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Best Airline Rewards Credit Cards

well, due to terrible timing etc, US Airways' site ended up being the only place to get the flight i needed. It wasn't available on the Chase site.
Impulse signed up for the US Airways World Premier MasterCard, for 40,000 miles which will just about pay for the flight. No minimum purchase amounts needed or anything, just automatic 40,000 miles with first purchase (which counts as the ticket, in this case). Plus a $50 credit for signing up for this.

...I feel like I just cheated. What bad can come from this? I essentially got a $600 flight for $50 because I said "yes." Can I not just cancel the card once it's paid off and go on my merry way?

If you've ready gotten the flight and it worked then I think you're good but when I opened it it was actually auto 30k and then 10k more only when you transferred a balance. Then there are very few flights that are actually less than 35k per leg and you have to have the correct number of miles, can't just use all your miles and then pay the balance (like you can with Chase).

Definitely a regret for me but if you were ordering a flight and adding the card brought it to $50 and you know you're good then it's the way to go! It was a $95 yearly charge last time I looked, though. The zone 2 boarding is nice and I think in April they started letting one free checked bag.
 
Anyone ever received the 100,000 point targeted AMEX Plat offer? I am really considering redeeming it. Those points are worth at least $1000 in travel rewards. I already have a blue cash back card with them.

Yeah, I got it earlier this year and decided not to pull the trigger. AMEX seems to be losing too many benefits lately and, while I'm sure they have some in the works, I'd like to have an idea what those are before I plunk down that much cash.

The one huge reason I was considering the platinum card is that one of their points transfer partners is Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. Then, low and behold, Chase tried to make me love them even more by announcing KrisFlyer as a transfer partner this week. I realize that this doesn't matter for most of you, but living in Singapore, the most annoying thing is that Singapore Airlines' regional carrier Silk Air (wholly owned mind you) is not in Star Alliance. Therefore, you cannot use United miles to book an award ticket on them; you can only use KrisFlyer miles. Chase just sold me on paying the annual fee on my SP for another year. If only I had waited another two weeks to book my plane tickets to Siem Reap....
 
well, due to terrible timing etc, US Airways' site ended up being the only place to get the flight i needed. It wasn't available on the Chase site.
Impulse signed up for the US Airways World Premier MasterCard, for 40,000 miles which will just about pay for the flight. No minimum purchase amounts needed or anything, just automatic 40,000 miles with first purchase (which counts as the ticket, in this case). Plus a $50 credit for signing up for this.

...I feel like I just cheated. What bad can come from this? I essentially got a $600 flight for $50 because I said "yes." Can I not just cancel the card once it's paid off and go on my merry way?

The bloggers are digging this card right now anyway, so if you got a 40,000 point offer, I don't think you got cheated at all. Most bloggers think it will disappear in the next 6-12 months because Citi will get the AA card and Barclays can only try to get new customers with the US card for so long.
 
well, due to terrible timing etc, US Airways' site ended up being the only place to get the flight i needed. It wasn't available on the Chase site.
Impulse signed up for the US Airways World Premier MasterCard, for 40,000 miles which will just about pay for the flight. No minimum purchase amounts needed or anything, just automatic 40,000 miles with first purchase (which counts as the ticket, in this case). Plus a $50 credit for signing up for this.

...I feel like I just cheated. What bad can come from this? I essentially got a $600 flight for $50 because I said "yes." Can I not just cancel the card once it's paid off and go on my merry way?


I signed up for the US Airways card and used it once...did this pretty much as soon as the merger closed.
 
CSP discontinuing the 7% annual dividend in 2016 along with some other changes.
 
The jury is still out on whether the CSP is really that efficient for me but I'm going to give it another year of use to see.
 
Am I missing something? Max 1.33% back and the signup bonus is a $100 value?

That's not exactly correct, you do get double points for a few different things (travels expenses, restaurants). The signup bonus isn't as huge as a lot of the other cards (again, there isn't usually any signup bonus for this card), but you're not locked in to a specific airline/hotel chain/etc. The way points can be redeemed is really versatile, which is why I like the card. Between my wife and I, we build up statement credits pretty quickly, and then just shop for travel the same as we would regularly...plus their travel services are great.
 
That's not exactly correct, you do get double points for a few different things (travels expenses, restaurants). The signup bonus isn't as huge as a lot of the other cards (again, there isn't usually any signup bonus for this card), but you're not locked in to a specific airline/hotel chain/etc. The way points can be redeemed is really versatile, which is why I like the card. Between my wife and I, we build up statement credits pretty quickly, and then just shop for travel the same as we would regularly...plus their travel services are great.

According to the article 1.33% is the max back accounting for the double points stuff. Generally it's 1 for 1 (which is actually pretty poor) and the double points can get it to 1.33% back if maxed out.

I mean, it's not a bad card, it's just that there are multiple cards offering 2% returns out there for the exact same travel expenses, with signup bonuses of $200+. The included services are pretty standard for any decent card these days. I mean, you'd be better off just getting just a basic 1.5% cash back card.

Just to compare, let's say you and your wife would accumulate $1,000 in travel refund cash over the next year. If you ditched the card today and both opened an Arrival plus card, in a year you'd have $2,800 in travel refund cash with essentially identical benefits.
 
still havent seen one that's better than the cap one venture if you want to spend the points on travel.
 
while we're on the subject, is an amex platinum really worth it? seemed like the points were about the same, so youre really just paying for the perks, right?
 
According to the article 1.33% is the max back accounting for the double points stuff. Generally it's 1 for 1 (which is actually pretty poor) and the double points can get it to 1.33% back if maxed out.

I mean, it's not a bad card, it's just that there are multiple cards offering 2% returns out there for the exact same travel expenses, with signup bonuses of $200+. The included services are pretty standard for any decent card these days. I mean, you'd be better off just getting just a basic 1.5% cash back card.

Just to compare, let's say you and your wife would accumulate $1,000 in travel refund cash over the next year. If you ditched the card today and both opened an Arrival plus card, in a year you'd have $2,800 in travel refund cash with essentially identical benefits.

Ah, I see now. Yeah, that might actually be slightly better deal. I'll look into it.
 
The jury is still out on whether the CSP is really that efficient for me but I'm going to give it another year of use to see.
it's all about the signup bonus
i use it for restaurants only at this point as i have a better travel card now
i should probably cancel it
 
So, the US Airways card is kind of chapping my ass.
I did just use the Companion certificate and got two $650 flights for $800, but I'm finding it incredibly difficult to use the miles I'm building. Seems like there's always a reason why I can't.
 
So, the US Airways card is kind of chapping my ass.
I did just use the Companion certificate and got two $650 flights for $800, but I'm finding it incredibly difficult to use the miles I'm building. Seems like there's always a reason why I can't.

I kind of have the same problem. My wife and I each got one and we got 2 round trip tickets to Paris for free with basically just the sign on bonus, I've used the companion things twice in the last couple years including 3 $500 tickets for a total of $850. But other than that we're sitting on like 120k miles and they make it so difficult to use them.

I'm thinking the trip to Paris was worth it for using the card these last 2 years, plus I'll get one more decent trip out of the miles we're sitting on, but I may just call it quits after that.

All the math I did to make the decision to use this as my primary card has not panned out.
 
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