British Expatriate Network

Ours gives one point per $, it costs 50,000 points for a flight to Europe. And points expire after 3 years. Anyone get a better deal? Surely there aren't worse deals out there?

(This is US)

What does a flight cost? I have Chase card that pays me one cent on the dollar, it can be taken as cash. There are time limits but you can put it into a savings account to accumulate. I pay for just about everything with it and pay it off each month.

I get many offers for similar type C/C
you get a point allowence on the $ you spend but pay a highter interest rate then the standard remember nothing is for nothing you pay one way or the other .

better to get a low rate inteest card of one with 6 /12 months interest free .

what they do is charge you more interest making more profit, and then turn around and give you back a little

I don't pay interest, I pay it off each month. I only buy what I could afford to pay cash for. I let the people who do pay interest, subsidise me. My thanks to those who contribute. :grin:

I f you can do that Micheal your on a winner, :-)but as you say everybody cant /wont and once you let the amount owed get highter than you can pay of each month THEY HAVE YOU in there web .

im the same i use my amazon card like a bill at the end of the month i pay it off before due date .

I have 2 amazon reward certificates worth $50 in the credit bank and one more should be arriving this week we get a lot of stuff with them and as amazon is tax free we are winners there as well

The interest rate is immaterial to us also.

Yes, Michael, am also comparing it to the cash back options. Flights to Europe are 50,000 miles, the cash back on that would be $500 + interest, so it's probably better than the cash back option (especially for summer flights) -but not by much. But if there was a better airmile deal out there....

Another advantage of the cashback option is that there are no "blackout" (terminology?) dates, although, I guess, prices go up on those dates.

If you book early enough you can bypass the black out dates, or so I did this year.
I just booked a direct flight home for Christmas week for 50,000 miles with my frequent flyer miles. I was suprised that I could get there during peak booking season for so few miles.

We have airmile credit cards through United and American Airlines - only because my husband mainly travels with these for work. It is useful to charge things like college tuition (the United card gave double miles last year for education expenses, so that was a biggie) and my husband charges a lot of work expenses so they can soon add up. They're both 1 mile per $
I hear from the booking people on the phone, however, that the numbers of airmile seats per flight have been reduced pretty much accross the board, but I always have success booking as early as possible - eg 40,000 miles to go to the UK at Christmas with AA miles, and 60,000 to go to NZ in January with United miles.
As others have said we just make sure it's always paid in full each month (I have it automatically taken out of my bank account just in case I forget!).
I'm also interested to hear what other deals are out there....

Don't travel enough or spend enough to warrant such a card but my boss has the United one and charges to it heavily, including tuition etc. and he seems to be swimming in air miles and constanly off travelling.

There's an annual charge for that one though I think so cheapskates like me need not apply wink

I only use my airmiles for class upgrades anyway.

Well, the only card I use that has some serious mileage clout is American Express with it's Membership Rewards program. Simple, the rewards never expire and there's a whole slew of things that you can do with them.

They have an Amex "Blue" card which is a CC, vs a charge card.

Plus, the coverage's that Amex has in place, travel insurance, rental car coverage etc etc is very very good.

Andrew )

Oo, I've just got one of those, I feel very vindicated in my decision.

I do have a Blue Card but hardly use it, moreover it's there just in case for emergencies if something crops up out of country...

I simply use my Amex gold card for everything, even buying coffee (when and if I hit a Starbucks or similar) but the membership rewards are very very good plus I like the fact that you pay it off each month.

But we've done well out of travel with the rewards trips to Europe, UK, OZ...

Andrew