Which reward credit card is best for airline travel?
 

I'm hoping that you experienced travelers will be able to guide me with information on what is/are the best reward credit card(s) to use for airline travel?

I'm intersted in using points for upgrades to business or first class for domestic travel. For European travel I'm interested in business or first class tickets or for upgrades.

I have checked financial sites, but I welcome the advise of Fodor travelers above all else.

I have checked this site also, but as things change frequently I'm looking for current information.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you all!

Happy trails,
Aranda

I have a Cap One card which theoretically is good for any airline and there are no blackout periods, etc.

BUT, before getting any card check out the redemption requirements. I have to "spend" more miles with the Cap One card than I do with the two airline FF programs I am also enrolled in since with Cap One the number of miles is based on the cost of the ticket.

Dukey,
I don't understand the last thing you wrote:
the number of miles is based on the cost of the ticket,
could you please clarify?
(Sorry if this is a 'baby' question)

Aranda

The first question if you are considering a particular airlines card is will that airline work for you?

I'm a big fan of American Airlines and have passed the one million mile mark. We've cashed in miles -- usually for free business class tickets -- to Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and about 8 or 9 trips to Europe.

The thing I like most is that there are many opportunities to combine miles all into the same account. The AA reward dining program has earned us thousands of miles, and the Citibank credit card has really racked up the miles. I've received major miles from buying flowers online and from switching my long distance to a different carrier (even though I hardly ever use any long distance). These miles all combine with actual flying miles and we seem to accumulate miles faster than we could ever imagine.

With many of the separate credit cards, the miles can't be combined with other sources, making them harder to redeem. The idea of using miles for any ticket on any airline sounds good, but like Dukey suggests, we just redeemed 90,000 AA miles each for two $7000 tickets. We never could have afforded those tickets with spending only from Capital One.

If Neo had used Cap One points to pay for two $7000 tickets that would mean a total of $14,000 multiplied by either 80 (in my case) or 100 (I have heard this is the "new" multiple) and that means 1,120,000 points if you use the 80 multiple.

OTOH our household routinely puts more than $100,000 per year on our main credit card and one reason we do is to get FF miles (in our main case with USAirways).

We don't fly domestically a great deal and even when we do we are very careful about not "squandering" those miles for a couple-hour flight. Generally we use them for trips to Europe but that also depends on the cost of tickets.

I'm an American Airlines fan so I'll ditto Patrick. I've never flown to Europe in anything other than Business class using miles for the upgrade. My CC is a Citi Aadvantage card.

We fly Northwest and have a northwest visa card through our bank which has built us millions of miles over the years and we, too, have taken many trips to Europe in buisness class as a result--though the number of miles to do that continues to be higher and higher and the availability continues to be more and more scarce. We use a Cap One for purchases while in Europe though, because they do not charge the 4% conversion fee on foreign currency purchases that other cards do. We have yet to obtain any free tickets with our Cap One card but that isn't really the purpose of our having one.

Dukey, thanks for doing the math for me. I started to make a comment how many miles it would take to buy those tickets with Cap One miles, but knew I'd be way off. Anyway, the CapOne miles are simply not an alternative for me. I "rarely" spend a million dollars a year on a credit card -- LOL!

Julie, 4% on other cards? Is that new? I know I pay 3% with Citibank (1% for Visa and another 2% for Citibank) but I thought that was pretty much the standard. While I'm not happy paying an extra 3 cents per dollar spent while in Europe, since I cash in my miles getting about 8 cents a mile, I don't mind that much as it gets me those miles much quicker.

Dukey, can you give us some tips on how to run up so many miles? Anything really unusual? Always looking to run up my totals a little higher.

I'm not Dukey, but here are a couple of my ways to run up miles.

AA I-Dine, gives up to 10 miles for every dollar spent at restaurants which are part of their system. You don't do anything except register your credit card and when you use it at one of these restaurants you get your miles automatically. Sometimes I get these miles and had no idea the restaurant was part of the system. This play changes, and you now start with only getting one or two miles per dollar, but if you dine at the included places something like 12 times a year total, then you are upped. In addition, I keep getting 500 or 1000 miles bonuses for having eaten at two or three in a month period. Since joining about four years ago, I've gotten over 60,000 miles that way -- only 6000 this year, though.

I've changed my long distance carrier almost annually. Despite the fact that I rarely use my landline for long distance calls, American changes partners and each time I change I pick up 5000 to 7500 miles.

When I sent my mother flowers for Mother's Day or her birthday, I'd use AA's online partner and get 500 or more miles each time.

I charge as much as I can on my Citibank Card. I just put the maximum the dealer would allow when I bought a new car -- only $3000, some allow $5000. I always pay off my Credit Card each month.

I've purposely stayed at Hyatt Hotels, when they've offered a 5000 mile or similar bonus for three stays in a 6 month period, or something else like that. And I have my Marriott stays automatically credited to my AA miles account.

Thanks NEO - good rundown! The dining miles have declined, and its a bit confusing sometimes, but still worth a little effort.

I am certain there are plenty of people out there with the knives unsheathed but I will say only that we don't do anything "special" to build up these miles on the credit card other than the following:

we pay off the balance monthly so we never incur a finance charge

we use it for everything we can to include grocery shopping, gasoline purchases (we have four vehicles); I use it to pay annual professional dues, for magazine subscriptions, theatre tickets, hotel bills, etc.

I wish we COULD use it for mortgage payments and other "bigger ticket" items.

I would like to comment on the Cap One non-charging of foreign currency fees.

I am still not convinced that Cap One doesn't make that money by giving a poorer exchange rate but then again I only use that card in Europe when I must have a back-up.

I know it is cynical but I still say the words "savings" and "bank" used in the same sentence with "customer" are oxymoronic.

Degas, while the I-Dine program seems to be decreasing -- at least there are fewer local restaurants participating now than a year or two ago, I still get 10 miles per dollar as I've kept up my minimum number of visits (again, I think that was 12 per year). And I just got another 1000 mile bonus without explanation. While in California we picked up a couple thousand miles each at places we had no idea were in the program. I don't work at those I-Dine miles, but they still keep rolling in.

Oh another one. I still do some free-lance design and decorating. Recently we put a $25,000 mile plumbing bill on my partner's card and then collected from the client and paid it off immediately. It was a nice and easy way to earn 25,000 miles. I also have a business Aadvantage Card and do a lot of business expenses on it, gettin miles that way.

I open and close accounts quickly to just get the bonus start up miles. Sometimes they catch on and sometimes they don't.

Oh, yea. That reminds me. Three times in the last couple years I have accepted a new Marriott Rewards Credit Card (I think they have changed bank affiliations with each one). In each case we got AA miles for taking the card and free Marriott nights as well. After a couple months we closed the account to avoid any annual fee after the first year.
Regarding those long distance carrier bonuses, usually they give you 1000 a month up to 5 months so if you cancel right away, you don't get all your miles. I make sure I don't cancel until all the miles have been posted.

Another way to rack up miles: we charged our son's college tuition, room and board to our BA credit card. He got a degree and we got business class tickets to Europe.

I have a Capital One card, and it really isn't an airline card, it's just a cash-back card that tries to mimic one to compete against them. That's why the number of "miles" (which aren't miles, just points based on purchases) you have to spend to get a ticket is based on the price of that ticket. Because it's really just a cash-back card and that's what I use it as. I just get cash rebate checks from them based on a percentage of my purchases.

I really don't know why Dukey keeps making unfounded aspersions that Capital One assesses fees on foreign purchases by charging a higher exchange rate than other cards, and doesn't present any reason for why he says that. This is simply not true, I have a Cap One card and know what their rate is and it is always listed on the bills and you can compare that to official interbank rates on the web or elsewhere and it's always within a penny. If they do charge higher rates, it is even less than the one pct addon that other cards have for VISA/MC administration.

For example, I have my Cap One bill right in front of me from this July. I made charges in euro on both July 9th and 10th, and the Cap One exchange rate was 1.2842 on 7/9 and 1.2760 on 7/10. Oanda lists the daily average as the same on those two days, 1.2816 which is slightly higher than one of those rates and slightly lower than the other. There is no other fee on Cap One bills to add on a surcharge for foreign purchases (my Visa, by contrast, has a separate line item for each one for the one pct admin fee).

I have used my Cap One card in many countries over several years since I've had it, and this is always the situation I've found.

Christina,

I am SO GLAD you asked about all of my "unfounded aspersions" so allow me to fill you in.

Recently I happened to charge two almost identical items in London. One was on the Cap One card and the other on my B of A Visa.

Naturally, when the Visa bill arrived the usual "foreign currency conversion fee" appeared as well as the excchange rate that was used.

When the Cap One bill arrived I noticed that the charges had processed through on the same date and i also noticed that the rate Cap One used to convert was not as advantageous (to me)as the one used by Visa.

So, please tell me what I am missing here.

Thanks for providing the dates, Christina. I just checked my Citibank bills. On July 9th the exchange rate I got was 1.2802 before they added 3%. I had two charges on July 10. The rate on both was 1.277. so yes, it does appear that Captial One was giving the same rate as my Citibank Card (before my add ons). Now if only I could get decent miles from one of those Capital One cards I might consider it, but otherwise I'll stick with paying 3 cents each for the extra miles I cash in at 8 cents each.