The Best Airline Mile Credit Card Offers more Than Just a Sign-up Bonus

A lot of airline cards like to market their huge sign-up bonus offers when attracting new customers. They go something like this: “Sign up with our brand new card and you’ll get 50,000 points or enough points for two round trip flights!” That sounds great but what if you’re a busy traveler and you quickly use up those two free flights?

Now you’re stuck paying for your ticket plus all of the little extras. But that’s where the best airline mile credit cardcan come in handy. See, airline cards offer more than just enticing sign-up bonus offers. They offer a wide variety of ancillary benefits that can save you a bunch of money. So, what’s the best credit card for a traveler? One that offers all these benefits:

• Free Checked Baggage: This is probably one of my favorite benefits since I hate having to carry on large suitcases. Weekend bags aren’t a problem, but when you have to lug a giant suitcase around the airport and try to jam it in an overhead bin, that can be pretty stressful. It’s nice checking in your bag for free and not having to worry about it until you land.
• Priority Boarding: Have you ever noticed how many people start to line up at the gate before boarding starts? Well if you have an airline card that offers priority boarding you won’t be one of them since you’ll get to board right after the business class passengers.
• Companion Passes: I think companion passes are one of the most under-rated benefits of airline credit cards since you can really take advantage of that free ticket. Most companion passes can only be used domestically but they are also great for last minute travel since you’ll effectively pay half price for two tickets.
• Lounge Access: Flying during peak travel times can be a real headache and often times there isn’t even a place to sit down or charge your phone at airport gates. In order to remedy this, a lot of airline cards are starting to offer two free lounge passes every year that you’re a cardmember. Some cards like the Citi Executive card will even offer you Admirals Club Access for an entire year (but that privilege does come with a hefty annual fee).
• No Foreign Transaction Fees: If you’ve ever tried to use your credit card in a foreign country you already know that most banks will levy high fees on international purchases and have credit card fees overseas. But a lot of the top travel cards have no foreign transaction fees since they know their customers are travelling all over the world and this benefit can save them a lot of money.
• Reduced Award Travel: Several airline cards are starting to offer this benefit since it allows you to buy an award ticket at a discount. Most of the time you can get a saver award for a 5,000-10,000 point discount based upon availability.

Are the Perks Worth it?

When you consider the fact that most airline cards waive the first year’s annual fee, give you up to 50,000 sign-up bonus points and adorn you with all of these perks, signing up for a new airline card should be a no-brainer! Some people like to cancel these cards once they have to start paying for them but if you fly just once or twice on that airline it might be worth it to keep that card.

Is There Availability to use your Travel Rewards Credit Card Points??

Generally, airlines will only release award tickets when they know there is going to be a lot of availability. Since they are likely to sell out most seats during peak travel times you will really need to plan ahead if you want to use your travel awards during the summer or during holiday breaks (both are peak travel times since kids are out of school).

Your best bet for redeeming travel rewards credit card miles for award travel is to book way in advance or wait until the last minute. Airlines will generally release a couple seats many months in advance and then release a few more a couple days before the flight. Since it’s very unlikely that that seat will sell with only 24-72 hours to go, airlines figure they might as well let an award traveler use it.

Award travel is best reserved for trips where you have some flexibility but you can always book a trip with your rewards earning airline credit card.

What Happens When You Need to Buy a Flight?

If you just don’t have the patience to search for award travel or you need to confirm your travel plans immediately, then you’ll have to pay for your ticket the old fashioned way: with a credit card. But remember, you’re not just using any old credit card.

Airline travel rewards credit cards generally earn 2-3x points on their own airfare purchases and that flight will also earn you Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM’s). EQM’s are used to reach elite status and unlock benefits like first class upgrades, lounge access and more. But remember that how credit card airline miles work is you won’t get any EQM’s if you pay for your trip with miles.

What’s In a Mile

How Do Award Redemption Work?

If you’ve got some flexibility with your travel plans then award travel is going to be your new best friend. Most airlines charge double points for travel during peak times (if they even release seats at all) but only half that amount for off-peak travel. And unlike cash fares, one way tickets booked with miles will only cost you half the miles a round trip ticket would cost you.

You won’t get any frequent flyer miles when you redeem points for award travel but all of your other card benefits like priority boarding and free checked baggage (if applicable) will still apply. Some cards even offer discounted award fares to airline card holders so that’s something to keep an eye out for.

What Are Your Favorite Perks of Having an Airline Credit Card

You can book award travel relatively easily using your airline’s flight search engine. But one tool that I like to use is called Expert Flyer since it lets me save searches, set up alerts for award seats and search multiple airlines/routes.

Watch Out For Taxes & Fees

The last things you need to watch out for when redeeming miles for award travel are taxes and fees (like fuel surcharges). These fees are levied whether you pay for your ticket with your airline credit card or use your miles. Some carriers charge extensive fees and taxes to fly into certain airports but others like United won’t ding you for any fuel surcharge fees if you pay with points.

It all depends on the airline though so make sure you price out a few itineraries ahead of time. If you’re using points, most airlines will actually allow you to search for award travel even if you don’t have enough miles in your account to purchase that flight.

Keep the Miles You Earn on Your Travel Reward Credit Card

The first thing to remember is that any miles you earn through a co-branded airline travel reward credit card won’t be transferred into your account until a few days after your statement posts. This is important because you’ll want to ensure that your points post to your account before the terms of your sign-up bonus expires.

Sign-Up Bonus Miles

With most cards, the countdown usually starts as soon as your application is approved. In order to receive the sign-up bonus miles you were promised, you will need to spend a certain amount of money within a few months. The spend amount is always different but most credit card companies give you three months (90 days) to hit the spend. Generally, the better the benefits offered by that card, the more money you’ll have to spend. Three months may seem like a long time but remember that you won’t see the bonus points until the actual statement posts.

Hit Your Spend Requirements ASAP

If I have three months, I like to try and hit the spend requirement by the second statement. That way, I can make sure that the points on my travel reward credit card transfer without a hitch. If you wait until the third statement, you’ll be outside of your three month window and you’ll be out of luck. There’s nothing a credit card company or airline will be able to do if you don’t meet these terms.

The easiest way to check if you’ve met the required spending amount is to call or secure message your card issuer and ask them. Your other option would be to just add up the transactions yourself. But if you go this route, make sure you watch out for the following:

• Don’t include the annual fee as part of your spend amount since that doesn’t count towards spending.
• Error on the side of caution and spend a couple hundred over the requirement in case you need to return any items down the road. Technically, the airlines could come back after their points if you return an item months later and that could take you under the spend requirement. Returns definitely won’t count as spending before the three months are up so don’t include them in your calculations.
• Any type of cash advance will not count towards your spend so make sure none of your bank transactions are categorized in this manner. Citibank is notorious for categorizing any transaction with a bank as a cash advance.

In addition, considering using credit card organizer software to track your spending. Actually, the simplest way to do this is every month when your statement comes to go over the statement and then track the totals in an Excel spreadsheet. You can create a column for money spent that earns you the basic points and money spent in categories (such as travel) which may earn you additional points. Excel’s auto sum feature can help you add up your total spending easily.

Miles That You Earn From Purchases

There are lots of ways that you can earn miles but what you should worry about is how to hold onto them. Most airline miles will expire after one year of inactivity so if you aren’t earning points from flights, an airline credit card is a great way to ensure that your account stays active.

All you have to do to keep your points from expiring is make one transaction every 12 months. Since you get points for every purchase, those points will effectively reset your expiration date.

What Happens After You Cancel a Card?

This is one of the important credit card questions to ask of your card company or airline before you cancel a credit card. The nice thing about most airline credit cards is that the miles you earn won’t ever be taken away if you cancel your card. But, since some of these cards come with big annual fees, you might not want to keep every airline card that you sign up for. Try to do a quick assessment of your accounts every year and decide which annual fees are worth it and which ones aren’t. But check with your company before you cancel to see if you need to do anything with the points before you lose account access.

Most companies will give you up to two months to cancel your card and get the annual fee refunded if you decide you no longer need the card. And some issuers like Amex, will even pro-rate the annual fee no matter what month you cancel in. Either way, you can rest assured that your miles will be safe if you decide to ditch your airline credit card.

What’s In a Mile?

How do credit card bonus miles work? When you sign up for an airline credit card bonus offer or make a purchase on your airline card, you will earn regular old frequent flyer miles. There is another type of mile though which is usually referred to as an elite qualifying mile (EQM). These miles are earned through paid flights and are sometimes awarded as part of a sign-up bonus offer. Some cards might offer a 50,000 mile bonus sign-up with an additional 5,000 elite qualifying miles.

Racking Up Elite Qualifying Miles on your Airlines Credit Card

The easiest way to rack up EQM’s though is to purchase airline tickets. Any time you fly on a regular paid ticket, you’ll earn redeemable miles for an award ticket and elite qualifying miles based on the fare class you purchase. The redeemable miles are the same as the miles you would get from purchases on your airline credit card and can be used for award travel. The EQM’s are used for gaining elite status with that airline. Most airlines require a minimum of 25,000 EQM’s in order to attain the lowest level of elite status.

Why Go Elite?

When it comes to credit cards with rewards elite mile cards are the best! Some of the more popular elite status benefits include free business or first class upgrades, free exit row and premium seats, lounge access, free checked baggage, mileage bonuses and priority boarding. The higher your elite status, the more benefits you’ll receive, so you can see why so many people care about EQM’s.

The EQM calendar year runs from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31st and all of your EQM’s will reset at the end of each year. You probably won’t be able to achieve elite status with airline card sign-up bonus offers alone but they can definitely help.

If you fly a lot for personal travel or business, you’ll earn EQM’s on each and every flight so it’s important to keep track of where you stand. If you’re only a few thousand miles short of elite status, it might be worth it to sign up for that airline’s credit card if they offer an EQM bonus.

Heard of a Mileage Run?

Some travelers take it a step further and do what’s known as mileage runs. This is a flight that is solely for the purpose of gaining elite status. If you’re right on the edge of elite status, it might be worth it to charge a few hundred bucks on your airlines credit card for a short flight that will push you over the edge.

Some programs will even let you qualify on segments instead of flown miles. This is a big benefit to travelers who take a lot of short fights since it’s hard to rack up a lot of miles if you’re only flying a few hundred miles every week.

Things to Remember

The most important thing to know is that there is a big difference between credit card miles and EQM’s. You’ll still get redeemable miles every time you make a purchase with your airline credit card but you won’t get any EQM’s. Elite qualifying miles can only be earned through paid flights and credit card sign-up bonuses.

Anytime you see an advertised sign-up bonus offer, they are talking about redeemable miles, not EQM’s. The EQM’s are usually listed in the fine print and are in the 5,000-15,000 range.

The Last Way to Earn EQM’s: Spend A Lot!

There is one last way you can use your airlines credit card to earn EQM’s though and that is through reaching specific spending thresholds. Most cards won’t give you EQM’s for purchases but if you spend a certain amount (usually in the $25,000-$100,000 range) you can earn EQM’s. Most of the spending thresholds are pretty high but if you spend a lot of money every year you can rack up quite a few EQM’s.

Add this amount to the amount from your flights during the year and any sign-up bonus offer EQM’s and you could be well on your way to earning elite status without even knowing it. So make sure you stay on top of those.

A Business Class Seat Costs How Much?

My most recent European vacation ended in Istanbul since I was able to book two business class seats on Turkish Airlines for me and my wife. Everything from the lounge before the flight to the in-flight entertainment and dining options made this one of the most enjoyable flights of my life. I was actually dreading when the 9 hour flight would come to an end since I didn’t want to get off the plane!

Other passengers had paid thousands of dollars for this flight but all it cost me was a hundred thousand points for two seats. That might seem like a ton of points but I didn’t have to spend $100,000. Instead all it took was two credit card sign-up bonuses.

Why Are They Giving Away Free Points?

Normally in life, when things sound too good to be true they probably are. That isn’t always the case with airline miles credit cards though. Most airlines use sign-up bonus offers as a way to entice customers to join their loyalty programs and fly their airlines. They figure that if you fly with them once or twice for free, you’ll be more inclined to fly with them in the future.

Credit card companies actually have to buy the miles from the airlines in order to offer these large sign-up bonuses. You might be wondering why they would do that but they are relying on the fact that many people will end up making interest payments for years to come. But as long as you pay your bill on time and spend responsibly, everyone can win.

How Do Airline Miles Credit CardsSign-up Bonus Offers Work?

Many people wonder how credit card airline miles work, especially those big sign-up bonuses. The average sign-up bonus offer is around 25,000-50,000 miles but there are usually some caveats. You’ll need to spend a certain amount within a specific time frame and there is almost always an annual fee on these cards. But the fee is usually waived for the first year and you can often get the fee reduced or eliminated completely in following years by calling in and inquiring about a reduced or even waived fee. I do this every year with my Citi AAdvantage cards (American Airlines).

Once you meet the required spend, you should see the bonus appear in your frequent flyer account after your next statement posts. It’s as simple as that.

Sign Up With a Good Airline (and/or transfer partner)

If you’re just starting on your miles journey, the first thing you’ll notice is that there are a lot of airline credit cards out there. For your first card, make sure that you sign up with an airline that you actually intend on flying with. It wouldn’t make much sense to sign up for a domestic carrier’s card like Southwest if you only fly internationally. In that case, you’d want to sign up with one of the big boys like American Airlines or United.

The best part about signing up with an airline like American or United is that they also have an extensive list of partner airlines. American Airlines is a member of the One World Alliance which includes almost 20 partner airlines while United is a member of the Star Alliance Network which holds almost 30 members.

How to Land a 100,000 Point Offer

My normal threshold for a bonus sign-up offer is right around 50,000 miles. In order to stay on top of all the latest and greatest offers you can subscribe to our e-mail list or follow our updates on Twitter.

Every couple months, you’ll see some great offers pop up. Here are my simple steps to landing a great sign-up bonus offer:

• Make Sure Your Credit is in Order: Some of these cards require high credit scores so make sure that you don’t have too many inquiries on your credit report and your score is at least in the 700’s. You can get a completely free score from sites like Credit Karma or Credit Sesame and you can also get three free credit reports every year from annualcreditreport.com
• Figure Out Which Card You Want: Remember, not all airlines are created equal so pick a carrier that you fly frequently or has a wide variety of partner airlines.
• Keep an Eye Out: Sometimes the best offers are only around for a few weeks and other times they might last for months. Try to follow a couple points and travel blogs every week and you’ll stay in the know.
• Know What’s a Good Offer: A lot of cards like to run summer time promotions or temporary increases. So if you know that a card like the Amex Starwood Preferred Guest normally offers a bonus of 25,000 points, as soon as you see it go up to 30,000 points you should jump on that offer immediately. The SPG card is known for increasing it’s bonus for a limited time every summer.
• Meet all the Terms: Once you’ve applied and been approved, make sure that you understand all the terms of the card. I usually try to meet the minimum spend one statement ahead of time so that I’m not waiting until the last day to see if the points post or not.
• Stay Vigilant: Sometimes you’ll apply for a card and the very next week a better sign-up bonus will come out. There are no guarantees but you can often get your offer matched to the new and higher offer by e-mailing, calling or even tweeting. Chase is one of the best at matching offers.

What is an Airline Mile Credit Card?

If you received a credit card airline miles offers you may wonder how it differs from a traditional credit card. Airline credit cards are just like regular credit cards that you use every day but they’re linked to a specific airline. So when you make a purchase with your airline credit card, instead of getting 1% cash back or points deposited into your account you get airline miles deposited into your frequent flyer account. Normally, you provide your frequent flyer number when you apply for credit card airline miles offersand that’s how the two are linked.

Airline cards are sometimes referred to as co-branded cards since the card is usually sponsored by a credit card issuer. One example would be the Citi AAdvantage (American Airlines) card which gets you 1 AA Mile for every dollar you spend. So if you spend $10 on your Citi AAdvantage card, you’ll earn 10 frequent flyer miles with American Airlines.

Benefits of an Airline Credit Card?

One of the cool parts about an airline mile credit card is that even though you earn miles through your credit card, the points are actually deposited into your frequent flyer account. So if you ever decide to cancel your card, you’ll still retain the points in your frequent flyer account.

Since your card is also linked to your frequent flyer account, every time you make a purchase the new miles will reset the expiration date of your miles. Most airline miles expire after 1 year of inactivity and the only way to reset your clock is to fly and get miles deposited or spend money on an airline credit card.

Things to Watch Out For With Airline Cards

Some of the best airline cards will offer certain fringe benefits in addition to a large sign-up bonus. One of my favorite cards is the United Explorer Card since it comes with free first checked bag, priority boarding, no international transaction fees and 2 United Club Passes every year.

What Are Your Favorite Perks of Having an Airline Credit Card

How to Rack Up Miles Quickly

There are a few ways you can rack up miles with an airline mile credit card but if you want to fly business class for free like I do you’re going to need a lot of points. The best strategies for racking up miles involve spending money on your card, flying often for work or personal travel and enrolling in lucrative sign up bonus offers.

1. Spending Money on Your Card

This is probably the easiest way to rack up miles since we all spend money every day. I keep at least one airline card in my wallet at all times so that I can pay for pretty much everything with my card.

Most airline cards offer 1 mile per dollar spent but make sure that you also sign up with your airline’s dining program. All you have to do is link your card once and then you’ll get bonus miles every time you eat or drink at your favorite restaurants and bars.

Another cool way to earn points for purchases you already make is when you do online shopping. Instead of buying directly from a retailer’s site, use an online mileage mall and you will automatically get bonus miles for every dollar you spend. Those miles can add up quickly!

2. Fly With Your Favorite Airline

One of the perks of business travel is that even though your employer pays for your ticket you still get to rack up the frequent flyer miles. These miles are actually more lucrative than regular miles from credit card spend because they will help you attain elite status faster. Elite status can get you free upgrades, early boarding, free checked baggage and more.

What’s In a Mile

If you’re not a business traveler though, you can still earn a lot of miles for personal travel. When you book a flight with your co-branded airline card on that same airline you’ll often receive a 2-3x miles bonus for the credit card purchase and you’ll get miles added for the actual miles flown.

Booking Travel With Your Airline Credit Card

3. Sign Up for Lucrative Credit Card Offers

I don’t fly much for work and I don’t like to pay for airline tickets so this is my preferred method of racking up airline miles. Airlines know that travelers have a lot of options when it comes to flying and one method of enticement that they like to use is large sign-up bonuses. All this competition is a great thing because in just the last few years alone, we’ve seen sign-up bonuses top 100,000 miles several times with the average offer hovering around 25,000 – 50,000 miles.

Perhaps best of all, some people worry that credit card airline miles are taxable, but they are not. In fact, so many people had this worry that the IRS actually specifically wrote an announcement in 2002 to say that airline miles are not something you get taxed on. So go ahead and rack up those miles!!

Find Out How to Land a 100,000 Mile Offer

How to Land a 100,000 Point Airline Card Bonus Offer