Good Credit Card to earn frequent flyer miles

[talentdeficit]

AMEX is still pretty useless outside north america, but i don't understand why you need to only have one card. just keep your current card and get the AMEX.

[Cubswin]

What airports are close to you? Where are you saving miles to fly to?

I currently have the Chase United card and they gave me 20k bonus miles and waived the annual fee for the first year. Before the year comes around I will either cancel the card or convert the card into a non-fee Chase card. With United, after a short time period, you can reapply for the card and get the bonus miles again. The really cool thing about United is they only charge $5 to book a rewards flight.

I just received an offer from AA for 20k miles and no annual fee for the first year and will apply for this card soon. It's a pretty good deal except AA makes you pay tax on your rewards flights.

Several pieces of advice:

*Avoid cards with an annual fee. Most of the time you can find a card with a good milage bonus and the first years fee waived. Just cancel before your year comes up.

*Sign up for rewards cards when they are running larger milage bonuses. Shop around and do your research.

*Pick an airline that has lots of flights into your local airport or an airline you fly often.

*Try to maximize the use of miles. For example, on NWA, you can fly to Alaska for 25k miles from the continental US (I think). A short regional flight is the same amount of miles. As a rule of thumb, I only book rewards flights when I get a value of at least 1 cent per mile.

*Before applying for a bunch of cards, or even a single card, make sure you understand how your actions might affect your FICO. This is especially important if you want to buy a home in the near future.

*Pick an airline that offers a good milage value to a destination you would like to travel.

*If you are a responsible spender and pay off your card each month, use your card for everything. The miles add up quick. At work, when a group of us go out for lunch I always try to put the entire bill on my card and collect yuppie food stamps (aka $20 bills) from everyone. They all know what im doing but dont seem to mind. Plus it makes settling up the check much easier.

[Cubswin]

A whole lot of credit card advice

[JuntMonkey]

www.mymoneyblog.com is another excellent site for credit card tips and lots of other personal finance stuff.

[Maulik]

growlers,

There's a Costco AMEX card that earns 5% back on all purchases there & 1% elsewhere.

[growlers]

[ QUOTE ]
growlers,

There's a Costco AMEX card that earns 5% back on all purchases there & 1% elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm...Never really picked up the sheet at the desk on that. I'll have to look into that - I'm sick of always paying in cash there anyway.
Thanks.

[MikeSmith]

after all your posts looks like im going with AMEX blue cash cash back, sounds like Flyer miles have alot of restrictions and I ll just pool the cashback towards a plane ticket or whatever.