Credit Card/ Mileage Rewards

[Cacia]

Man...

I'm sick.

We talked about this before...Howarde and others had some good advise on Starwood. I have been to Flyertalk (fdog gave me the link) and read pages of information by some very admirable people who have made an efficient science of this game of leveraging your consumer power into free travel.

I have come up with these generalities

1)if you charge less than 1000/month...get a cash back card.

btw...none of this applies to carrying balances situations

2) more than 1000..get a mileage card, get at least 1 mile per dollar, check the conversion.

3) Cards like Citibank..... :11: ...this one is killing me, can be "churned": take the 20, 000 K miles to RE-sign-up annually, with the free first year. For a couple, this can be huge.

Okay...I have had this card for 15 years...annual fee is like 85 dollars times 15, PLUS the 20K miles times 15, I have snoozed on. (I have liked them for the customer service on "issues")

4) I JUST took the USAA card (Mastercard Unlimited Rewards, I think it is called)
which...hahaha...get this: automatically credits your account, yes, your credit card account 150 dollars for every 15,000 miles you have earned when you buy the ticket on the card.

NO BEING ON HOLD AND TRANSFERRING BS!!! ...goodby platinum Am X and all your two for ones, and upgrades that are not useable. Your shiny grey card is sexy, but not THAT sexy.

5) Contesting charges is important to me, since I hold companies to their end of the bargain when I can. Citibank is excellent, Am X is very good, Capitol One, I thought was poor, free but poor.
I value a person and short hold times, simple things like that.

USAA promises to back you up on these issues, I think they will based on how my interactions have gone.

If you love this stuff and believe it CAN pay something to be at home minding your business, check out Flyertalk forum. Whew..travelers on steroids. Some of those cats are raking in some major bank by knowing the game...but some of it is too complicated for my life and IQ.

Still, skimming the fruits of their labor is worth your time.

Oh...another one they seem to have a consensus on is that deals on air fares are easier to find than a hotel when you need one, where you need it...so they seem to think hotel points are more valuable dollar for dollar than airline miles. Business travelers can use that, probably already know this, I wasn't aware.

There are people out there that actually know the seat configs on every piece of equipment in the air.

For the Ohana, Hawaiian Airlines probably has the sweetest deal if you go to LA or OC and back a lot. It is the easiest to get first class online upgrade 24 hrs prior----oh, to Lost Wages as well, we know Hawaiians love their Vegas.

 

[docmartin]

it's not clear to me why <$1000 get cash back and >$1000 go for miles. I just opted for a cash back card. redeeming the miles has been a pain in the behind with the cards I own(ed) before and i find that the cash back cards get me about the money i'd need to just buy the ticket without having to jump through all kinds of hoops. also, when i earn a single buck in cash i can redeem it. however, if i got e.g. 20,000 miles they do nothing for me - too little for a ticket. you always tend to have some useless "overhang" with miles. that is less of an issue if you can redeem the miles for other rewards besides airline tickets that require fewer points.
finally, another point i came across and that became a deal breaker for me on a number of cards (including all the mastercards i looked at) is the fee on foreign transactions. i travel a lot and mostly to countries with other currencies. i refuse to pay a 3% fee on foreign currency transactions which appears to be common for many reward cards. that is just a total rip-off. I found one where i pay 0%.

 

[mike_s]

I've got to agree with DocMartin. The redeeming of miles is a pain, while cash always works

I've always had trouble redeeming miles to any place that was halfway exciting to to go. (vacation destinations). It's hardly worth it. Most of the time you can't get the 25,000 mile seats to domestic locations and have to pay double miles to get a seat. to the caribbean, that can run some serious miles for several people.

I flew last week on miles and had to pay double miles for example. It's just not worth it now days.

With the cash back program, you don't have to pay the stupid Delta rewards fee for the credit card and you get real cash back. In reality, I got back more cash that what the tickets I redeamed would have cost, so in my opinion, that's the way to go instead of having a bunch of miles you can't always use or that expire.

 

[Cacia]

it's not clear to me why <$1000 get cash back and >$1000 go for miles.

Because, as far as I know, no one is giving 1-1.25 dollars for each dollar you spend.

Cash back is usually capped around 300/ year. Capping it puts the brakes on how good it is for me. I get more mileage from the miles, you'd say
Which card are you all using, perhaps I am in the dark. USAA is, in fact doing something very close, no cap, no black-outs 1:1, but most people cannot get USAA.

I put all my living expenses....even kid's tuition through a card. even vehicles I would do taxes too and then pay that off, but I ran the numbers and the service fee makes it a poor option. Normally, the merchant is paying the service fee.
Uncle Sam opted out, so it sounds like a good deal, but is not.

After I read flyertalk, I understood why 20% of those flyers look so smug.

 

[scubawife]

The two cards I've been very happy with are my Continental Visa and Amex Hilton. They are pretty much the only two I use. I charge everything from groceries to $$$ business expenses and pay the balance off monthly. Both are platinum cards and at least one of them usually has a double or triple miles offer for specific uses in any given month. At worst with the CO Visa it's a 1 mile for every dollar charged. Amex Hilton is a min of 2 points per dollar. No tricks redeeming the miles either. They go straight into my CO Onepass and Hilton HHonors accounts.

I also have a UA Visa but don't use it as much these days. We flew free to Hawaii two years ago with a business upgrade on the long LA-NYC legs with the miles from that card. And a few years back we used it for Air NZ upgrades to Australia.

We live under an hour from a CO hub. For dive trips we are almost always able to get a reasonable airfare and use miles to upgrade. We're able to upgrade when we book so we know we're going First or Business. There's no waiting until 24hrs prior or anything like that. Flying this way we still earn miles and segments for the flight too. I have never used Hilton points for dive trip travel, but I do use them for other trips. Because of the Platinum card an the number of points I earn annually, I've gotten to Platinum on the HHonors program too. (They don't seem to care that my miles are earned with Amex not stays, or that my annual stays needed to keep the level are on points.)

Alot of the cards are watered down. I also see new cardholders not getting the same deals I've got with my cards that I've had since the credit card for miles was relatively new. I do think mileage/points cards are worthwhile if you choose wisely and stick to only a couple of them so you earn enough miles to use.

 

[Cacia]

Amex Hilton.

yes, the "pros" were loving that card.
CO..you can fly non-stop from Newark to Guam. well, refueling in Hawaii and the aircraft is the International types so there is more room, even in coach.

(They don't seem to care that my miles are earned with Amex not stays, or that my annual stays needed to keep the level are on points.)

...that is what has thrown me on that card, it seems to be simpler than I thought. If you are a "bigger spender" than a stayer or a flyer...thats leverage you can use.

Alot of the cards are watered down.

Am X not AS good as it was...I'm finding.

origination fee for transactions another good thing to look at!
I use my ATM..not positive what I pay with that to be honest. I'm always a little leary of any non-mainstream uses of a CC...like cash withdrawals, etc. *They* prey on you when you do that. So...which card has no transaction origination fee?

I THINK you get a better exchange rate with a CC, than with a foreign merchant or a money changer, don't you?

 

[docmartin]

Because, as far as I know, no one is giving 1-1.25 dollars for each dollar you spend.

Cash back is usually capped around 300/ year. Capping it puts the brakes on how good it is for me. I get more mileage from the miles, you'd say
Which card are you all using, perhaps I am in the dark. USAA is, in fact doing something very close, no cap, no black-outs 1:1, but most people cannot get USAA.

I put all my living expenses....even kid's tuition through a card. even vehicles I would do taxes too and then pay that off, but I ran the numbers and the service fee makes it a poor option. Normally, the merchant is paying the service fee.
Uncle Sam opted out, so it sounds like a good deal, but is not.

After I read flyertalk, I understood why 20% of those flyers look so smug.

i get 1.25% cash back, no cap. if i spend $25,000 i get $312, you get 25,000 miles. $312 gets me most domestic tickets and some international ones (e.g. Mexico). if you need double miles you need to spend $50,000 which gets me $624. usually miles cards that have no black-out dates will only get you a cheap ticket for 25,000 miles e.g. 25,000 miles entitle you to a ticket worth up to $200, tickets up to $500 are 60,000 miles etc. And then there is that 3% fee on foreign currency transactions. let's say you pay the equivalent of $2,000 during your vacation - that's another $60 you paid the credit card company.

 

[scubawife]

e.g. 25,000 miles entitle you to a ticket worth up to $200, tickets up to $500 are 60,000 miles etc. And then there is that 3% fee on foreign currency transactions. let's say you pay the equivalent of $2,000 during your vacation - that's another $60 you paid the credit card company.

What airline are you finding that breakdown with - cost vs miles, or is that the deal from a card that covers multiple programs?

When I book reward travel with Continental using OnePass miles, there's a set number of miles for each type of flight (domestic coach, international coach, etc.) They allot a specific number of seats for reward travel and upgrade rewards on each flight. The amount of miles needed isn't determined by the cost of the fares they have available on the flight at the time of booking.

 

[del_mo]

Let's see, I use my Discover for what ever the monthly promotions are (5% "rebate" that actually coverts to 6% or more when you cash in on their goodies), my Chase for supermarkets, restaurants and gas (3% cash rebate), and Citi for everything else (1% towards airlines without ANY restrictions that I have found). Used to use the GM card (5% up to $500 per year) but I can't find a GM product that suits me anymore.

I'll also sign up for cards that give me mileage (United, USAir, etc) and cancel after 6 months. I thinks I'm a bit over-the-top on this game! Not sure what this is doing to my credit rating, if anything.

 

[konasdad]

You also need to watch what airline the miles are for. We have an Amex card that gives Delta miles. These are mostly useless when it comes time to get a flight. The only way we've been able to get tickets to go where we want is to use the options where you use twice as many miles. This means that the miles on Delta are worth 1/2 what you would think. United miles seem to work much better for us going in and out of LA.

-Mark-