Airline miles rewards

[QueenAdrock]

So do any of you have those credit cards that offer miles? What's the deal with those? I'm starting to look into one through Northwest, it tells me I pay $55 annually, and I'll get a mile for every dollar I spend, with no blackout dates. What exactly is a blackout date? What other underlying crap should I watch out for?

I dunno. I've never gotten one, and some of it seems to be a very good deal and I don't see why they'd offer it if there wasn't something in the small print that secretly screwed me over and gave them money.

[The Notorious LOL]

blackout dates means dates they dont allow you to use the miles.


I dunno, never looked into it extensively. Sun Country has a good program, I guess.

[Dr Deaf]

i used to travel on employee passes. the fees are still $75-100 and you're standby, but its as free as you can get.

booking last minute also guarantess an "SSSS" on your boarding pass, but whatever, i'm too legit to quit.

:cool:

[paul jones]

if I had got air miles in the last ten years I would have had lots from the 5 trips to Aussie and all the other trips

My new card offers them but I don't know about how to get them and all that but I ticked the box saying I wanted them so we'll see what happens

[yeahwho]

My sister flies to Alaska and back at least once a month, her mileage plan kicked in after 10,000 miles and she used her option to bump up to first class on the flights over the free flights.

If your going to fly more than 4 times a year or maybe 20 times in a three year period, do it! Get on the plan. Just make sure your airline goes to all the places you go.

[enree erzweglle]

I have had cards that give miles and others that give dollars back. Overall, I prefer the dollars-back card.

That said, here are some tips about those mileage cards:

Some mileage card companies put in place such heavy restrictions that it's incredibly tough to get reasonable bookings. This is not so much a restriction in terms of blackout dates but it's a restriction in terms of only offering so many "free" seats per flight. (The same is often true when you want to redeem "frequent flyer" miles.)

A good number of those mileage credit cards charge an annual fee, so you'll want to do a compare-and-contrast wrt that fee and the cost of buying tickets outright through places like priceline. Also, research the opt-out policy before you sign on with a card that has an annual fee. This one card that I was looking into once had a yearly fee and by agreeing to the terms, I would have had to agree to renewing the card two more times.

Last thing: check to see that the credit card company does not impose ceilings on how many miles you can accumulate in a single purchase. For example, even though my limit is $100K, my mileage card MIGHT not let me accumulate miles on a single $20K transaction.

[Documad]

I have the Northwest Airlines credit card and I fly all the time on Northwest so it's worth it for me. But barely. And I've been very frustrated lately by Northwest.

First, Northwest is the only airline I can reasonably fly anyhow because it's got a virtual monopoly on our airport. I wouldn't have the Northwest credit card if I wasn't already getting so many miles for flying Northwest.

Second, I buy things all the time that are supposed to give me extra miles (via promotions advertised through Northwest like having flowers delivered or renting a car) and in almost every case the miles never show up on my account. Also the 1000 extra miles they promise for checking in on line has never worked. I feel that I would have to keep elaborate records and write them letters all the time because it's a pain in the ass to protest and it's not worth it (which is what they're counting on).

enree is correct that it's better to get a free credit card that pays you cash back (the starbucks card gives you free dollars to spend there, my friends like the ebay card). I think that most cards cap the amount of miles you can earn in a year though. I charge EVERYTHING on the card and I probably get 20,000 miles per year that way. I pay off the balance every month. I couldn't have managed that when I was 25 years old.

And lately I have found that it's almost impossible to use the stupid miles. Like enree said, they don't have blackout dates but instead they have very few seats on flights where you can use the miles at the advertised rate. I'm supposed to get a domestic round trip ticket for 25,000 miles and we're a hub for the airline so I have a lot of possible flights. Yet I couldn't get a ticket anywhere for 25,000 miles during the summer and I can only get a ticket this fall if I want to go to NYC or DC (both have super low rates normally). I fly to Seattle a lot and I can never get a ticket to Seattle for 25,000 miles. They want 50,000 or 60,000. So I'm flying to Vancouver next time because I found flights for 25,000 miles -- I still had no choice of flights and couldn't do the return trip on the date I really wanted.

If you have loads of the miles, it is kind of fun to get a last minute trip by giving up a lot of extra miles. I spent 100,000 miles getting my friend and me to NYC for the Beastie Boys concert on one week's notice when I couldn't get normal tickets. That doesn't seem to happen anymore.

Sorry for the long post, but I've been dying to vent about the stupid Northwest miles. :rolleyes:

[The Notorious LOL]

I felt like such a dick flying northwest when all those guys were on strike. I actually apologized to a guy who was striking for flying with them. :(

[Documad]

Well the other option is to drive to chicago and fly out of there. :rolleyes:

About once every other year I get to fly on another airline and it's so amazing.