Airline Miles Credit Cards Survey and Study 2012

Airline credit cards are used judiciously by savvy frequent fliers to earn miles and get free air tickets. Depending on where someone lives, where they fly and which airlines are available at their city airports. For most frequent fliers getting an airline credit card is a matter of choosing the card of the airline that he or she flies most frequently.
However, airline credit cards faces more competition from regular credit cards that offer reward programs that are not affiliated to any particular airline. This study attempts to look at all the available airline credit cards and reward programs in the market and do a comparison study. We also hope to suggest some of the better cards available.
Best Airline Credit Cards

50,000 Bonus Points And Take Advantage of Continental and United Merger

At this moment, the Chase Sapphire® Preferred Card is offering a whopping 50,000 sign up bonus for new card member. You can get these 50,000 points after you spend $3,000 during the first three months. The reason why this makes a great airline deal now is because you can transfer your points into Continental or British Airways miles. This would make a good top for any Continental OnePass members or even United Mileage members since both these airlines are merging and their miles can be transferred both ways. For those who took advantage of BA's 100,000 bonus miles offer (which has expired), here another potential 50,000 miles! But there are lots of other ways to make use of this 50,000 points bonanza. Read our Chase Sapphire® Preferred Card review for more details


United have just consolidated and revamped their 4 cards into the new United Mileage Plus® Exporer. It is a great improvement over the old United Visa and if you have the existing card, you should upgrade to this one. You can now earn double miles, get your first bag checked-in free, priority boarding and 2 visits a year to their Lounge. Best of all, you can earn 40,000 bonus miles in your first year the following year. You get 25,000 bonus miles after your first purchase, 5,000 miles after enrolling an additional card holder and 10,000 anniversary miles if you spend $25,000 a year.

According to Continental's website, the Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card will no longer be issued after the end of 2011. Existing users will still be able to use their cards. But here is the opportunity of either Continental or United flyers due to the merger. You should get this card now because you can get up to 40,000 bonus miles during your first year. It works the same as the United Explorer Card. You get 25,000 bonus miles after your first purchase, another 5,000 miles when you add an additional user. When you spend $25,000 on the card every year, you get an anniversary 10,000 miles.

Within the next 6 to 9 months, you can be strategic in getting your hands on the Continental, United and Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and really rack up your miles. Get your spouse in the game as well and a business class flight awaits you!

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Earn Triple Points On Airline Ticket Purchases With Anyone

If you really fly a lot either on business or personal, then you would want to check out the American Express Premier Gold Card. Like most American Express charge cards, the reward program is the Membership Rewards and you get a whole host of benefits. But the great thing about this version of the card is that you can earn triple points for airline ticket purchases and double points on certain expenses like gasoline etc. From a points earning perspective for travel, no card comes even close. In fact, even the Platinum Card loses out in terms of ability to earn points from airline ticket purchases. For the true frequent flyer, this card is hard to beat.

Earn Miles On Over 30 Airlines

For folks who are members of multiple frequent flier programs or those who make use of airline alliances to get the best redemption rates, nothing beats the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card because the starwood program allows you to transfer points into miles (mostly on a one to one basis) for over 30 airline partners. They essentially have the most airline partners for any reward program. What is even more impressive is that you will get 5,000 bonus miles when you transfer 20,000 points to miles! If that is too much of a hassle, you can always book your flights directly with Starwood with their StarFlight program (click on the SPG Flight Chart to see the point exchange ratio. Most frequent fliers I know have this card.

The Citi® Platinum Select/AAdvantage® World MasterCard® is now offering 40,000 bonus miles for new applicants if you meet certain spending criteria. Find out about this sign up deal in our review.

The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express is the entry level among the three Delta cards. Unlike the othre upper tier cards, you cannot earn MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles) that counts towards earning elite status. But ironically, this card would work best for folks who already qualify for the top elite status anyway. As with all good airline cards, you get to earn double miles on Delta ticket purchases.

The Alaska Airline Mileage Plan is one of the best around and their Alaska Airlines credit card is one of the rare cards that allow you to earn triple points when booking their flights. Frequent fliers of this airline should definitely take a close look at this card.

The Frontier Airlines Credit Card will suit those who are frequent flyers of Frontier Airlines. There are two versions of this card - one has annual fee and another does not. As you might already have suspected, the one with the annual fee allows you to earn double miles.

For folks live in Hawaii or fly there very often, the Hawaiian Airlines credit card is perhaps the ideal card to get. In our review, we also recommend a couple of alternatives if you also fly other airlines.

The US Airways MasterCard from Barclays Bank has two versions. The better one allows you to earn double miles and gets you 10,000 anniversary elite status points. Personally speaking, I find that US Airways has the worst seats among all domestic airlines and hence I choose to avoid them if possible. If you are a true frequent flyer with them, you might want to consider getting their cards.

The AirTran Credit Card is one card which may be seeing the end of it's days due to the merger with SouthWest Airlines. Having said that, until the merger is concluded (sometime in April 2011), you can still get this card and earn some "bonus miles" even if you are SouthWest flyer.

The Aer Lingus MasterCard is probably the best card around for Irish immigrants who want to earn Aer Lingus miles for flights back to Ireland or Europe. The best thing about this card is that there is no annual fee and yet you can earn double miles.

The Aeroplan MasterCard is for frequent flyers of Air Canada. But having said that, this is probably one of the worst airline credit cards. Find out why I feel this way.

The JAL credit card is ideally suited to someone who flies with JAL to Japan often on business. You will find that this card is really different from US carrier cards. But is it better? Find out in our review.

The ANA Credit Card. like the JAL credit card, is issued by National Bank of Omaha and is targeted at the business person or Japanese expatriate who flies frequently to Japan with ANA.

The Asiana American Express Card is one of the best airline cards around because you can earn 2 points for every dollar that you spend on the card (including Asiana tickets) and triple points per dollar at groceries. Because it is a star alliance partner, you can also use their points to book flight for other partner airlines. If you travel to South Korea a lot, you definitely should get this card.

The Virgin Credit Card has two version, the Black Card version and the While Card version. Both allow you to earn triple points. Frequent fliers of Virgin Atlantic would do well to get this card, though there are a couple of alternatives to earning Virgin miles if you are not a frequent flier (as we shall see in the review).

The Lufthansa credit card has two versions, a no annual fee and an annual fee version. One of the unique feature of this card is that if you are an elite member of the Lufthansa Miles and More program (ie Senator level or HON circle member), your annual fee is waived.
This study is presented as follows :
1. Airline Reward Card Features
2. Airline Credit Card Features
3. Airline Credit Card Comparison Table
Before we begin, here are a couple of articles on getting a better deal from airline cards.

Tips on choosing your card

Which American Airlines credit card should you get?
Citibank has got three versions (including a no annual fee version) of the American Airlines AAdvantage cards. Which is the best one? We compare them side by side. Find out what we think.

Airline Reward Credit Card Features

While the true die hard frequent flier is probably best served by a frequent flier credit card, there are many credit card reward programs that allow you to earn points that can be redeemed for airline tickets. But within this category of cards, there are also different types of cards and rewards. There is no one better card, but rather they will suit different people. Here is the various types of cards:

Cards with Multiple Frequent Flier Programs - While a specific airline credit card is best if you only fly one airline (most of the time), those who are members of multiple airline frequent flier programs would want to consider cards that are affiliate with many frequent flier programs. Examples of such programs include the Membership Rewards Program from American Express. and the Starwood Preferred Guest Program.

Credit Reward Programs - Most major credit card issuers have reward programs and cards that allow you to earn reward points on your card spending and use them to redeem for airline tickets. Increasingly, many of the programs claim that you do not face blackout dates (unlike many frequent flier programs. Most programs have almost identical point requires for ticket redemption. The issue for consumers mainly revolve around how many points does the card allow you to earn. The standard industry practice is that you can earn one point for every dollar you spend on the card. Some cards have gone out of their way to let you earn more than that. For example, the Citi® PremierPass(SM) Card not only allows you to earn one mile for every dollar that you spend, you can also earn miles on the flights you fly (or your friends fly) if you use the card to pay for your tickets.

Cards that Give You Rebates For Travel Expenses - A new breed of card has appeared recently that actually gives you rebates for any travel items that you charge to your card. The advantages of having such cards is that you do not have to book through the airline or travel agent that is affiliated with the credit card company. This frees you up hunt for the best deals offline or online. Cards like that include the Miles by Discover® Card.

Airline Credit Cards Features

Then there is specific frequent flier credit cards that airlines (in partnership with a bank) issues. These cards allow you to earn miles from spending from their cards. Below are some key features to watch out for.

Double Miles - Many frequent flier credit cards allow airlines to earn double miles when you use their credit cards to buy airline tickets directly from them. Some even allow you to earn double miles if you spend on other items as well.

Bonus Miles - All frequent flier cards to a certain extent give new cardholders bonus miles when they sign up (to entice them to apply for the card). Some give really generous bonus (25,000 miles which is enough for a round trip ticket on most programs). This should not really be a big factor in your decision.

Companion Tickets - Some cards give companion tickets either as a signing bonus or as an anniversary bonus. It typically works in 2 ways. You either buy a ticket that is worth more than a certain amount and you get one free companion ticket. Or you can get a companion ticket certificate worth a certain amount.

Anniversary Bonuses - Some cards give anniversary bonuses. This may take the form of bonus miles, companion ticket, club lounge pass, or discounts on mileage usage.

Annual Fee - Unlike most credit cards, airline credit cards have an annual fee (which is why they are among the most profitable types of cards for issuers). The fees vary from $40 to over $400. Only you can decide (based on the miles and benefits you earn), if the fees are justified. For many frequent fliers, they are.