Frequent Flyer Miles/Credit Card?

[roseflower]

Which airlines do you stay loyal to for frequent flyer miles? Did you get a credit card with that airlines? What were the deciding factors?

[GilliC]

As long as I have elite status (and a shot at keeping it), I try to stick to Star Alliance. They have the most connections out of my home airport, so it makes the most sense. I don't really care which Star Alliance partner I fly though. And I don't have a mileage credit card, because they rarely offer elite-qualifying miles, and I almost never use my award miles.

When I don't have elite status, I just fly whatever's cheapest. In addition to my Star Alliance account (which happens to be with United), I also have a oneworld account (AA) and a SkyTeam account (Delta) so that I can earn miles on just about any major airline.

[frlcb]

For us it is Delta, based pretty much on where we live. We do have a Delta Amex but really only use that to book flights since we get free checked bags then. We fly to the UK a lot so got the BA card but their miles are notoriously hard, and expensive (in taxes) to use, so we stopped using it. Now we use the Chase Sapphire card, which we can use for multiple airlines/hotels and love it.

[scout8]

We have really worked the AA credit cards through Citi. It has worked for us. We both signed up for cards when they were offering a large bonus. We also have one for our business. If you keep your eye out, they often have promotions offering 50K points.

We flew to Nicaragua last year using points. We just booked business class seats with points to Bangkok for November.

Some of our points have come from actual trips, but most have come from credit cards. We have found the AA points pretty easy to redeem.

[phillyrunner]

We stick with US Air (part of Star Alliance), because PHL is one of their hubs. We also are silver preferred (lowest level of their elite statuses but we still get some perks like free checked bags and upgrades to first class when available). I also have a US Air Mastercard and pretty much use that credit card for everything so we get lots of miles. My husband and I fly a lot (esp back and forth to Minnesota since he is from there and we have lots of family there), and we use award miles for about half of our flights, which saves us a TON of money!

[SJ]

For work, we only fly AA, so that is where my elite status is. I do have frequent flier accounts on all the major airlines.

I used to use the AA citicard, but have since switched to USBank FlexPerks. I prefer the FlexPerks because you still earn miles while flying on reward tickets, which is NOT the case on the airline cards.

[roseflower]

We applied for a United Chase Visa and they are having a 40,000 mile bonus offer. Now I'm wondering if that its what we should have gone with. I am really new to all of this so I find it confusing. Now I know there are cards that allow you to earn with reward miles. Oye. There is so much I don't know.

[Susie]

[quote author=frlcb board=trav thread=25418 post=387281 time=1340883229Now we use the Chase Sapphire card, which we can use for multiple airlines/hotels and love it. [/quote]
We have one too, and I like it. I just bought a plane ticket to Iceland using rewards points.

I have frequent flier accounts with Delta/Sky Team, United/Star Alliance, and Southwest, but I don't go the credit card route because I'm not loyal to any of them particularly. My home airport is tiny - I fly Southwest from it, but if I'm going anywhere major, I might fly out of PHL, EWR, BOS, JFK, LGA... and that often means different airlines.

[GilliC]

Jun 28, 2012 8:06:24 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

Jun 28, 2012 5:20:52 GMT -5 GilliC said:

and I almost never use my award miles.

I'm being nosy, but why do you never use your award miles?

Mostly because just paying for a discount economy flight ends up seeming like a better deal. For example, to fly to the US it would be 110,000 miles plus $150 in taxes/fees versus $800 for a regular ticket. It just doesn't seem worth it. And since the flights from here to the US are almost always fully-booked, it can be very hard to book "saver" award travel. It usually means booking way in advance and adding one or two more connections to an already long trip.

I've considered booking an award ticket to Brazil, but it's almost double the number of miles for a US trip, even though the distance isn't much farther. Again, it just doesn't seem worth it.

For upgrades, the copay for mileage upgrades on a discount economy ticket is more than half the cost of another flight. That pretty much rules out upgrades. I did once have a last-minute flight for work, so I ended up with a full-fare economy ticket to Brazil, and I did cash in miles for an upgrade on that one.

And I was about to book an award flight to Iceland in August, but then there was a hiccup with the website, and the ticket is no longer available. I got so fed up that I just decided to book with another airline rather than spend an hour on the phone sorting it out.

Some day if I have to fly a 30-hour trip somewhere, and I don't have elite status, I might cash them out for a business class ticket, but for now I'm just sitting on them. I'm like the Smaug of frequent flyer miles.

[roseflower]

Jun 28, 2012 10:34:50 GMT -5 Susie said:

[quote author=frlcb board=trav thread=25418 post=387281 time=1340883229Now we use the Chase Sapphire card, which we can use for multiple airlines/hotels and love it.

We have one too, and I like it. I just bought a plane ticket to Iceland using rewards points.

I have frequent flier accounts with Delta/Sky Team, United/Star Alliance, and Southwest, but I don't go the credit card route because I'm not loyal to any of them particularly. My home airport is tiny - I fly Southwest from it, but if I'm going anywhere major, I might fly out of PHL, EWR, BOS, JFK, LGA... and that often means different airlines.[/quote]

I have multiple reward accounts as well, but I figure if I don't pick one to try and be loyal to, then I won't be able to use the benefits because I have miles all across the board.

[mdgirl]

We have Alaska Airlines credit cards because our home airport is their hub, and you can get a $99 companion ticket every year that we usually use for Hawaii. However, when CO and UA combined my FIL was given lifetime 1K status and was able to gift 1K status to my husband. So now we also have a United card and are going to do our best to fly them as much as we can for the upgrades.

[emilyinchile]

My family has always flown AA, and I now live in Chile where LAN is the main airline, so I'm a oneworld traveler. I only fly other airlines if it's much cheaper - for a minor price difference, I'd rather pay a bit more and get the miles.

I have an AA credit card which I got when there was a 50,000 mile bonus offer on as well as a BA credit card with another 50,000 mile bonus. The AA card is totally worth it to me. I wouldn't keep the BA card except that it has no international fees, so I can use it for purchases outside the US that I want to pay for with my savings in dollars.

AA has pretty good "prices" on mileage tickets, although the availability of the saver fares has gone down a lot in the past year or so. Definitely to go between Chile and the US, oneworld requires far fewer miles than Delta, which is the other main US carrier option.

[gtkim]

We are mostly loyal to Delta because we live in ATL. We don't have a CC though because we didn't think it would be worth the annual fee. DH is elite so we already have no bag check fees.

We use Amex rewards because those points are much more versatile and can be used for more than one specific thing.

[lauree1183]

We switched from the Delta Skymiles AmEx to US Bank's travel flexperks last fall and it was the best decision for us. Since our mortgage is through US Bank we have the "platinum" checking and as a result of that we earn an additional 50% bonus on our miles each month. Furthermore you only need 20,000 points to book up to a $400 plane ticket.

It only took us 9 months to accrue 60,000 which paid in full for our $1200 total flights to Puerto Rico this January Bonus part of this is we'll also earn miles through the airlines we fly and US Bank flexperks gives you a $25 credit to use on those flights for checked baggage or food in flight

[basilosaurus]

I have accounts at all the major alliances, however I probably use Star Alliance most often, just due to them being better about travel to Asia which is where I've spent the majority of the last 5 years living/traveling.

We just got a sapphire chase card, mostly for the no int'l fee, and we haven't quite figured out how best to game the system. He's already traveled 20k+ miles since April with his new job, all of it on Delta, so while he doesn't spend money and get reimbursed, he gets to keep miles earned. We figured the nonspecific points with sapphire would matter as he has no choice in airline.

[babygirlpriest]

1. Loyal to Star Alliance because of my elite status (prefer United because of economy plus seating, regular upgrades, and their hub locations.

2. Have a United cc. DH doesn't travel as much and has a Chase card. Their points are easier to redeem if you don't have loyalty to ONE airline.

[travelingjen]

I have three frequent flyer mile accounts (Alaska, Continental/United & Delta).

I used to have the Delta AMEX credit card but switched to the Alaska BOA Visa. Although I accumulated a ton of miles using my Delta AMEX I always had issue booking award travel with them (it was impossible to get the saver tickets, even if I booked 11 months in advance).
Booking through Alaska has been a much easier process thus far so I am glad I cancelled my AMEX account.

We put everything we possibly can our on Alaska Visa and then pay it off each month. This equates to a lot of miles every year; between our regular flights and the miles earned from the credit card we can usually obtain at least one free ticket to Europe every year. Additionally, as MDGirl mentioned we also receive the $99 companion ticket every year that we can use on any flight within the continental US and Hawaii.

As mentioned, I also have an account with Continental/United. Between my Alaska account and this one, no matter which airline I fly around the world I can usually accrue mileage with one of the two accounts.

I have been known in the past to sign up for other airline credit cards just to get the free bonus miles (which are often more than enough for a free flight) and then cancel it before the one year mark to avoid the annual fee. So if you end up not liking the airline credit card you just signed up for you can always cancel it and sign up for a different one.

[roseflower]

Jun 28, 2012 13:34:59 GMT -5 travelingjen said:

I have three frequent flyer mile accounts (Alaska, Continental/United & Delta).

I used to have the Delta AMEX credit card but switched to the Alaska BOA Visa. Although I accumulated a ton of miles using my Delta AMEX I always had issue booking award travel with them (it was impossible to get the saver tickets, even if I booked 11 months in advance).
Booking through Alaska has been a much easier process thus far so I am glad I cancelled my AMEX account.

We put everything we possibly can our on Alaska Visa and then pay it off each month. This equates to a lot of miles every year; between our regular flights and the miles earned from the credit card we can usually obtain at least one free ticket to Europe every year. Additionally, as MDGirl mentioned we also receive the $99 companion ticket every year that we can use on any flight within the continental US and Hawaii.

As mentioned, I also have an account with Continental/United. Between my Alaska account and this one, no matter which airline I fly around the world I can usually accrue mileage with one of the two accounts.

I have been known in the past to sign up for other airline credit cards just to get the free bonus miles (which are often more than enough for a free flight) and then cancel it before the one year mark to avoid the annual fee. So if you end up not liking the airline credit card you just signed up for you can always cancel it and sign up for a different one.

Doesn't this effect your credit?

[travelingjen]

Roseflower: It probably does slightly. Each time there is an inquiry to your credit there is a slight ding. However, I have only done this twice (once with Northwest and once with Continental) several years apart. I have excellent credit and already own a house so the possibility of a slight ding to my credit report was worth the free flight to me :-)