MilesBuzz! - How to choose Airline, Credit Card, etc.

Hi,

New to this forum and all the options seem daunting. My wife and I fly once or twice a year from CLT/GSP/ALT to visit family back in chicago, usually (ORD). We are planning a trip to Europe next year (UK, Germany, Italy, etc) and I'm wondering which is the best program to sign up for (Airline, Credit Card or anything else). We put almost EVERYTHING on our credit card and pay it off each month and typically fly Airtran or whatever is cheapest back to the chicago area. Can anyone help me out with what my best options would be? Thanks in advance!

why don't you scroll thru the next 4 or 5 pages of the threads....you will find a # of threads like yours.....or search on what program.....good luck...

edit to add.....1 is a bit down this page called starting out....

edit again....tried which program search & ft deleted the which....too many results on program....

so, i suggest reading the stickies at the top..... and i saw 3 or 4 threads in the first few pages...

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.5.0.110 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Which hotel chain do you frequent and do they have a branded credit card? Can those points be easily convert to air miles? Which airline other than Airtrans flies to your destinations and are you willing to spend more $ to switch?

Airtran doesn't do you a lot of good in conjunction with a European flight.

But since you only fly from the Southeast to ORD 1 or 2x a year a legacy program won't get you a lot of miles for your trip.

That being said, an AA credit card will get you a bunch of miles fast.

Get one for your self, one for your wife and you will have enough mikes almost instantly to upgrade from coach to business (plus a co-pay) for one leg of your European trip.



Hi,

New to this forum and all the options seem daunting. My wife and I fly once or twice a year from CLT/GSP/ALT to visit family back in chicago, usually (ORD). We are planning a trip to Europe next year (UK, Germany, Italy, etc) and I'm wondering which is the best program to sign up for (Airline, Credit Card or anything else). We put almost EVERYTHING on our credit card and pay it off each month and typically fly Airtran or whatever is cheapest back to the chicago area. Can anyone help me out with what my best options would be? Thanks in advance!

are you thinking about award tickets? or?

If you're not worried about your credit rating (i.e. no mortgages on the near term horizon), then there's little downside to adding a modest number of credit cards over the course of the next year. For example:

-BA
-AA * 2 or 3 (it looks like Citi's tightening up the reigns on that front, but the door is still somewhat open)
-a hotel program or two
-a points based program like TYN (nothing exciting in this area at the moment)
-any other really generous offers that come along (the CC companies never fail to outdo each other)

Basically, just keep your eyes peeled for the cards with the most generous sign-up bonuses and be ready to jump. It's a bit more complicated than that because certain issuers have specific rules about how recent inquiries affect their decision processes. Fortunately, specific offers (that are good) invariably result in long threads here with all sorts of data points.