Airline mileage clubs question? (1 Viewer)

[Ross Williams]

I was looking into changing my credit card into one of those that offers free "miles" with the purchases you make with it. 3000 free miles for signing up. 1 mile for every $1 spent, that kind of thing. My question is how long before I'm racking up free flights?

 

[Janna S]

Go to the web page for the mileage account and there will be a chart listing how many miles it takes for each airline/type of flight. Alaska mileage is good for flights in as little as 15,000 miles, I think. Most of the flights I get with Alaska mileage (on Alaska Airlines & Northwest) take 30,000 miles. It's amazing how fast my mileage adds up - I put everything possible on my credit card, get mileage for flying, get mileage for phone calls, etc. It's well worth it (I PIF the credit card every month). I use or give away mileage tickets every year.

 

[Dennis Reno]

I use a Wachovia Travel Rewards card. Like Janna, my wife and I charge everything to the card and PIF every month. If you plan on PIF reward cards are a great idea. However, if you carry a balance you may want to look into cards with lower rates.

The Travel Rewards cards has three or four "zones" setup in the Continental US. I think that flights within your zone can be purchased with 18,000 miles. Outside your zone requires approx. 21,000 miles. (Don't quote me on any of these, I'm doing this strictly from memory!)

You are also limited by the cost of the flight. For example, for a flight in your zone they will reimburse you up to a $400 (again, going from memory!) Anything over that amount is your responsibility. So don't plan on grabbing that first class trans-Atlantic seat!

Overall we have been very happy. We use the CC miles to purchase flights and then use my frequent flier miles to upgrade for longer flights.

 

[Greg Rowe]

I know the question was related to airline travel but since this is HTF...

I have a citibank SONY card. You get 1 sony point for every dollar spent, or 3 for every dollar spent on sony products. You can then "spend" your sony points on sony products - any sony product. Since sony owns columbia - tri star every DVD I buy from columbia tri-star is free!

You get 50,000 sony points right from the start (that's 50$). So far I have gotten:

1 free vcr
Men In Black LE
Groundhog day
...and some other dvds that I can't remember!

 

[Ross Williams]

Thanks for chiming in Greg. I think I'll actually look into getting a Sony card instead. Since I buy much more in the way of DVDs and such, than airline flights. Just thought it'd be nice to get a free flight now and then. Next time I buy airline tickets though, I'm going to sign up with their regular mileage club.

 

[Jay H]

I have the Sony Card, you can also get GCs and stuff to Blockbusters so it makes going there a little easier. But you can also get music CDs and PS2 accessories and games.

I tend not to fly on one single airline so the airline miles isn't that useful to me. Do make sure you find out when your points expire because it would suck to be racking up the points but then be limited on when you can use them because they expire shortly.

Jay