Best CC for travel rewards?

I'm mostly referring to economy class domestic travel (upgrades are usually a ripoff IMO, flying is gonna suck and be boring either way, lol)

For this type of travel I've heard its better to go with CC cards instead of the airline cards. Wanna start building miles then in like 5 years take a badass trip or something...

do you fly every now and then?

building up miles just based on purchases alone can take a very long time

if you are in BOS probably your best bet would be to fly AA in which case the card for you is the AAdvantage by Citi.

the capital one is not a good deal because you can only put miles there via purchases

also read the sections on how to get miles when you buy stuff online, rent cars, buy flowers etc etc etc

another thing to keep in mind is that when you finally use your miles you will have to be flexible with the dates

a good site to read about all this stuff is flyertalk.com

GL

wolfie_cr said:

do you fly every now and then?

building up miles just based on purchases alone can take a very long time

if you are in BOS probably your best bet would be to fly AA in which case the card for you is the AAdvantage by Citi.

the capital one is not a good deal because you can only put miles there via purchases

also read the sections on how to get miles when you buy stuff online, rent cars, buy flowers etc etc etc

another thing to keep in mind is that when you finally use your miles you will have to be flexible with the dates

a good site to read about all this stuff is flyertalk.com

GL

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As he stated flyertalk.com. Sign up for a Citi AA card like stated above (again) and get 75,000 miles after spending $1500 in 6 months. Or get an additional AMEX card and get another 75,000 miles after spending the same. Details on the site.

150,000 miles without much work at all is 6 round trips in the US.

Wow not to sound like a total rube but damn that site is complicated.

I didn't know you needed a PhD to find the optimal way to accumulate points. In all seriousness though I think I am gonna go with the Chase Saphire card. Pretty good for accumulating miles and only like $70 a year. Don't wanna get an airport card cause then your just confined to using that 1 airline company. With a basic CC you can use any airline and also I read its better if you just want economy seating rather than upgrades. Economy is fine for me for a domestic flight.

I have a similar question as I will be doing a decent amount of flying between Europe and the US in the next couple of years. I'll check out flyertalk.com to see.

PatsFan1283 said:

Wow not to sound like a total rube but damn that site is complicated.

I didn't know you needed a PhD to find the optimal way to accumulate points. In all seriousness though I think I am gonna go with the Chase Saphire card. Pretty good for accumulating miles and only like $70 a year. Don't wanna get an airport card cause then your just confined to using that 1 airline company. With a basic CC you can use any airline and also I read its better if you just want economy seating rather than upgrades. Economy is fine for me for a domestic flight.

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you dont need a PhD to accumulate miles but just wait until you have to redeem them

About the '1 airline' , it doesnt quite work that way , for example , if I have continental miles I can use them in a lot of airlines (for international trips)

Reality is, that if you are just going to do domestic, its easier to just pay, you go when you want, the way you want and thats it

If you are looking that far into the future (5 years) , just put aside 25 bucks /month, 5 years into the future your miles are going to be seriously devaluated

or get a cash back card and use the cash for the future value of the ticket

Kettch said:

I have a similar question as I will be doing a decent amount of flying between Europe and the US in the next couple of years. I'll check out flyertalk.com to see.

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ummm, well BOS is not that easy because AA doesnt have a lot of routes to Europe (compared to United/Continental or Delta), unless we are talking about London or Paris you will most likely be forced to connect either in NYC or in the Europe side

key here is to concentrate your points in your "alliance" , I fly Continental so if I am travelling to Europe I would try to use just "star alliance " airlines to get points for all my trips

GL

Pats

I thought the same thing the first time I read through the flyertalk forum about a year ago. But like anything (hell Matchbook seems like the rubix cube at first) but once you figure it out, it's a great place to be! The Citi AA cards are fantastic again look at getting the bonus I mentioned. Not to muddy the waters even more but they have a large network of partners so even if they don't fly directly to a place you want to go overseas you can fly on a partner for roughly the same amount of miles.

My wife and I have 325,000 miles banked and didn't have to do much at all to get them (other than charge $6,000 total on 4 credit cards). That's roughly $8450 in round trip flights if you maximize it right (or depending on where you want to go, even more possibly). Worth taking the time to apply for credit cards and reading the forum in my opinion

wolfie_cr said:

ummm, well BOS is not that easy because AA doesnt have a lot of routes to Europe (compared to United/Continental or Delta), unless we are talking about London or Paris you will most likely be forced to connect either in NYC or in the Europe side

key here is to concentrate your points in your "alliance" , I fly Continental so if I am travelling to Europe I would try to use just "star alliance " airlines to get points for all my trips

GL

Click to expand...

I will be going to grad school in Paris, so AA isn't bad for me on that. I just think that their coach seating generally sucks (compared to something like Virgin, JetBlue or even Jet Airways or Qatar). However, for free, I will be able to suck it up.

Thanks A Lot for the tip on Alliance though. I will have to pay attention to that as I research.

I've been active on flyertalk (baccarat0809) for longer than I've been active here, though I've got more posts here than there (go figure).

Your best bet by far is an American Express card and going with their rewards. What ends up happening is that multiple times during the year AMEX will have a special that if you transfer miles to XYZ airline you get a 20%, 30% or heck even a 50% bonus. You can not only use that bonus for RDM (redeemable miles), but in some instances you'll get MQM (or EQM, depending on the airline) which are the "status miles", or butt in seat miles, that you earn by flying the airline. AMEX had a special at the end of last year that if you transfered 50,000 Rewards points or more to Delta, not only did you get an extra 50% bonus RDM you also got 25,000 MQM, which is enough for Silver Status.

With Silver Status you no longer have to pay to check bags, get much better seating (exit rows) and you even qualify for free upgrades on a space available basis.

Just this last Friday I passed the 1 Million Mile mark at Delta (took me 13 years to do it), which basically means I've flown Delta for over 1 MILLION miles ... while I'm Diamond status now, the 1 Million Miles gives me lifetime Silver status should I stop flying. The "perks" of status can be great. Although I've only purchased coach class tickets, I've flown in First Class for probably 925,000 of those miles. Flying upfront makes the world of difference when you spend as much time in the air as I do.

Anyway, PM me if you have any questions and I'll try to walk you through it. Happy Flying.

hey bacy, I PMd you so just hit me up when ya get a chance.