OT: Airline Credit Cards

I have a Southwest Card thru Chase Bank. I fly Southwest a lot and Chase is my personal bank. So it was a natural for me. I got so many points by signing up that I got two round trips to San Diego. That's why my Tijuana trips were so cheap.

As long as I don't keep any balance on the cards, it's a great deal. But I don't dare keep a balance on those cards. The interest rate is something like 21%.

I know, it's not an airline, but for someone that doesn't fly much...

You might want to look into Marriott.
They have a good rewards program and a CC that earns goos useable points.

@Warrior

Does your card have an annual fee?

Ummmm. Yeah, but not sure what that is off hand. It's not huge.

@flag

I have a Chase Visa which is the cc I use most and seems to have a decent rewards program (used the points a time or two; but not really sure if their card rewards are among the better-ones, just that I have had that cc for a while and haven't really looked for any other cc that may have significantly better rewards)

The money experts say that airline cards are not a good deal unless you fly lot and/or charge a lot to the card, like at least $1,000 monthly or more. I have one cause I fly a lot and get double miles whenever I charge a flight to the card.

There are several web sites that do all the vetting for you. Just Google something like "compare credit card or compare airline credit card offers". I used to have American Airlines but they made using the miles difficult by restricting available seats so I just accumulated miles. Eventually the expired. What a waste. Now I just go for cashback cards like the Costco Citibank.

During the recession Southwest, and I assume others, were throwing free points and other perks to get people to sign up. For a few years I cleaned up and got a bunch of free flights, I was putting everything on that card. As the economy improved they tightened up and I ditched it, much better options now.

We have a Mastercard that is associated with American Airlines, and my wife has hardly paid to fly for the last two years. We pay the full balance each month; the deal wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Papi, I completely understand your aversion to making a quick decision on something like this. But you can grab the paperwork the flight attendant gives out and take it with you. It is not required to be turned in before you get off the plane in my experience.

I use airline CC's often and like other cards if you pay off your balance monthly it's not a bad deal. But the annual fees are often 100 and suck for sure. And you don't earn miles for paying those annual fees either. I have used points for a number of trips through the years and usually love not having to pay full price for those flights.

But I would guess many people who use this type of CC don't come out on the positive side of the agreement. If they did companies would not offer them.

We had USAir Visa cards that turned into A Airlines MasterCard. Annual fee, but we put every expense over five dollars on them and do alot of free flights. USAir had a better value program, but it's still worth it.

Perfectly understandable and smart not to fall for any quick pitch. I also due plenty of due diligence from places like The Points Guy to find the best credit card to suit my needs. I have a Delta Reserve card since I travel enough for work and pleasure to make it worthwhile for me. The card provides lots of bonus MQMs, covers full access to Skylounge and has never failed to upgrade me from coach to comfort or first which is a big plus for me since I am a pretty tall guy. The annual fee is expensive but for the benefits it is worth it for me.

@Papi, how often do you fly? Do you fly internationally? Do you fly for business using OPM? You also want to ask yourself how many nights you stay in a hotel per year, and whether any of that hotel spend is OPM.

I used to have Citi AA card (with $495 annual fee) but dropped it a couple years ago as the benefits dried up, and my flying slowed down to a couple trips a month, on average. I now use a couple of hotel credit cards which had nice sign-up bonuses (hotel points come in handy even for staycations, which air miles don't) and Citi Double Cash/Citi Costco for cash back -- which spends just fine for flights, hotels, ride shares, tequila, wine, dances at strip clubs...

Most of the business people I know use American Express gold card for air miles, I personally use their cash back rewards and Bank America cash rewards for the 3% cash back for gasoline AE is $125 annually BOA is free

"... @Papi, how often do you fly ..."

Not much - zero for business - maybe 3x/yr at most for pleasure but had not flown since summer 2017 - this year (2019) I flew on Memorial Day; will fly again weekend of 6/21; and weekend of 8/2; and maybe again in September and that will likely be it for 2019; but my avg is 2x to 3x per yr.

So - an airline card probably is not a good deal for me - which was my gut-feeling although I hadn't dove into it - I was just a bit lured by the mileage-bonus upfront (30k sometimes more w/ some cards for signing up) - but I don't think they tell you the fine-print when they announce the mileage-bonus upfront; doing a bit of a Google search it seems for many cards the amount of miles you get upfront is determined by how much you spend/put-on the card in the first month to 3 months and seems you gotta put a few thousand on the card to get all the bonus-miles upfront that they lure you with; and I rarely put more than $1k/month on my credit-card so decent chance I would not be getting all the initial bonus-miles upfront.

I think getting a good rewards card w/ no annual-fee is the way to go for me as an infrequent traveler - doing a quick search it seems the Capital One Quicksilver card is the highest-rated rewards-card w/ no annual-fee - I may look into that card.

I've kinda decided towards the beginning of the summer, that 2019 was gonna be the year for me to do some SC trips to scratch off the PL-bucketlist a few clubs I'd been curious about for a while - starting in 2020 I plan to take some leisure non-SC trips since I haven't done much of that at all in my poor-immigrant-boy life (wanna hit California; NYC; Vegas; Chicago; Hawaii; mainly to site-see and see it w/ my own poorboy immigrant eyes 🙂).

Much better to be able to block the credit card offer spam than to just ignore it.

^ some would "lock down" those cards

The credit cards I actually use get AT LEAST 2% back on each purchase. I do have an airline credit card for the airline I travel the most on, and may grab another. If you travel a decent amount, you get the free miles, the free check-in bag ($50 per bag if you usually check in bags) and best feature of all, reasonably early boarding guaranteed (which means overhead space is still available). Well worth it for the airlines I travel the most on.

I use a combination of the Costco citicard and my BofA cash rewards card. BofA card has no annual fee and a cool feature that let's you change which category you get 3% cash back on each month. So leave the category on what you spend most on generally, then change it anytime you have some big purchase in another category coming up. I did attic repair recently and charged it all on the credit card to get 3% on the entire amount. Of course you gotta pay the entire amount of each month to make it worth it. Also if you have a certain amount in your checking account the percent back can go up. So for me I get 3.75% back on whichever category I choose.

With the Costco card it gets 4% back on gas which is why all gas goes on that card. It also gets 3% on hotel and travel which is pretty good. Only thing is you have to have a Costco membership, which is basically like an annual fee of $60. If you already have a Costco membership then it's a no brainer.

I put every purchase I can on credit cards just for the rewards. Rewards money, combined with tax money make for a good chunk of money to have fun with.

Ya, I work it similar to you, TFP. 5% back w/ Amazon card, 4% back on travel & entertainment with Savor card, 3% back on whatever I've chosen with BofA, 2% back with everything else with Citi. And I keep an airline card for the airline I use the most, again mostly for the early boarding before the overheads fill up, but also comes in handy for free checked bags

Do you guys tap into your rewards from time to time; or just let it grow for a rainy-day per se?

I let it grow for an entire year. Once I get my tax return then I claim all my credit card cash back at the same time.

I'm like you PC I don't fly often. Only about 4 times a year. So getting that Chase Sapphire card, which I hear is one of the best miles cards, wouldn't be worth it for me with it's annual fee.

@Subra 5% with Amazon sounds nice! Is it just on Amazon purchases, or any online purchases?

Also it's weird how the categories differ from card to card. Costco card doesn't count toll as travel, but BofA does. No mystery which card my bridge tolls go on.

It's the Amazon Store Card (not a Visa or MC credit card, just works on Amazon). Amazon also has a Visa, but I didn't need any more Visas, and that rewards aren't that big outside Amazon purchases on the Visa anyway.