Best Airline Rewards Cards

SEA_tide
Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:24:44 +0000

Some credit cards come with Priority Pass, which gives the primary cardholder complementary access to selected airline clubs/lounges. Other credit cards will give cardholders a $250 credit towards airline fees.

Check to see which airlines are consistently inexpensive for your city pairs and try to earn elite status on that airline, which gives you many benefits of the airline’s branded credit card and then some. I would then suggest looking into that airline’s credit card options and possibly getting one of the credit cards with a higher annual fee. Many frequent fliers get airline credit cards with annual fees of up to $400 because of the credit card benefits.

There are also frequent fliers who prefer to use cash back or other non-airline mile-earning credit cards.

It’s also worth saying that as you start earning more airline miles, you may be less inclined to spend them on relatively inexpensive domestic coach tickets. Award travel may involve more stops than typically-purchased revenue travel.

Keep in mind that benefits do change over time and that it may be in your best interest to switch credit cards and/or airlines. Someone who flies airline A now may decide to switch to airline B in a couple years and airline C or back to airline A a couple years after that. For example, the trend now is for airlines to move towards more revenue-based frequent flier programs with minimum spend requirements and such.

One of the goals of frequent flier programs is to incentivize travel on that airline even when other airlines may be less expensive before fees and such. For example, I will often pay extra or fly at less convenient times in order to fly my preferred carriers because of my elite benefits. Flying is much more enjoyable to me when I don’t have to wait in long lines, pay to check bags, or sit in middle seats in the back of the economy cabin.