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How to choose a miles credit
card
If you don't want to read
through the detail, and want quick specific
card recommendations, please see our
Editors
Choice page for the best cards of 2010, selected
by our frequent flyer editors who fly
over 75,000 miles per year.
Our mile credit card advice is based on a few basic facts
we've come across in dealing with mileage awards, many of
which are seen in our PurchasePower
calculations:
1) International
first/business class tickets or upgrades of paid tickets give
you the most dollar value for your points. Although
they are among the toughest in terms of availability, many
people will be flexible to take advantage of their
value.
2)
Many hotel awards are very efficient uses of points
and relatively easy to attain and redeem with minimal
spending, especially if you don't want to travel
internationally. This is our most frequent use of points as
they have few availability restrictions -- usually if a room
is available for sale you can buy it with points.
3) Domestic
airline tickets are among the most inefficient uses of your
earned points, and sometimes hard to get unless you
opt for a generic points card that has no capacity
controls.
4) Earning points by
traveling is the most efficient way to build
balances. Card
offers are nice and generous, but really the most productive
way to up your balance is through frequent travel. However,
there are plenty of ways to earn nice rewards as an occasional
traveler by being a frequent spender, and we help you with
that here.
Advice for Occasional travelers:
frequent spenders, not frequent flyers
You don't get a lot of travel in, and have relatively
low existing point balances (not yet enough for a free
ticket), and you want to build up to make parts of your
vacations free
| I may include international travel for my
awards |
I
tend to stick to domestic travel for my award trips
|
Our
PurchasingPower rankings show the most productive point
awards are on international business class tickets or
upgrades of paid coach tickets overseas.
Consider
a traditional airline miles card from
your favorite major carrier
or a card that
transfers to a traditional airline
miles program like the
Starwood American Express
, or American Express
Membership Rewards
.
Traditional airline
miles programs are still the best way to achieve those
awards in first or business class. If you want the
upgraded lifestyle during your air travel, stick to
something that earns in a traditional program, or can
convert its points to a traditional program.
We
particularly like theStarwood American Express
. While it is a hotel card, the points can be
converted to most traditional airline programs one
for one (except United) with no fee. Moreover you are
given a valuable 5,000 point bonus for every 20,000
points you convert to an airline program. In effect, you
get 1.25 miles for every dollar spent.
Our
favorite strategy is to use Starwood points for hotel
stays during domestic travel, and to transfer them to
your home airline program for the big international
business class awards. Take a look at the PurchasePower
ratings and you'll see why.
The Delta
SkyMiles Amex has been
offering a number of ongoing double and triple point
bonuses on all purchases, which would make it more
lucrative than the Starwood card for airline awards.
However, they are promotional in nature and we don't
include them in the ratings.
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You should consider
accruing points in a good hotel program
like Starwood , as
domestic airline awards are realtively inefficient uses
of points, according to our PurchasingPower ratings. Starwood is
the reward program brand for Sheraton, Westin, W,
Four Points, Le Meridien, and St. Regis hotels. If you
spend only a little, some free hotel night rewards from Starwood are
as few as 3-5,000 points.
However, if you
are set on earning points for domestic airline
tickets , good options are the
generic Citibank PremierPass
Elite ,
the no annual fee Discover Miles
card, and the
Starwood American
Express which lets you use your points for boht hotels
and miles on over 20 major airlines.
The Citibank PremierPass
Elite and
Discover Escape have the advantage of letting you book on
any date with no blackouts or capacity
restrictions. You just pay with points based on the
price of the airline tickets or fixed redemption chart.
However, you can't merge these points with existing
airline miles.
The Starwood American
Express has similar
efficiency, but adds the flexibliity to book hotel
awards and merge the points with miles in native airline
programs for upgrades and other rewards.
If
you're using the Starwood Amex, a strategy is to sign up
for a traditional airline miles
card if
it has a large signon bonus to pump up an account
once, then use the purchases on your Starwood account to
top it off. We think a signon bonus of 10,000 miles or
more is worth a typical year's annual fee.
|
Advice for
Frequent travelers: frequent flyers and buyers
You have medium to high existing
point balances (already a free ticket or much more)
and tend to add to them through paid travel
| My points are generally earned in one or
two airline or hotel programs |
My
miles and travel are scattered across several
programs |
You want to
capitalize on your invested points and take advantage of
your focus.
Keep in mind international business
class awards and upgrades are the most efficient use of
your airline balances, and if you're thinking of
traveling abroad, these awards are good goals to
target.
You should take a look at your
home airline's traditional card
. The promotional bonuses
and benefits may help you in ways beyond those seen on
this site.
However, we strongly recommend
the Starwood Preferred Guest American
Express as long as you're not earning
for United or Continental Airlines. It lets you transfer
your points to most airline programs at 1:1, and
includes 5,000 point bonuses that effectively let you
earn points at 1.25 per dollar spent, 25% better than
many traditional airline cards.
Many people use
this as their primary unless their airline has a
lucrative bonus offer in action...as it earns at 1.25:1
for airline miles versus the usual 1:1 of airline cards
without bonuses.
Our favorite strategy is to use
the Starwood points for hotel rewards when
traveling domestically, or save them up for a big
upgrade when going abroad.
Hotel rewards
are as little as 3,000 points (or, $3,000 spent on the
card).
If you spend a lot, you'll reach your big
international airline award faster with the 5,000 point
bonus for every 20,000 points transfered to an airline
program.
However, if you tend to stay at a hotel
chain other than Starwood, you may be better off
focusing points into that program, as most hotel
programs realy kick in for people who earn points
through stays, rather than just through credit card
purchases. Marriott and Priority Club cards are
especially geared to customers who already stay in their
properties, and plan to continue to do
so.
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You're probably also a
very frequent traveler, and heavy spender.
While
you may already have a traditional airline miles card,
you should consider focusing spending on a card like the
Starwood American Express . This
card lets you transfer points to multiple
programs.
Our favorite card is the Starwood American Express as it lets you
transfer points to over 20 top airlines, most of the
time at 1:1 (except Continental and United
Airlines), with a 5,000 point bonus for every
20,000 miles you transfer. The only downside is is
limited on the hotel side to Starwood properties. Not
such a bad thing, given their lack of capacity controls
on awards, and many worldwide
hotels.
However, as you travel frequently, you may
want to pull out your home airline card if they are
offering special bonus offers for purchases.
If
you're purchasing a lot of airline tickets on your own,
and don't have to use the corporate card, also consider
the Citibank PremierPass Elite
. It offers the ability to earn Citi Thank
You Points for both the dollar purchse of a ticket, and
the total miles flown on the ticket. This is on top of
whatever your frequent flyer program offers. | Home
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