nettlebed

Hi

Wondering what people's opinions/experiences are with regard to air miles credit cards in the US. Some (BA Visa/Alaska Visa/Delta AmEx) cost money, but appear to offer better rewards. Just like to hear people's opinions.

Thanks

Nettie

Bob

Some of them depend on where you live and where you'll fly too because they zone up the country, so you'll need more points in certain zones like on the west coast before you can use them...

As for which are good ones, don't really know, though I'm sure I could ask the missus for what are shite ones *lol*

nettlebed

Live in Redmond, WA, want to fly pretty much exclusively to the UK Still have a woman there - yes that's a picture of her on the left of this post...

AdobePinon

BA Visa told me that I couldn't have one because I was a UK Citizen.

scrubbedexpat099

We have United, not a good long term bet.

cindyabs

I have an AMEX and the pot for miles/rewards can be used for any airline or hotel or whatever. I pay for the card but in view of how I use it it's ok.
For you, it would behoove you to see who flies the route from where you live to the UK and then check into who has the best deal for miles. Travel gurus now say that with the airlines lack of financial stability NOT to put all your eggs in one basket.

Elvira

Is this Amex card better value than the one from Costco? (In case you don't know, the latter gives you cashback instead of air miles: 1% for general purchases, anywhere; 2% for travel; 3% for restaurants.)

Elvira

anotherlimey

You really have to work out whether you'll spend enough on it to warrant getting one.

I have the Delta AMEX, but I'll be trading it in for a different card because after the initial bonus they gave me and after a year of spending on it I've only just managed to get my first reward ticket for 50000 miles. Without the initial bonus it wouldn't have been worth it.

Take a look at the different mileage programs to see how many miles it takes to get the ticket you want. For AA (I used to have the Citi AA card) I had to accumulate 25000 miles to get a reasonable US domestic ticket, but as I mentioned above, to get a similar ticket on Delta it was 50000.

Also, remember to take into account the yearly fee for the card when working out whether it's worth it or not.

anotherlimey

I should also mention that the mileage I accumulated for the AA and Delta reward tickets included the initial bonus and a couple of domestic flights.

cindyabs

I use my AMEX to pay for everything I can with the exception of my mortgage and car payment. Oh yeah and Comcast since for whatever reason, big as they are they aren't online yet. So miles accumulate pretty quickly.

I've earned three transatlantic tickets, one of them was business class on Delta/AF.
AnotherLimey-I wonder about the domestic ticket on Delta-50,000 or 60,000 for a transatlantic ticket-25,000 miles each way to upgrade from a full Y,B,M fare on transatlantic but 50,000 miles for a domestic ticket ?? Continental US right?

anotherlimey

That's right, it's a return ticket MIA->ORD via ATL. You can get the 'value' ticket for 25000 but all the departure/arrival times suck and I can never get the departure days I want. IMO, the AA program is far better, I got a return ticket ORD->MIA on Christmas Eve for only 25000.

EDIT: I pay for everything on mine too, only my rent and car are excluded.

Englishmum

Without hesitation - American Express, although you have to sign up for their 'Membership Rewards' scheme (I think it's about $50 per year). This scheme is more versatile than just signing up for a card with one airline (and if you check the small print the cards linked to airlines have a far higher APR rate).

We also pay for everything we can with Amex; groceries, petrol, haircuts, meals, cinema and theatre tickets, even for coffee at Starbucks etc. etc. You get 1 point for each $.....and when we left Singapore to move to the US all the membership reward points we had accumulated there were transferable to our new US based Amex cards.

Here is the list of airlines you can use Amex Reward points on so you have a massive choice of worldwide destinations - it's on two pages and if you go to page 2 you will see Virgin Atlantic, South West airlines and Swiss:

http://www.membershiprewards.com/Cat...tid=103&ahcr=1

My husband has a platinum Amex card and they have a scheme where if he buys a full fare business class ticket with certain airlines eg. Continental (international routes, I think) he can get a free companion ticket in the same class as long as it is the same itinerary.....needless to say, he never takes me on trips as I have to stay behind to look after our son LOL!

We've just used 50,000 Amex points to get an air ticket for our student daughter to fly from Heathrow to New Delhi, India with Virgin Atlantic next month.....although to do it he had to apply for an Amex card for her as a secondary card member to his account. For some reason Amex sent a Gold Card in her name to our house......but we're not going to tell her she's got a charge card LOL!

I can't fault Amex.....husband once flew from London to the Far East (Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo) on a three week business trip. He'd left his wallet at home and boarded the plane without any cash or credit cards...I arrived at Heathrow with the wallet but the plane was taxiing down the runway by the time I'd got to terminal 4. When I arrived home - 10pm on a Sunday night - I went through his wallet and phoned Barclaycard (Visa) who were useless, saying it would take 2-3 weeks to get a new card out to him!!! I phoned Amex in Brighton and they were wonderful...asked for some personal info, told me to cut up the card and said that a new card would be waiting for him at their travel office in Hong Kong, which was incidentally very close to his hotel...so it was sorted whilst he was still 35,000ft in the air!

Another good thing about Amex is that you get travel insurance if you book your flights and car rental (even in the UK etc.) through them.

fatbrit

For simple cash back (spend it on airlines if you want!), it's hard to beat an AMEX Blue Cash. Costs you nowt (unlike other AMEX cards), you get 1% up to 6.5k, then 5% after that for all purchases at U.S. supermarkets, gas stations and drug stores that are not departments of superstores or warehouse clubs. For other merchants, the figures are 0.5% and 1.5%. Cash is credit to your account once a year.

anotherlimey

That's the one I'm hoping to switch to.

cindyabs

I have both the Delta Amex and the regular AMEX-use the Delta one for gas, cell phne bill etc and the regular one for everything else. Also I had 'em BEFORE my travel agency became an AMEX affiliate. I don't get any break on the cost of the card though, .