Any recommendations for the best card for Jet Blue or Delta points? Those are our two best options for direct flights to Orlando. I'm trying to save for a trip in April 2017 so if I can rack up enough points for some free flights by then that would really help.
I wish Southwest flew direct from La Guardia. We'd have to take a car to Newark or Long Island to get a direct flight on SW and with the extra time plus traffic plus car expense I've never gotten the math to work in our favor.
The Amex Everyday Preferred card earns Membership Reward points which transfer to Jet Blue 200 for 250 MR and Delta 1:1 among a number of other airlines. However, the sign up bonus isn't as big as some of the airline credit cards so a Delta card may be a better option for the sign up bonus. The earning rate though would be faster with the Everyday Preferred on an ongoing basis. Personally, I'd sign up for both if that was my goal on the same day and at the same time. I'd make the bonus requirements for each but put my spending on the Everyday card.
Thank you for the suggestions! I'm going to check out the Delta Gold card & the Chase Sapphire. I do have a Delta frequent flier account so maybe if I look up the card online it will trigger a sign up promotion for me. I try to stay away from cards with an annual fee unless the rewards are something I can use all the time, like cash back. We don't fly very often, maybe once a year at most, but if I'm able to get a good sign up bonus and then cancel the card before the fee comes due again I would do it. (I'd pay the fee at sign up if the rewards bonus is worth it.) The free checked bag is also a nice perk; for our family of 4, that's a $200 value per round trip (assuming we each check a bag).
Coincidentally, I was Googling and found this link:
http://www.nextadvisor.com/credit_cards/travel_rewards.php?
It's a handy chart comparing different travel rewards credit cards.
Before travel hacking we only flew maybe once a year. Now we don't let the idea of airfare stand in our way of planning vacations since we know we will have miles to use. We've managed to maintain at least 2 million points and miles between us so we always have a stash. The bloggers we follow and learn the most from are The Points Guy, Million Mile Secrets, Frequent Miler, Mommy Points and View From the Wing. We keep a handful of annual fee cards because the benefits outweigh the fee. Some we keep because the earning potential for points is too good to pass up, like the Chase Ink Plus business card. You get 5 ultimate reward points per $ on cable, internet, phone and office supply stores. Well, office supply stores sell gift cards. So, we buy gift cards for Disney, Whole Foods, Macy's etc. at Staples for 5 points per dollar and then use the gift card to purchase what we need at the store. The exception to that is when Raise has discounted gift cards for the same places where the discount is worth more than the 5 points per dollar. We wind up with 5 miles per dollar on our Disney cruises, Adventures by Disney trips, annual passes and DVC dues by purchasing Disney gift cards at office supply stores, then transferring on to the Disney Vacation Savings account and paying through that to get the extra $20 per $1000 we are spending anyhow. The point earning potential is worth the fee for us.
This board is awesome. We are planning to visit my wife's aunt in PA this summer but unfortunately there are too many of us now to comfortably stay at her house, so we need to find a hotel. I was reading through that chart I linked to in my last post, and saw the IHG hotel card with 60,000 point sign up bonus. There is a Holiday Inn Express in the town where she lives, which is one of the IHG brands. I checked the website and a night at that HIE is 10,000 points. So for nothing but signing up for the card and spending $1,000 in the first 3 months (the $49 fee is waived for the first year), we can get 6 nights free!
I never would have thought to look for a hotel rewards card without reading this forum, so thank you all for your great ideas/tips.
Now my goal is to get as many airline miles as I can to use towards our flights for April 2017.
I hear the IHG card is a great card to keep since it gives you Platinum status. We picked up the Club Carlson card for hotel stays internationally at the Radisson Blu. The card is $75 per year and you get 85,000 points for meeting the bonus requirements. Then on every anniversary year that you have the card you get 40,000 points. We have booked stays in Edinburgh, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland using points. Had we payed cash those hotel stays would have been over $1500. The points from our Marriott card got us a few nights in London at the St. Ermin last year after the Disney Frozen cruise. We keep that one because it gives you a free night at a category 1-5 Marriott each year so between both cards it's a quick free weekend getaway.
You're best bet is to read some of the beginner guides that the bloggers (The Points Guy, Million Mile Secrets, Frequent Miler, Mommy Points and View From the Wing) have on their blog pages. Our first year learning how to travel hack we were able to get about 700,000 points and miles. DH and I have flown RT in first class to Europe 3 times since then as well as first class domestically several times and to Vancouver for the Alaska cruise on the Wonder. Despite spending hundreds of thousands of miles on those trips over the last 3 years we still maintain about 2 million miles and points between us. Keep in mind, I barely know what I am doing
and still am able to make it work thanks to those blogs. Added bonus, both of our credit scores are now above 800!
So, if you are doing that then travel hacking will be a piece of 
LOL 
therefore I feel I got a decent value for my points So now we will go back to buying gift cards at office supply stores to beef up the UR points balance for future adventures. My next hurdle is figuring out which miles/points to use to book an award flight to Hawaii from Florida as we are planning to go to Aulani next year 
Best of luck and don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions. Like I said, I barely know what I am doing but I am happy to share the little I know and what works for us. 
