Best miles credit card

Ricardo

I am done with Delta and its American Express card, They have ridiculously raised the number of miles required to get a reward ticket; used to get an international flight for 35,000 miles, now you need 70,000 if you book early enough, sometimes over 100,000 miles.

I've seen other options that offer double miles, any airline, no blackouts, etc, but does anyone have real experience and can recommend a miles card?

Thanks.

PhantomOG

depending on your spending habits, sometimes it best to get a card with the best cash back on whatever you spend the most. I wouldn't ever want to deal with trying to book a flight using rewards as you said it seems like too much of a hassle.

For a recommendation, the Penfed Visa Platinum is pretty good. 5% cash back for gas, 2% cash back for groceries, 1% for everything else. Plus its a "true" cash back, every month they credit your account with the cash back amount. No silly points and redemptions to deal with.
https://www.penfed.org/productsAndRates/creditCards/RewardCards.asp

Ricardo

Thanks Phantom. Not really looking for a rewards card, unless I can't find a good miles card. The AMEX Delta card has some cool benefits like extra miles when you renew, free ticket every year, etc. That plus we use it for everything so combined we were able to get "free" tickets worth more than 5% of our total expenses. But with what Delta has done on miles requirement this is not true anymore.

szhleppy

I've noticed the same thing Ricardo and just did a little research with the intention of leaving Amex for something better. Some people prefer cashback, some prefer points for purchasing products, some prefer points for travel....
I typically use points for personal travel...it seems to be the best value for the points and also is a good motivator to burn some vacation time. With this in mind, it looks like the Amex Blue Sky is going to be the best card for my needs. Rather than being restricted to the point conversion through either Amex's travel site (membership rewards program) or even Delta's, you just use your Amex to purchase travel through any website or travel agent...wherever you can find the best deal or best arrangements for what you want to do. Amex will then reimburse your statement at a conversion of $100 for every 7500 points....turns out to be about $.013/point. This is significantly better than the Amex Membership Rewards value, which used to be a great program but now seems to be worth about $.005/point. With the Blue Sky, I like the flexibility of being able to use these points for any portion of the travel and with any vendor, rather than being restricted to a single airline or hotel vendor like you would with the Delta card or Starwood card.

Ricardo

Thanks szhleppy. Will look into that one.

SolidSqual

I like my United Miles Card. The Saver Reward miles let me fly anywhere in the USA at 25,000 miles and to China for 50,000. They also have a new feature that allows you to use both cash and miles to pay your way. It's nifty if you have some miles left over that otherwise wouldn't be enough for a ticket.

punk-roc

I just got the Alaska Airlines Visa CC... if you fly alaska (which i usually do, since I live in the NW) its pretty darn good. has an annual fee, but you get a free flight if you qualify for the Signature level card and a yearly $99 companion ticket...

Jason

Sherardp

I would say United or anything under Star Alliance group.

punk-roc

found this while surfing around yahoo...

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/109386/making-sense-of-the-new-card-offers?mod=bb-creditcards