Credit card purchase-Free miles
 

Hello:<BR>I am looking to open an account thru a credit card company that offers mileage/points each time we make a purchase.<BR>Can someone direct me what company or if you happen to know the website address. We try to travel once a year and I think accummulating mileage would be a great help to one's budget.<BR>I appreciate the information.

Where do you live? In Canada, we have a CIBC Aerogold with CIBC. That gives us aeroplan miles on Air Canada.

jetset,<BR><BR>You don't mention where you live or where you like to go. Each airline has their own card that gives miles. In addition, Capitol-One's card gives miles for any airline you choose. There is an annual fee for the milage cards.<BR><BR>You have to decide which airline you want to use and go for it. The only caveat is that most airline credit card banks (CitiBank, etc.) charge an extra 2% conversion fee on all overseas purchases. This is in addition to the 1% charged by Visa and Master Card. Capitol- One and MBNA do not add the extra 2%.<BR><BR>Each airline website will have details on applying for their credit card. Just go to your search box and plug in the airline or credit card you want. The search should turn up a clickable link to their website.<BR><BR>Dick

don't know if you're a member of Qualiflyer but they do have Visa that offer miles. I have a TAP Visa and I win a lot of miles with it. Do you use qualiflyer airlines?

website for qualiflyer: www.qualiflyer.com

They all charge an annual fee of $50-100. And like you have to spend like $20,000+ to get a trip. So it often doesn't work out!

Jeez, SiD, I charge $20,000 a month...lots of business expenses mostly. To jetset: Amex lets you earn miles toward a choice of airline programs, tho not American Airlines for one. The Citibank AA MC has a special offer right now if you sign up you get 7-10,000 bonus miles! Delta usually has some similar offer. There are ususally links from the Airline web sites.

AMERICAN EXPRESS BLUE. no annual fees! and they have a great rewards program, where they partner with something like 16 airlines for mileage. Most cards/programs have that 20,000 mile req to get a free ticket, but I think they also have some special deal where you give something like 5000 miles = half the cost of a plane ticket. Finally, to accumulate more points, simply make sure you use it on big purchases that you would normally pay by check (ie. college tuition, down payment on car, groceries, gas). Its unbelievable how much we as a society spend on everyday items...

The best value for ff miles is an upgrade for european trips. United requires 40 thousand miles to upgrade and American requires 50 thousand miles to upgrade. They both have a $50 yearly fee. I don't know about the other airlines. <BR><BR>Both United and American have 800 numbers to call to find out about credit cards.<BR><BR>lynlor

We have United visa and before that we had British Airways visa. They do charge $60 annual fee, but we’ve already went to Hawaii, Australia and Europe twice in three years. You have to be very creative in accumulating miles. For example we try to stay in the Intercontinental hotels, because they give you $500 extra miles. There are also Grocery miles from “Safeway,” etc. You also have to take partners airlines. Its like a game, but it all worth it.

I also vote for AMEX. It does have an annual fee but I think the convenience of it outweighs the downside because uou can use the points on more than just one airline.

I pay my mortgage every month by credit card (and then pay off my balance immediately). Just by doing that alone, I accummulated 30,000 miles last year.

Another strong vote for American Express Membership rewards. Though you will want a VISA or MasterCard also - - pick the airline with the best service from yout locality. I use AAdvantage (Citicorp) - - partly because it is NOT part of American Express.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

I wouldn't go w/ MBNA. We tried it, but then when it came to "cashing" in the miles for upgrades/free ticket we found that their program was more limited than they purportd in their "sales pitch." We wasted a lot of miles w/ them. "Buyer Beware"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <BR><BR>We like Mileage Plus (United, partners w/ Lufthansa) and Citibank (American, partners w/ Swiss formerly Swiss Air).

We use both Capital One's MilesOne cards and Citibank's American Airlines cards. I choose American Airlines because they fly in/out of the small town where we are located. The Capital One card is valid with any airlines, but the mileage requirements are higher than American Airlines. <BR><BR>If you charge everything you possibly can AND pay off the balance in full each month, frequent flyer miles are a great thing! A good place for information is webflyer.com. Good Luck!

Jamie<BR>I didn't think it was possible to pay your mortgage through a CC. Most mortgage providers demand a direct debit through your bank. I will have to ask my provider now if I can pay through my CC- what an amount of miles I could get!!! Has anyone else been able to pay their mortgage this way?

I have had 3 different mortgages now and none of them were direct debit. Most recent one at Washington Mutual and current one with Chase have option to pay with cc...that's at least a free round-trip upgrade on American to Europe each year!

Capital One is very good and the fee is only $19. Also, if you don't want the miles, you can get 1% cash back.

I have used my Citibank AAdvantage Mastercard for years. AA has a great mileage program - I use it to travel cross-country in the US for the Christmas holidays every year. There are a few blackout dates, but I have had better luck than with Northwest or the now-defunct TWA. Never had trouble getting home at the holidays with AAdvantage.<BR><BR>I just signed up for United's Mileage Plus VISA and got 15,000 miles just for signing up. This card has an annual fee of $60; I already had almost 10,000 miles, so I'm basically buying the 15,000 miles for $60. I plan to continue to use my AA card because I prefer AA (United didn't have any 25K award flights over Christmas but AA as usual does - I'll use my United ticket some other time).<BR><BR>Go to www.united.com to sign up for the United card.<BR><BR>Andrew<BR>

try<BR>http://www.webflyer.com<BR>or <BR>http://www.smarterliving.org/air/<BR><BR>just a personal tip. choice your card for an airline that has a major hub at your airport.. (let alone flies out of it)<BR>