<p>We’ve been using a Southwest Airlines Visa for the past few years to rack up free airline tickets since my son goes to college on the other side of the country. We charge his tuition on the card, which has been really helpful. He’ll be graduating next year and won’t be taking so many flights. We thought our daughter might go far away, too, but she’s decided to attend college within easy driving distance. Plus her college charges a fee to use a credit card for tuition, and doesn’t take Visa, besides.</p>
<p>Already I’m starting to see our free tickets piling up and expiring before we can use them. H is a pilot and we own our own little plane, so for short trips, he prefers to fly himself. Also, I’m not liking the recent change in Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program. We’ll still need a few Southwest tickets for this summer and next year, but once son has graduated, I think we’ll get rid of that card and find another one that has cash back or some other incentive.</p>
<p>depends on whether you plan on flying anywhere (aside from with your husband)…</p>
<p>for example: Capital One Venture racks up points at twice the normal rate…has a dollar for dollar point system on any airline (i.e. if the ticket is $280, points are 28,000 to redeem)</p>
<p>Southwest went from being a certain number of credits = a free ticket. However, there were black out dates and seat restrictions. But you could trade in two of those tickets for one ticket that has no black out dates or seat restrictions.</p>
<p>Now it’s a point system. One dollar = one point, and the ticket price depends on what type of ticket you buy (non-refundable vs. refundable). I haven’t figured out yet if it’s going to be helpful to us, but it seems less straightforward to me.</p>
<p>When we were charging tuition (plus everything else) and using the free tickets regularly, this has been a terrific program. But it’s not going to be very useful for us in about a year from now.</p>
<p>We don’t travel all that often. This summer we’re going to Hawaii, but Southwest doesn’t go there, so we bought tickets on another airline. Next year we’re going to Australia - same thing there. I don’t know if I necessarily want another airline miles card or not. We used to have a Discover card once upon a time, and I liked getting the cash back award once a year. My neighbor has an American Express card through Costco and she gets cash back, but a lot of places don’t take AmEx (or Discover).</p>
<p>I love my Southwest card and love the free tickets. I, too, haven’t completely figured out if the changes to the Rewards program are going to be a plus or a negative for me, but I find Southwest to be a very straight-up company, so I’m not too worried.
I earned A List status last year AND earned a Companion Pass for my husband!</p>
<p>Oregonianmom-
We use our Amex, which is tied to Hilton Hotels, for just about everything. In years past we found quite a few places didn’t accept Amex, but these days it seems most places do. We do have the backup MC for those instances.</p>
<p>The Hilton Honors program is pretty good. We pay all bills on the Amex, and net about one free hotel night a month. And I don’t believe they expire.</p>
<p>The capital one venture card earns either 1.25 or 2 miles per dollar spent. I think that’s pretty good. (they have two different cards)</p>
<p>I have their cash rewards card and like it very much. I get back x percent on whatever i spend, and if i buy online from certain places I get extra percents back… sometimes as much as 10%. I redeem my rewards for money whenever I have a vacation coming up. Free spending money. :)</p>
<p>DH prefer cash back credit cards, and then we’re not stuck with points or miles we can’t use. Our favorite, for many years running, is American Express Blue Cash card.</p>
<p>For international travel, Capital One is the way to go, since they do not have any foreign transaction fees. Those foreign transaction fees can really add up, and Capital One has a variety of rewards and cash back cards to choose from, like the Venture mentioned above.</p>
<p>We’re currently dealing with a bunch of foreign transaction fees. S is studying abroad in New Zealand, and at this very moment, H is there visiting him. Every day when I download my transactions on mint.com, I see those foreign service charges stacking up. :(</p>
<p>I know you are not necessarily looking for airline card but I <em>love</em> the Platinum Delta/AmEx card. We use it for 90% of our stuff. They do a lot of promotions where they will double mile everything for no reason. I think last summer they did that for June-Aug or Sept. And now that Delta ate up Northwest, there are lots more options for flights. You could save up your miles for the Hawaii/overseas trips. They also do free companion ticket each year. It does cost $125 (?) for a year but well worth it for us. We get 4-5 free tickets every year.</p>
<p>Whichever card you get, make sure it still has the extended warranty protection that doubles the manufacturer’s warranty period. I can not tell you how many times I’ve put in claims using this benefit after the normal warranty ran out!</p>
<p>Love my SW Visa, too, and I have one for work. Earned a free companion past last year for my H, and just had it extended through 2012. Not too sure about the new system. We’ll see. In the first 5 years I had it (before tuition, business card), I earned 3-4 free tickets per year. Took family vacations (4 of us twice to Vegas and once to LA) while the kids were still home.</p>
<p>Don’t put tuition on it because of the fee, but we did put a new car on it.</p>
<p>If you have a Fidelity account (or open one), you can get a Fidelity Visa that pays 1.5% cash back into your Fidelity account, which you can then immediately withdraw.</p>
<p>CapitalOne drove me nuts because their rewards changed constantly for the worse, and by the time I dumped it it took over twice as many points to get a ticket as it did when I got the card, and the cash back was worse too.</p>
<p>Chase has a new card called the Freedom card. You get $100 cash back after charging the first $500 on it in the first 3 months, and then 1% on all other purchases. Every quarter you get 5% cash back on specific categories (grocery stores, gas, dept stores, etc). There’s no annual fee. I think the APR is variable and something huge, but if you pay off every month that doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>notrich, That’s weird. My rewards have never changed. I actually e-mailed them about possibly changing them because some of the newer cards have different rewards then what I do but they said I would have to apply for that new card because they can’t change my rewards. I had an old card with them since I was 16 and that one did award points that you could turn in to gift cards and stuff. I have no problems at all with my cash back card.</p>
<p>I was looking at that card vballmom… when I saw the 100 cash back they almost had me… I love the idea of getting back 100 after 3 months I just don’t know if I can justify having another card open or closing one I have already.</p>
<p>better yet, Fidelity AMEX (via FIA)pays 2% kickback on everything. I also very much like their shopsafe applet that lets you generate personal CC# for X amount for Y months.</p>
<p>fendergirl, I had a CapitalOne card for years. Then they started sending me new agreements every year, and every time the rewards got worse. It went from one point per $1 to one point for $2, cash back went from 1% to 1/2%, flights went from 25000 points to 60000 points, they added an annual fee (which I got waived for several years by calling up and b****ing).</p>
<p>I also tried to get them to change to a different one with better rewards, and got the “you have to reapply” BS. At that point I looked around for a different card and found the Fidelity Visa. I lost my $40,000 (!!!) credit limit that CapitalOne had boosted me to over the years (why, who knows, I doubt I ever hit 5% of it), so I can’t charge a Lexus any more. Bummer. </p>
<p>simba - I wasn’t aware of the 2% AMEX, I’ll have to look into it, although I’ve been pretty happy with the Visa. It’s a Signature Visa, which gets you pretty responsive cusomter service when you call them.</p>
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