mcrogers

I am planning a trip to Australia and have found that my Capitol One Master Charge card requires 35,000 miles to travel across the US. Also, they do not share miles from airlines. I should have done more indepth homework when opening this account. I have American Express which is great, but not everyone takes it, so I need a standby. What do you think is the best deal on the market for frequent flyer mileage?

Lake

I think that best tyoe of card to get is one from a specific airline. In my case I have a Citibank Advantage American Airlines Gold Mastercard. The annual fee is $50. You get 7,500 bonus miles after making your first purchase with the card. The advantage with any of the airline cards is that you can always combine miles earned with the card with miles earned from traveling. I would choose the airline which best serves your home airport as well as your destinations.

http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/cardserv/worldcard/

TedTurner

Except American Airlines won't get mcrogers to Australia (though last I checked Qantas was a codeshare partner).

To build miles quickly and conveniently you'll want to select a card which applies to the airline(s) you most frequently use. Very few cities have both a wide variety of airlines and a wide variety of flights on several of those airlines.

Many credit cards offer mileage transfers to all major airlines for FFM awards, but you have to check the various restrictions, loopholes and fees. They change regularly.

gail

Work backwards - see which airlines fly to Australia, check out their FF requirements, and then check out their credit cards - most major airlines have some sort of credit card affinity program.

And then hope the rules, airlines, routes, requirements don't change while you are building up miles. We found on our USAir credit card that certain merchants will not let us charge major purchases or require a "convenience fee" - like we could only charge $4000 of our new car. The IRS will let you charge taxes, but charge a fee.

mcrogers

Actually, I already have enough ff miles to get to Australia using my miles from Amex. But I want to dump my Capitol One (miles one) credit card as soon as it reaches the required 35,000 for a domestic flight and pick up another card that doesn't require as many miles, AND, will be accepted in Australia. I was hoping someone would suggest one in particular. I fly out of Charlotte, so I can use almost any airlines. I may go back to usair visa, if nothing better is suggested.

Curious

mcogers,

Regarding your Capitol One card: Where are you flying from? The Miles One card requires only 25,000 miles within the contiguous 48 states.

25000 Coach Class ticket within 48 contiguous U.S.

Curious

mcrogers

Curious, To fly from Charlotte to LA the miles one card requires 35,000 miles...amd you cannot combines miles with any airlines to make up the difference if you don't have 35,000.

Patrick

Maybe I'm a little different about all this, but I use American almost exclusively, have a Citibank Aadvantage card to rack up miles and do everything imaginable (dining programs, telephone, buying flowers, hotel stays with bonus miles) to get even more miles all which go to my AA program. Frankly I can't see using up 35,000 miles for something like an inter US flight unless that's the only place you'll ever want to go. Normally you have to plan way ahead to book those award flights, and booking that far ahead you can almost always get some sort of good price for a paid flight. I save mine for big splurges, usually a round trip business class flight to Europe which also will allow two stopovers. For example, flying from Florida to New York first class for a stay as long as I like, then flying Business class to London for another stay, then Business class to Berlin, and eventually flying home to Florida business class from Paris. These tickets would usually cost in the neighborhood of $8,000 to $10,000 if you bought them. Since they cost me 90,000 miles, I find it a far better use of the miles than using them up for 2 and a half flights that I could probably buy for $300 or less each.

I don't like these cards or other plans that don't let you pool all your miles so you can earn really big awards. Incidentally, I'm not really a frequent flyer, only doing two flights in the last year (both within the US) that earned me miles. Nevertheless I'm racking up something like 75,000 miles this year through all my other sources of earning them.