cinder465

Can someone who is credit card saavy please help?! I want to get a card for my mom, who is 70. I want the very best no fee card that will reward her when she buys. I don't have a clue where to start. She wants a "travel card" but I don't think she spends enough to rack up miles. She wants to travel to see family. She is on limited income but has alot of money from life insurance from my dad who passed away. Any ideas? She currently has a card that just charged her a $56 annual fee...HELP???

Suzie

Does she belong to AARP? If so they have 1% cash back and no annual fee credit card from Chase.

http://www.firstusa.com/cgi-bin/webc...cont&mkid=6L4L

DebitNM

What would be her "home" airport as that will dictate what airline she wants the miles to accrue.

I am not 100% sure, but I think most credit cards that give miles have an annual fee.
To find the best kind of card for her and to get what she wants:

http://aol1.bankrate.com/aol/rate/br...h_advanced.asp

Hope this helps..
Debi

CAPH52

Capital One gives miles without an annual fee. But I have no idea how they compare to other cards in terms of racking up miles.

DebitNM

I think Capital One card is different. It doesn't give "miles". You get points for spending and the points are used to "buy" tickets. So many points needed for a ticket that cost $300 etc.

I won't swear to this, but I think it is how Capital One works.
Debi

DebitNM

Here is the info on the No Hassle Card from Capital One:

http://tinyurl.com/2cfptn

A_Traveller

There are a number of "airline affinity" cards that your mother can use to rack of FF miles. Which one you choose deends on which airline she will use. For instance, miles accumulated on Citibanks American Advantage card can only be redeemed for American Airline flights. Most of these will have an annual fee ranging from around $50 to $85. On the other hand, as previously explaned, ttravel cards like the Capital One card let you accumulate points that can be used to purchase tickets on just about any airline. Your mother should know that it takes anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 "miles" or "points" to earn enough to get an award ticket. So if she doesn't do very much spending it could take quite awhile for her to "earn" enough miles or points to get a ticket. Also, if you use "miles" to get an award ticket it is not always easy to get a seat on specific flights. Most airlines only offer a limited number of "award Seats" on any given flight and they often go very quickly - many people book those seats as much as 3330 days in advance.

Do a search on the airline forum and you'll find numerous posts about airline affinity credit cards and travel credit cards as well as how best to claim award seats. You can also do a search on flyertalk.com. There's tons of information there.

1JAR

I have a similiar situation American Ecpres Card through Costco the best option.

1JAR

Excuse me American Express. If not wanting to go thru Costco tehn jsut sign up thru American Express.

luv2plan

look at chase.com they have a wide variety of cards: hotel, disney, starbucks, barnes & noble...

most of these are zero fee.

or get discover and just get money back!

utahtea

I see American Express has been mentioned...and I love the rewards I get from my American Express Business Card thought Costco.... but be careful..American Express it is NOT accepted EVERYWHERE!

Utahtea

CAPH52

"or get discover and just get money back!"

"American Express it is NOT accepted EVERYWHERE!"

Which, of course, is the problem with Discover.

However, a nice feature of Discover that, as far as I know, you don't get with any other card, is that you can get cash back (up to a limit of $50 or $60) with a purchase at certain grocery chains and WalMart. And it's not charged as a cash advance, so you don't pay interest on it if you pay it off on the first bill.

Also, they often run promos wherein they give 5% cash back on certain types of purchases. And they give free insurance on airline ticket purchases. Or at least they did when I purchased mine and my daughter's for Ireland. I put hers on my card because, at that time, they were giving 5% back on airline tickets.

1JAR

American Express is not accepted everywhere however the poster stated her parent wanted a "travel card" to "rack up miles"

Amex is accepted for all airlines/hotels and rental cars and most gas stations in the US.

AMEx offers car insurance on rentals up to large SUVs and they will send you the written description of their coverage..

Another bonus is that AMEX is accepted at most grocery stores...another big spending area for the elderly..and in some cases you can "link" the Amex card to a grocery store and get double points...IE Safeway/Vons.

AMEX also has a pretty well thought of mileage redemtion Airline ticket program (Delta, Continental, Air Canada, Hawaiian and their code sahre partners) without restricting you to a single airline travel card.

Be sure to have your parent sign up for teh most frquent airlines use FF programs esp teh ones mentioned above and you can transfer AMEX directly into the Airline FF program for a "free ticket"

deckema

Get a Citi Professional Card. You get 3 points for every dollar you spend at gas stations, Grocery Stores, Pharmacy, and 1 point for everything else. So for example, if you spent $3,000 on gas, grocery's, pharmacy, that's 9000 points. You spend another $11,000 per year on everything else, thats a total of 20,000 pts. From this, you can't get cash, but you can buy stuff, or what I do, get gas cards. With 20,000 points you get 1% of that or $200 worth of free gas. You get this in $50 gas cards at like Mobile, etc. Plus their montly statements are awesome, you see exactly what was spent on entertainment, medical, vehicle expenses, etc. Oh yea, it's also no yearly fee's. I don't know their rates, as I always make my payments on time and to the full amount. Just my opinion.....

deckema

Well, to my surprise it's not quite as good, darn I should have redeemed by points earlier. There are still items, reward cards that off 1% of what you have but not in gas anymore. You need 6000 points now for a $50 gas card. Still, the products you can get, or restarant gift cards which can be as much as 1% back, like 10,000 points gives you $100 gift cards are still out there. I still don't know if this can be beat. American Express can come close but you need to spend more to get to their better give backs, and like Utahtea mentioned, their not accepted everywhere. Plus their statements are not as nice.

trippinkpj

As much as I like my Discover Card, I would suggest Visa or Mastercard as you can use them anywhere. Suzie's AARP visa link is a good idea.

flaubert

To take an entirely different tack:

You say she has limited income, and doesn't spend much. Why get a credit card at all? She should use a debit card. At 70, why does she want to risk taking on debt that she doesn't need? It is not likely that she will use the card enough to get enough miles to make a significant difference. It is more likely that she will accrue a large balance, miss a payment by mistake or due to illness, and then have a lot of compounded interest, fees, and increased rates. I vote no credit card.

cinder465

I just now have had a chance to review everyone's response to my post. Thank you all so much!!! I will explore the suggested options which have helped and confused me equally. You guys are all great and your opinions mean alot!