I know many friends who are immigrants and expatriates. Many come from Europe and Asia. When they hear that I review credit cards, the first question is always “What is the best credit card to earn miles for their overseas travel home on my domestic airline?”

Having reviewed lots of credit cards, I know the perfect card for these friends. The card I am referring to is the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express . At first glance, this is just another affinity card for Starwood Preferred Guest Members. However, if you are familiar with the Starwood program, you will know that Starwood allows you to transfer points into air miles for many airlines at a very favorable rate. You can transfer 20,000 points into 20,000 miles for many airlines and furthermore, Starwood Preferred Guest Program gives you an additional 5,000 miles for that program! The Starwood Card allows you to earn one point for every dollar that you spend on the card. Hence, you can earn 25,000 miles with just $20,000 in spending on your card. (Remember that most airlines frequent flyer program requires 25,000 miles for one roundtrip restricted economy ticket).

But the real beauty of the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card is that there are over 30 airline partners. As I mentioned earlier, these friends of mine come from Europe and Asia and their number complaint is that there are no airline credit cards for their favourite foreign airline. But by getting the Starwood card, their problems were solved. Below is a list of Starwood’s airline partner.

Aeroplan Air Canada,
Air China Companion,
Air New Zealand and Air Points,
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan,
Alitalia Mille Miglia,
All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club,
American Airlines AAdvantage,
Asiana Airlines,
British Airways Executive Club,
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles,
Continental Airlines OnePass,
Delta Airlines Skymiles,
Emirates and Sri Lankan Airlines Skywards,
Flying Blue,
Hawaiian Airlines,
Japan Airlines (JAL) Mileage Bank,
KLM Air France Flying Blue,
LAN LANPASS,
Lufthansa Miles and More,
Mexicana Frecuenta,
Northwest Airlines Worldperks,
Qantas Airways Frequent Flyer,
Qatar Airways,
Saudi Arabian Airlines Alfursan,
Singapore Airlines Krisflyer,
Swiss Travel Club,
Thai Airways International Royal Orchid Plus,
US Airways Dividend Miles,
United Airlines Mileage Plus,
VARIG Smiles,
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

There are a couple of caveats. All of the above airline partners allow one starwood point to be converted into one miles with the exception of United Airlines Mileage Plus (2:1), Varig Smiles (2:1), LAN LANPASS (1:2), Japan Airlines Mileage Bank (3:2) and Air New Zealand and Air Points (65:1). So please be aware.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 03:08 and is filed under Credit Card Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.