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#1
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credit card awards points
Wondering what people know about the different credit card companys that
offer points that are good for travel on any airline. I only know of CapitolOne MC/VISA but are there others out there beetter? I currently have a Delta AMEX that I use for most purchases and have a MBNA VISA I use to use when it was a carnival cruise card (awarded well) but they have since ended that and now it is good for any cruise line but you would have to spend 20+g's a year to get any points based on there % system. I am thinking about dumping it for a new one that will be a bit more usefull maybe. % rates or no big deal to me since I pay my balance monthly. Thanks for your input. |
#2
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credit card awards points
The issue with at least one of the "fly any airline" cards is that you must
book through their travel agent, and instead of getting a guaranteed free flight with "x" points, you get a credit of up to "x" dollars towards the ticket. If the ticket is within "x" then you're fine, but in our case, this is how it worked out- 40,000 points (dollars)= "Free" International ticket, up to $800. Least-expensive flight bookable through WellsMiles- $1461. Total cost of "Free" ticket- $661 British Airways is offering SFO-CDG on those days for about $1000, so your 40,000 points (dollars spent on that credit card) are actually worth just $340 in this case. And that's a best-case scenario! Since the non-discounted fare is what you're going to be looking at from their travel agent, almost anytime of the year, you could be much worse off if your travel is off-season. Right now it's easy to get sub-$500 tickets, so the WellsMilesReward ticket (Wells Fargo credit card) could actually *cost* you money ($1461-800=$661 for your "Free" ticket vs $500 if you buy one outright). The advantage they push on the "any airlines" credit cards is that there are no blackout dates, but if you use enough standard air miles, you can avoid those as well. With United, it costs 50,000 points (dollars spent) for a "saver" coach seat, round-trip, to Europe. The problem is that there are very limited seats available under the "saver" schedule. But at 80,000 points, you can get any available coach seat on any United plane (no restrictions). Pros & Cons? For United's credit card, at 80,000 points for a coach seat, you're using up quite a few miles! But if you're flying at less-popular times, you might get away with the 50,000 mile option. For the "any airline" credit card (or at least WellsMilesRewards), you're spending 40,000 points but may still be $600 away from a free ticket. And, if you're planning to travel with anyone else, you have to book an expensive additional ticket through them as well. Could be that other credit card programs are better than WellsMilesRewards; the specific thing I'd look for is how the flights are booked. If they only allow booking of full-fare flights through their own travel agency, it may not be the deal it seems. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com "Brett" wrote in message ink.net... Wondering what people know about the different credit card companys that offer points that are good for travel on any airline. I only know of CapitolOne MC/VISA but are there others out there beetter? I currently have a Delta AMEX that I use for most purchases and have a MBNA VISA I use to use when it was a carnival cruise card (awarded well) but they have since ended that and now it is good for any cruise line but you would have to spend 20+g's a year to get any points based on there % system. I am thinking about dumping it for a new one that will be a bit more usefull maybe. % rates or no big deal to me since I pay my balance monthly. Thanks for your input. |
#3
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credit card awards points
Don't sign up for MBNA "Worldpoints". They can, & do, change the deal at
their pleasure WITHOUT grandfathering in those members who started accruing mileage under more favorable rules. So i cashed in & dropped them, because of such a change. The new rules work, i guess, for people who spend like mad. ____________________________________ Den Mark Wichar "First justice, then peace." "Cogito, ergo VIRIDIS sum!" "The greatest danger to the U.S.A. is the republican party." ____________________________________ |
#4
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credit card awards points
I am super happy with my Orbitz card from Juniper. If you spend $20,000 you
get a free ticket worth up to $400 (up to a 2% kickback). But I haven't used it that way, because it also gives $100 off any ticket you buy on Orbitz for every $7500 you spend (a 1.3% kickback), and using it for this has been so easy and handy that I've just been knocking $100 off the occasional Orbitz ticket. What's been nice is how exceptionally easy it is to apply to a ticket. You go to Orbitz, pull up an itinerary that looks good (like the MKE-MCO I'm flying next week that was $188 on YX) and then before purchasing Orbitz asks you if you would like to apply 'points' to the ticket. And if you have more than 7500 points ($ spent) you just click a box, and VOILA, the ticket is only $88 instead of $188. A LOT easier than calling an agency and trying to line up a ticket, and trying to manage the reservation while balancing the agencies rules versus the airline's rules. I suppose if I waited till I had 20,000 points I might save by getting a ticket that costs more than $300 gratis, but a bird in the hand... |
#5
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credit card awards points
I am super happy with my Orbitz card from Juniper...
I have to add that I just cashed in my points total from my MBNA EliteRewards card as well. It had taken me a goodly amount of time to accumulate the 30,000 'points' (equivalent to $30,000 spent) good for a domestic airline ticket in the 48 states. I certainly wasn't going to use it on a $188 round-trip. But with a trip coming up where I wanted to fly NW for mileage purposes (and the NW fare was pricing at $533), and with AA having almost identical flights for $241, I called up the redemption center. She asked for flight dates and times, put me on hold for 4 minutes, then came back and said, "We have the ideal flights for you--on American airlines!" I said, "But don't you have a flight that maybe connects through Detroit and arrives at 1:19 instead of 1:40, like Northwest?" She checked it out and said there was such a flight available. Then she offered a NW return that happened (I had already checked) to be $150 cheaper than the return I really wanted, and took an extra 2 1/2 hours, and I asked, "But isn't there a connection that leaves even later--at 4:55--and gets in two hours earlier?" She said there was, and I got the flights that would have cost $533 instead of the cheaper $361 NW connection, or the cheapest $241 AA flights. So there is SOME advantage to using a card that accrues points that can be applied to any round-trip. The 'kickback' in this case was 1.7%, but it was a rare case and a contorted booking arrangement that made it possible--and if I REALLY wanted to save bucks I could have applied Orbitz points to the AA itinerary and gotten it for $141.00 (!!!). I don't think I'll try to get up to 30,000 again on the MBNA card. |
#6
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credit card awards points
In article . net,
"Brett" wrote: Wondering what people know about the different credit card companys that offer points that are good for travel on any airline. Check http://www.bankrate.com which is a wonderful resource for shopping for credit cards. |
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