posted 05-21-2005 07:53            

Tip: If traveling to a popular destination, grab what you can and waitlist for what you desire. Usually, it will come through, albeit late in the game.

For example, if Maui is destination, try to snag it for other dates, or even get your dates to Kona or Lihue (both more difficult than Honolulu) and waitlist for Maui. Just be persistent. Be aware, on United, there is a fee for talking to a human for ticket purchases. Not significant, in light of the value being persued, but worthy of mention. IIRC, on award tix, there isn't a fee for changes, but I made need to update. Fees are the newest tangential revenue stream idea, so are always changing

Edited to add that, personally, I carry the UAL VISA, MR VISA and SPG AMEX. Nice mix, given our flight patterns, timeshare ownership and hotel stay patterns. We usually fly on awards 3-5 times per year and stay 7-9 nights on hotel awards per year.

Pat

posted 05-22-2005 08:43               

quote:

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Originally posted by buzzy:
I am also thinking of just sticking with my cash rebate cards instead because of all the restrictions that are placed on you were you want to use your miles.

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posted 05-22-2005 10:46               

quote:

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Originally posted by bellesgirl:
I will stick with the cash rebate cards. I get about 2% rebate when I use my credit cards and there is no annual fee. $25,000 in purchases gets me $500 in cash vs. 25,000 ff points. With that $500 I can buy a domestic ticket with absolutely "no hassles".

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The no hassle part is what I like. I just can't help but think about how you can get a $700.00 ticket for $25,000.00 spent on your cc. That is to me the only way it pays. Not for the $150.00 ticket to Orlando. It seems like you get more bang for your buck.

posted 05-22-2005 14:10               

Don't forget the many incentives that Amex runs which means that you can rack up a free ticket for much less than $25,000 spent. Delta Amex just ran a double miles promo for two months and do so often. You also get anywhere from 10,000 to 12,5000 miles with your first purchase if you get the Gold card and 15,000 miles for the Platinum card. Regular Amex just had a promo where you could get between 15% and 20% more miles for depositing your Membership Rewards points into frequent flier programs. Also, the Amex Starwood card will get you an extra 5,000 Starwood points for a 20,000 Starwood deposit which translates into 1:1 trade back into most frequent flier programs.

You can rack up 25,000 miles very eaily without having spent close to $25,000.

posted 05-22-2005 14:49               

For those with Delta Amex, another double miles promo is coming for all purchases made in July and August . Remember to register for this promo starting June 1st.

Edited to add that if you decide to sign up for the Starwood card, go to the information about the card on the Amex site and then leave that page. When you do you will get a pop-up that will give you 4,000 Starpoints upon your first purchase with up to an additional 6,000 points the first year for a total of 10,000 points instead of the regular sign-up bonus which gives you nada for simply making a purchase and up to a max of 6,000 points for Starwood stays.

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Danielle

posted 05-22-2005 15:08               

Another alternative would be to consider Diners Club. In North America, the Diners Club franchise is owned by Citibank, and they are in the process of rebranding the DC card to contain the Master Card logo so that we'll be able to use the DC charge card wherever MC is accepted. You earn one DC point per dollar spent and can transfer DC points to miles at the rate of 1:1 to most major airlines (AA, UA, DL, CO, NW, Southwest, Alaska, America West, Frontier, Hawaiian) and many international airlines (BA, AF, Korean, Thai Airlines, El Al, Virgin, and many others). There is a small fee per 1000 points transferred to cover the excise tax. (I think it's 95 points, or you can pay 95 cents cash per 1000 miles or per SW Rapid Rewards credit transferred.) There's usually an annual bonus for transfers to BA. Recently, as I recall, there was a bonus for transfers to AA. Transfers to SouthWest are 1500 points to one Rapid Rewards credit.

As far as the transfer of points to miles is concerned, it's the most flexible of any of the mileage cards.

DC is a charge card, not a credit card.

DC is expensive, I think it's $85 per year, but it has some benefits not offered by any other card, like primary rental car insurance, except for NY residents because NY law requires your auto policy to provide primary rental car insurance.

If anybody is interested in DC, send me an email, since there's a way to get a sign up bonus that gets both the referrer and referral bonus points.

If you're interested in more information, go to www.dinersclubus.com and follow the links to Club Rewards. Eventually, there will be a link for the online Club Rewards catalog. There's lots of things you can buy with points besides airline miles, but those are generally valued at around 1 cent per point.

I travel a lot, so I carry several cards. In addition to DC, I have the SPG Amex, UA Mileage Plus Visa, AA World Mastercard and a Capital One/Miles One card. UA Mileage Plus has the best sign-up bonus (at least 17.5k using the link at www.united.com sometimes you can find a 20k sign up bonus.) My primary airline is United, so that's the mix that makes sense for me. I generally don't transfer my SPG points into miles, I use them for hotel rewards.

In any event, I think that the DC card is much better than the Amex Membership Rewards program (not to be confused with the SPG Amex .. it's a different Amex program). It's more flexible, offers more airlines. It's the only card that covers all the US major airlines at good transfer ratios, and the Amex cards don't offer primary rental car insurance.

Regarding the cash rebate cards, I get more value than 2 cents per mile out my airline miles. I use my miles for upgrades and international business and first class awards. I wouldn't use miles for that $150 flight to Orlando. I guess the benefit and value per mile is up to you and how you intend to use your miles.

For example, I just purchased 3 first class tickets between Honolulu and Phuket for next March for 120k UA miles per ticket. The cost of those tickets would be over $8,000 each if you were to purchase them in full fare F. On the other hand, I would never purchase them using my own money, so what is the value per mile? Certainly it's subjective, but I value them at much more than 2 cents per mile on this trip.

-David

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Visit our Kauai and Maui home page at http://www.flex.com/~dmk/tug/

posted 05-24-2005 15:03               

Recently, there was a June 1 - Aug.31 blackout placed on use of Delta Skymiles for travel to, from, or in Europe on Air France and KLM. The blackout did NOT apply to their other partners on this side of the pond like Continental, Northwest, and AeroMexico. It was clear that this was a ''Delta thing'', but more recently it has come out why it happened. Delta cut back on award seats to Europe so much this summer on its own planes that SkyMiles members were turning heavily to Air France and KLM to use their Delta Skymiles. That led to the blackout. Delta is now a joke for summer ff travel to Europe.

So far, there is no word if this will continue for next summer.

I am now wondering if I will be able to burn any of my pile of Skymiles next summer. DAE got me an exchange on the French Riviera in late June, and I'd really like to fly into Nice on Air France.

posted 05-25-2005 03:00               

quote:

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Originally posted by KevJan:
So, the bottom line for me is to use my Capital One miles for cheaper flights and more expensive flights get the use of my American Express.

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posted 05-25-2005 09:33               

Since AA doesn't fly to Missoula, MT where my son is a college student, I've tried using UA, NW and DL miles. The best routes and availability are with UA. NW is OK and DL never has flights available on the right days.

As far as credit cards go, I'm also a big fan of Starwood's Amex card. I like the versatility of using the points for hotel stays or transfers to airlines.

I find the most promotions, however, with my UA card. And the most promotions in general from AA - cereal, Cinemark cups, various shopping deals have netted me thousands of miles.