Airline Reward Cards can help you get off the ground through your purchases.
Rewards cards, if used intelligently, live well up to their name. Perhaps the reward cards with the greatest benefits are airline credit cards. Most of these cards offer 1 mileage point for every dollar you spend and most increase the number of miles if you shop in certain stores.
You can do a lot with frequent flyer miles these days. Back in 1981 when frequent flyer programs first started with American Airlines, all you could do was get free flight tickets. Now you can get other kinds of tickets with your miles, like tickets to sporting events, nightlife events, and the usual free airline tickets.
These reward credit cards give you miles per each dollar spent on your credit card. Some cards even offer two miles per dollar spent on certain purchases. The amount of points needed to receive a frequent flyer ticket can vary according to the airline, but on average it is 25,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket in the US.
But people are not flying as much as they used to, especially after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the total amount of unused flyer miles this year is 8 trillion miles, up more than 20% since the end of 2000. To ensure that these frequent flyer programs will not become extinct, companies have invented other options of how to invest their customer's miles.
If you have a (Continental Airlines) credit card, you can now use miles to bid on items listed in eBay.
Customers of Chase's Travel Rewards Programs are allowed to trade in points to pay for the annual fee of the card; 3500 points in place of the $25 annual fee. If you are a member of AT&T's Universal card, you can swap 10,000 points to reduce your APR by 3% for the next year.
There are several airlines who are also using frequent flyer programs, but don?t require an exchange of points or miles to redeem rewards. Virgin has a special promotion for members of its flyer club, but only for those who will fly first class from the US to London. These flyers will receive a free Handspring Treo 280, which is a combination GSM world phone, Palm OS organizer, and email appliance.
AirTran A+ Rewards has teamed up with American Express to offer deals to its members. For every ticket that you buy for AirTran and buy on your American Express card, members can receive double rewards. This totals to a free ticket when three coach tickets are bought, or a free ticket when two business class tickets are bought. AirTran also offers a deal where for every twelve roundtrips in coach, members will receive a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the US on a competing airline. Or, if the tickets are bought on an American Express card, 6 coach tickets will qualify as well.
The only issue with these new rewards is how these points are being spent, specifically the exchange rate of points or miles for these new rewards. When you calculate how many miles people are spending versus the actual cash value of the reward, the mile per dollar rate is extremely low. You have to be careful with how you spend your points, but keep in mind that getting something is better than getting nothing- especially when you unused points are accumulating.
Most airlines will give you a free economy class ticket for 25,000 miles. Some annual college tuitions clock in at more than $25,000, which means those that pay their college tuition with an airline credit card earn a free airplane ticket each and every year.
These cards -- including the Continental Airlines WorldCard MasterCard, FirstAir Visa Platinum Card and the Advanta Bonus Miles -- offer more than just free airline tickets. Benefits can also include earned upgrades to first or business class, earlier boarding, and low introductory APR's.
Neither First Air Visa Platinum Card nor Advanta Bonus Miles Card are tied to a particular airline. You can choose whichever airline has the most convenient flight time and your miles aren?t wasted if your preferred airline carrier goes bust.
Those two cards have annual fees almost half of the Continental Airlines WorldCard; however, the WorldCard offers travel assistance, auto rental and travel insurance, and fraud protection.
Why would you pay an annual fee? You're making all of these purchases whether you use your airline reward credit card or not. By streamlining your bills and paying them all under the same credit card, you earn a vacation by doing nothing extraordinary whatsoever.
To apply for a rewards credit card, please visit our airline credit cards section.
*See the online credit card application for details about terms and conditions of offer. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. However all credit card information is presented without warranty. When you click on the "Apply Here" button you can review the credit card terms and conditions on 's web site.