dollar. The card carries an annual $65 fee but it is worth it for my purposes.

Chase Sapphire Preferred (best used in combo with Freedom card)
Initial sign up bonus is 40K in Ultimate Reward points with $3K spend in 3 months. Add an authorized user and get an additional 5K point bonus with first spend in 3 months. This card earns 2 points per dollar on dining and travel. Each year you also get a 7% bonus on all points earned that year. Chase UR points can be redeemed into your frequent flyer account 1:1 in miles on United Airways, British Airways, Korean Airways, Southwest Air and Virgin Atlantic. In addition, you can transfer to Hyatt, Marriott, IHG and Ritz Carlton.The card carries a $95 annual fee, no foreign transaction fees and you can now request a chip and signature card to use when traveling in Europe.

Chase Freedom card (best used in combo with Sapphire Preffered card)
10K in Ultimate Reward points for $500 spend in first 3 months. These points one their own cannot be used for miles but if you transfer the Freedom card points into you Sapphire Preferred account then they can be used for points. Every quarter you can earn 5 points per dollar on whatever the category bonus is for that quarter up to $1500 in spend which is 7500 potential points/miles per quarter. Right now it is gas, movie theaters and Starbucks.

Sometimes it takes a little thinking outside the box to maximize bonuses though. For instance last year Freedom had a category bonus of 5x per dollar for spending at Lowes. We had no home improvement projects planned but did need to pay down our Adventures by Disney vacation. Lowes sells Disney gift cards. DH and I each purchased $1500 in Disney gift cards at Lowes with our Freedom cards to pay down our trip and earned 15K in miles instead of the 6K we would have earned if we used the Sapphire card.

I hope this helps. Happy travels

 

[buzzandzurg]

Agree with previous poster that you should pick the card associated with the airline you fly most. My wife is a fan of Southwest and we fly them a lot. However, the rewards versus points used is just not as good. I got an $800 flight for 30,000 miles from Delta. The same flight via Southwest would have cost much more points.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I can tell you which one I didn't like...United. It was awful. Points didn't add up to much and that's with my husband flying A LOT for business on United. Trying to redeem them was a joke. So many restrictions it makes them impossible to use.

 

[calypso726]

Agree with previous poster that you should pick the card associated with the airline you fly most. My wife is a fan of Southwest and we fly them a lot. However, the rewards versus points used is just not as good. I got an $800 flight for 30,000 miles from Delta. The same flight via Southwest would have cost much more points.

Southwest doesn't fly international which is what the OP was looking for. I also compare which airlines cost how many miles for what flight as well as the cost in miles vs the cost in money. Sometimes I'd rather earn the miles in the seat because it is more cost effective. I like to use our miles on flights that either cost an amount we would never actual pay money for like first class or on flights where the cost of the economy ticket is way too high

I personally don't like using only the co branded airline card of the airline I fly the most. I don't get as much bang for my buck and my choices are severely limited to one airline and only their partners. I'd rather have miles/points that I can use on the airlines in all 3 alliances. I normally fly American Airlines since they have a hub in Miami and good availability. But if I use their card exclusively I only get 1 mile per $ spent. I prefer to use the SPG card and get the same 1 mile per $ plus and extra 5K in miles every time I transfer 20K SPG points into my AA frequent flyer account. We used some of those AA miles to fly into Edinburgh last year on British Airways. Then we used the SPG points to book an extra night on our trip for 12K points at the Sheraton Grand Resort and Spa which would have cost over $500 dollars. Had I used my American Airlines card exclusively I would have not received the extra 5K in miles, nor would I have had the flexibility to get a free hotel night where I wanted.

I can tell you which one I didn't like...United. It was awful. Points didn't add up to much and that's with my husband flying A LOT for business on United. Trying to redeem them was a joke. So many restrictions it makes them impossible to use.

My United card is sitting in a drawer to be cancelled later this year. We got it for the sign up bonus. I use the Chase cards to earn potential United miles. We actually wound up getting our Vancouver flights with United and on saver miles so it cost half the normal amount of miles. Granted I was pretty diligent about checking availability on award miles through their website everyday. We are also flying United back from Paris but no saver miles were available for that flight

 

[Tinknalli]

Maybe not the best bang or your buck, but I use my Chase Disney Visa (the premier card with the $50 annual fee) and earn 1-2% in rewards dollars which can be used on tickets with any airline to anywhere with no blackout dates. You buy your flights using your card and then log in and apply your reward dollars to the airline charges on your card. I had $900 that I used toward Jet Blue tickets this summer.

 

[wallskm]

We love our Chase Sapphire card. It is not associated with any specific airline, but points can be used to book on multiple airlines, and they can be transferred to other airlines as another poster pointed out. We use it for EVERYTHING and pay off the balance each month. Between our spending and the introductory points awarded after getting the card, we managed to fly for free to Disney last April (3 tickets), and in October we transferred some points to Southwest and were able to book 4 flights for free for our upcoming Disney trip.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I was a big Continental fan for many, many years. With the merger with United, I, sadly, am about to get a Delta rewards card. I may well wind up cancelling my United card. The new airline is just. . .miserable.

I miss Continental.