f64club

Is there such a thing? All of the credit cards I've checked into that accrue air miles all have annual fees.

LoveItaly

What airline do you want to accumulate ff miles with?

f64club

Any major airline will do.

LoveItaly

Hi, well Northwest has a ffcard. If you can accept 50% ff miles compared to 100% ff miles there is no annual fee.

In case I am not clear. If you charge $1,000.00 on the credit card you receive 500 frequent flyer miles. There is no annual fee for the credit card. Their partners are Continental, Delta etc.

Go to www.nwa.com for more information.
Or call 1-800-692-8472.

I refuse to pay an annual fee for a credit card so understand your question.
Best wishes.

Andrew

I have the NW Visa card LoveItaly mentions (1 mile for every $2) with no annual fee. I also have a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express that will cost $30/year (just got it, and there was no annual fee first year). The Starwood card accumulates points that you can transfer to most major airlines' Frequent Flyer programs 1:1 (except United - you get a lousy 2:1 conversion ratio). Also, Starwood gives you 5,000 bonus points when you convert 20,000 points at once, so if you need 25,000 miles for a ticket, 20,000 Starwood points will do, or so I understand. I've had this card only a short time and haven't tried to convert points to miles yet.

I use the Starwood card for everything except in cases where Amex is not accepted (about 90% of places in the US seem to take Amex). In those cases, I use the NWA Visa.

Whether it's worth paying an annual fee for a mileage card depends on how much you spend on it. Relatives of mine have a business and charge all expenses to their AA card, then they fly first class on AA with all the miles. So the $60/year annual fee or whatever they pay is well worth it. If you charge only $5,000/year on a card, the $60 fee wouldn't be worth it - and the NWA no-fee 1:2 card is probably a better bet.

Andrew

gail

We have 3 major credit cards - one is USAirways Visa and others are just regular cards. We got other 2 to waive fees with a phone call. USAirways card would not, but we did get them to not charge us an increase last time fee went up. (I had thought that they only waived fee if you did not pay off charges each month - but we do, so that is not it). We searched but were unable to find airline card that gave us one mile per dollar that did not charge fee (except perhaps for intro period)

f64club

Just checked nwa.com. Couldn't find no fee card. Only one I found was world perks signature card which had a $90 fee. Anyone know of any other cards that might not have annual fee?
We rarely fly but may will be doing more now that first granddaughter has arrived.
Thanks

jlm_mi

I don't understand the draw of the 1:2 NWA card! There are so many cards out there that, for no annual fee, will give you at least 1% cash back, many between 2 and 5% on certain purchases (like groceries, gas, restaurants, etc.).

So, for every $50,000 dollars you spend on the NWA card you'd earn enough for a free trip (if you can get the 25,000 mile ticket for the route you want - often you have to pay more miles than that). Or you could get a minimum of $500 back with the cash back cards. Most domestic tickets can be bought for less than that!

There are other sites like this, but check out http://www.bankcardfinder.com/ and find a card that works for you. Take your cash back and put it into a separate "airline ticket" savings account if you can't trust yourself to save it any other way, but it seems like it's definitely a better deal.

The only exception I see is the people as mentioned above who can put a lot of $$ on the card and then use them for first class upgrades. You can get the upgrades for a lot less spending than it would take to get the cash to pay for them. But just for free domestic tickets it doesn't seem like it pays off.

starspinners

The "Capital One Go Miles " VISA card may meet your requirements. Details are at capitalone.com

lolfn

if you don't already have a bank of miles with an airline, the capital one go miles would be a good card. they don't transfer their miles to your frequent flier account. you have to earn enough points with them to trade them in for miles--or a host of other things.

therefore, if you already have 10,000 miles in your american aadvantage account, you can't transfer 15,000 from the capital one card to take a free trip.

cmcfong

Merrill Lynch VISA

Patrick

lolfn has given the main reason I don't like Capital One -- you can't add the miles earned there to actual mileage miles you've earned with an airline or miles you've earned any other way. Your rewards must be based totally on what you've charged.

Also I keep getting Capital One cards "preapproved" but I thought they usually just wave the first year's fee if it is a mileage card, then you have to pay a fee.

pollyvw

I have an MBNA Visa with no fee which earns 'points' that can be used for various things including airfares on any airline. We have used them to fly to Alaska (from Wash DC area) and other places. I figure it has been worth several thousand dollars to me. I'm saving now for a trip to Europe next year.

Mine is made available to me via their affiliation with the National Education Association. I don't know that it is available to all their customers. Worth a try!!

Andrew

I'll never be a customer of Capital One after having dealt with them twice not by choice. Once I was victim of identity theft where someone got a CO card in my name. It took me a year to clear that up, after endless phone calls to different Capitol One departments. The kicker was, the different departments didn't even talk to each other! At one point I was asked by one department if I could share a FAX I'd gotten from another department, because they didn't know how to get in touch with each other.

Another time, a deceased relative had debts with several credit card companies including Capital One, and I got the task of contacting them to let them know the debts would not be paid. Capital One was the only company that still sent the debts to collection more than a year after death. Yeah, how many times do I need to notify you folks of the death??? The other companies never bugged us again.

As for my experiences with airline cards: Citibank refused to waive the fee on my AA card, so I canceled it. The mileage cards are a good deal if you combine them with miles accrued on other flights. It's not that I must get 25,000 miles by charging $50K on my NWA card, it's that I've already got 15,000 miles on my own on NWA so I need to spend only $20K to get a free ticket.

Andrew

jlm_mi

Even so Andrew - You could spend that $20k on another card and have $200+ in cash to put toward a ticket (which will earn you miles) and still have your 15,000 miles in your account.

JoyceL

The American Express Delta Options card has no fee. Because the card is free, only half the number of miles are given compared to the fee Delta card. But even with half the miles, the miles accumulate quickly. I've been using this card for years, and gotten enough miles to take a few free Delta trips.

Keith

.

Register your card (whatever card you have) with rewardsnetwork.com and acumulate miles when you eat at a participating restaurant. There is no fee and your server will not even know you are doing it.

There are about 150 restuarants in the program in my metro area and they give 5-10 miles for every dollar spent (including tax & tip). Several airlines particpate - I get my miles at American Airlines.

The program will get less attractive in July, but right now it is a real deal.

Some restaurants give 20 miles per dollar. I managed to visit two of those places last month.

Keith

E

We recently got an offer for an MBNA/American Express card--a partnership I hadn't heard of before. It was no-fee, and earned miles, but that's about all I can recall about the offer--you may want to check MBNA's website for more info.

suzanne

I have an Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard. No annual fee. If you don't use your miles for free train trips, you can transfer them to Continental. You can also get car rental and hotel discounts (not using miles). It has worked out great for me.

Travelermebe

Before considering fees, I think the most important thing to consider when getting a FF credit card is which airline you will primarily be using, considering where you live and where you generally will be traveling. In my case, it happens to be United, so I have their credit card. I also have an AMEX, which I use for business. It also has a mileage program, which covers other airlines.

You can build up a lot of miles if you use your card to pay for most everything you buy (although you should pay it off every month), and there are a lot of special offers that let you accrue additional miles.

While some would disagree, I almost always use my miles for upgrades, especially for flights overseas. Domestic flights particularly are so cheap that its hardly worth wasting FF miles on an economy class ticket. An additional benefit is that by buying a ticket and using miles to upgrade, you get credit for the miles flown added to your FF account, which allows you to accrue even more miles.