BeachBoi: Loved your response! Yeah, I guess I'd make a lousy hunter. I much prefer the sure thing payout.

Maggi: Just want to make sure you're aware that the Costco AE rebate applies to purchases everywhere. Not just in Costco. (Even I would have a hard time charging $25,000/year in Costco, and I love that place.)

Thanks for your responses. I guess that's why there's different programs (strokes) for different folks. The part that crystalized it for me was Maggi's comment about having to "jump through all their little hoops." This is where I fail. Whenever I try to drive myself crazy to comply with each new offering, (otherwise known as the "chase") it always seems that I manage to jump through only 4 out the 5 hoops and then lose out completely. So I've found out the hard way that I'm better off taking the cash & running (otherwise known as the "kill").

AAFrequentFlyer: I guess we were posting around the same time, so I didn't see your response initially.

Thanks for taking the time to give such detailed examples. That's what I meant by thinking there must be something I was missing. Your examples showed just what it was I was missing, and I agree that if one travels internationally, that's a good reason to use the FF miles credit cards.

I'll have to re-evaluate our credit card usuage a bit more, but I think for the time being anyway, we'll stick with our current setup. Most of our travel is domestic, and on those times when we travel internationally, it's often with a land/air package.

It seems to me that the world is becoming divided into two camps when it comes to flying and mileage. One camp consists of relatively infrequent fliers, for whom the lowest price is the best deal. For them, FF miles are a means of scoring the occasional free ticket; their travel habits generally mean they will accrue and use FF miles rarely. Plus, the hassles of obtaining "capacity controlled" free tickets - which can be just awful if you want to travel in peak times - means that they probably won't get around to using their miles on flights for a long time. Instead they'll look for cheap fares, skip the FF redemption hassle, and fly some more on paid seats. Like buttah to the airlines.

The second camp, it seems, includes more frequent fliers, for whom mileage programs are all about comfort and status, mainly comfort. Look at www.flyertalk.com and you'll see that many threads focus on how to obtain and maintain elite status in FF programs, so that first-class upgrades, access to airport lounges, etc., come easier. For this group, who spend a lot of time in airplanes and airports, maintaining comfort and being able to work and relax is very important - more important, maybe, than the underlying cost of the travel, since I suspect most have their basic travel costs picked up by their employers.

Infrequent travelers may be able to endure cattle car conditions, pay-as-you-eat pretzels, all that, because it's only once in awhile. Folks who spend a big chunk of their working lives in the air understandably want to avoid the center seat. For them it's not free trips, but better trips.

Judy, I am with you on the FF/cash rebate programs. I don't travel for business, and I don't know how long it will take for me to get enough miles for free travel. Cash back is a bird in hand. FF miles which I may or may not use (black-out dates, inconvenient times and flights, have to reserve too far in advance, etc) are 2 birds in the bushes.

The main benefit to using a credit card that gives you FF miles as opposed to a cash-back card is that it may allow you to "top-off" orphan miles you may have sitting in an airline account waiting expiration. For example, my husband took a flight to Mexico on Continental a year ago and earned around 4000 miles. Since we rarely fly Continental, it would take ages for him to accrue the 25,000 miles necessary for a free trip. Instead, we simply transfered 21,000 miles from our American Express account to Continental, in essence "topping off" his account and giving him a free ticket.

Personally, I'm not a coupon/points chaser either. It has always ended up being a bigger hassle than it's worth. We have a Visa that accrues points that can be put toward car rentals, one or two hotel chains, and flights. Everytime I've tried to redeem them it's been a pain, AND they've recently begun to expire (after five years). Oh we were pissed when that happened.

I got one flight from LAX to San Jose, CA a while back and I choked a night at the Wyndham Bel Age in Hollywood out of them, both for what seems like a lot of points. I have never been able to rent a car, usually because "that coupon isn't available right now ma'am". The Wyndham involved a coupon too and no one there seemed sure what it was or how to redeem it (I double checked that they'd know what I was talking about before I forked over my points).

With these points and other programs in the past it's just always seemed like I was one hoop short of getting the dangling carrot. Coupons, etc have just always let me down. Someone just gave my boyfriend one of those Entertainment books and already he's talking about using it for a hotel stay; I'm going to try very hard to just let him worry about it.

The only program that's ever worked well for me is Southwest's program. It's FANTASTIC. It's extremely easy to use, there's only a small handful of blackout dates each year, they're transferable for no cost, and as long as there's a seat available on any flight, anywhere, it's yours (no rationing off award seats). They recently changed the points system, but last year if you bought four roundrips online (16 points) you'd get one free. Now they only give three points for a roundtrip, which is a little irritating because five flights only gets you 15 points; you'd need a portion of a sixth flight to get the sixteenth point. We did fly to Florida from California for free though last year (all for a bunch of cheap little BUR-SJC flights) and let me tell you, I was ELATED after a lifetime of getting screwed by coupons. I love Southwest for this, deeply and truly.

sigh,
roxy

Thanks everyone for your insights. I wanted to check this post earlier but was in the process of moving this weekend and unable to.

AA your examples, while excellent, are again about a business traveler, which was what my question was about. If you don't fly that much is it really worth the hassle?

<b>DeborahB</b>

I agreed with Judy24. In your case you would be better off getting a cash-back card. Get the cash and buy the ticket that best suits you when you want to fly from whatever airline. It works better in situations like yours.