As we are now in the fortunate situation of being able to travel more often, I would like to earn air miles or points for higher end hotels for future trips. Has anyone found certain credit cards or air mile plans to work better than others.

Thanks for any advice or suggestions

We like the American Express Skymiles card.

I like my AA Citibank Mastercard - gives me a free AA RT every month.

I sure can't beat robbie. I had a USAIR Bank of America card which earned me a mile per dollar spent and worked well for USAIR. When I lost faith in their future I switched to a Merrill Lynch card which "earned miles for every airline". The trouble is they literally buy the ticket and the number of miles required varies wildly. This was not a good plan. I have an AMEX/Delta card too. I was "supposed" to get triple miles for every DELTA flight purchased on the card, didn't work out that way. AMEX says it was an offer only valid for a limited time.

We've been very happy with our American Airlines Citibank cards.

You may be able to find a side-by-side comparison on www.webflyer.com.

But, to make a FF-affiliated credit card work well, you also need to take into consideration which airline(s) you will be most apt to fly. If the airport you fly from doesn't have that many Delta flights, but is heavy on USAir, a card affiliated with Delta might not be all that useful.

http://www.e-wisdom.com/credit_cards/travel.html

lets you compare cards

ipod robbie - 'I like my AA Citibank Mastercard - gives me a free AA RT every month'

I don't understand. Are you saying that Citbank gives you a free round trip on American Airlines every month? Free certificate? By earning FF points? That would be a lot of spending. If so, you can get it on any airline card.

I have an American Express card and USAir Visa card. I try to use the AE card because you can transfer the points to many airlines, including USAir, and also you get double points for many common purchases.

I just transferred my AE points to USAir to get a free flight on Lufthansa. Sounds complicated, but it was simple.

a free round trip on American Airlines every month??????

Yep - free AA RT (25,000 miles) every month, or nearly so.

1mi for every $ spent, plus bonus miles at many restaurants & other merchants.

Kids Braces $ $ $
Gas $ $
Heating Oil $ $
Work Airline Tix & hotels $ $
Nail & Spa treatments $ $
Golf & Ski outings $ $
Flowers $ $ $

Of course, you can do the same with any miles for $ credit card. The trick is to spend enough to earn a free ticket!

I don't use my checking account or cash for anything I can pay by CC, and I pay off the balance in full each mo, so no interest charges.

OK, I admit, it's not a free FF ticket each and every month, but I just got the December statement .....

I dumped my AA Citibank card a few years ago after the AA FF program itself got more and more restrictive. It used to be great through the 1990's - I flew cross country at Christmastime almost every year on an AA FF coach ticket. Since then the number of available FF seats has declined, the mileage requirements have increased. This last holiday season I couldn't even get a first class seat on AA! I had to get one with NW/Delta.

Some time ago I switched to the American Express Starwood card. Although I don't really use Starwood hotels, I still accumulate points (1 per dollar) that I can transfer to any airline's FF account, so I can combine them with real FF miles. The Starwood card gives you a 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 points transferred, so effectively I get 25,000 miles for 20,000 points.

Andrew

robbie - Unfortunately, I don't spend $300,000 a year. #39;(

Andrew - I just looked at the AE Starwood card, and it looks enticing. What's the catch?

I don't understand why they would give you 5K miles with a 20K transfer. Does the 5K go along with the 20K to the airline account?

Join the airlines FF program even if you are not going to fly soon. Delta and United sends FFmembers a 20,000 mile bonus offer if they will sign up for their card. Continental currently 15,000 miles I think. In other words, wait for a good bonus-miles offer to arrive before getting the card.

You can sign up for numerous card offers if you don't yet have an airline card. Some of them will give you 15K miles and waive the first year's annual fee! Then you can cancel at the end of the first year if you wish. I did that with a Delta Amex card once; I had too many Amex cards and didn't need them all.

The "catches" with the Starwood card, as I understand (I've not tried to use any miles yet) are that you don't get any bonus for signing up unless you stay at Starwood hotels, it could take a while for your miles to transfer (so you can't transfer the miles today and book a FF ticket tomorrow), and if you like United Airlines, they only accept a crappy 2:1 transfer ratio, which presumbly few people use (other airlines do 1:1 transfer). But you do get 25K miles in your account if you transfer 20K points to the other major airlines.

Andrew

I would suggest doing a whole lot of reading on Flyertalk (www.flyertalk.com) to learn the angles of both airline and hotel programs.

There's a wealth of info there, but it can be a tough crowd as the expectation from the established posters is that newbies will read the volumes of information there before asking questions.

just make sure you get a card that gives you ff miles for miles actually flown and not just for purchases. I still like my aa citibank card, and got a ff flight to honolulu with only about months notice, which surprised me.

I'm becoming more disillusioned with my AA citicard. Between busines travel and the credit card, we rack up plenty of miles, but heaven forbid they release a seat for you from O'Hare to Vegas on the 8:00 a.m. flight. It's becoming way too restrictive.

My experience is like yours, CheBird. I have just over 45K miles left on AA and had hoped to use them last Christmas, but a few months out, nothing was available anywhere close to Christmastime on AA even with first class, unlike previous years. I had to use NW FF miles to book on Delta instead.

AA used to have a great program and I flew them all the time even when not flying on miles, but I don't see any point in accumulating miles I'll have trouble using.

Andrew

I just got a Southwest Visa. It doesn't give anything for high end hotels but I earn free flights often. I fly frequently to Tampa and Phoenix these days and Southwest flies direct from my hometown.

Sixteen points in 24 months earns a free round trip. I get a point for each one way flight. Each time I use the Southwest Visa to buy flights I get double points and for every $1200 spent on the card for all purchases I get a point. When I book a hotel or rental car I get anywhere between .5-1.5 points depending on current promotions.

I learned from my brother in law to put the college tuition on the card then pay it off the next month (which only works if you have the funds to pay it off immediately)to fly free regularly (he had three in college at once!).

I just put everything from my two week vacation to Aspen (ski rental, lift tickets, restaurants, clothes, hotel) and Phoenix (art for my home, restaurants, rental car...) on the card which added up quickly. I came home to find that I've earned two free trips since October. Yippee!

Hope you got the current Southwest visa bonus with that....$20 off your first statement plus 4 credits to start with.