Originally Posted by
chuckd
I haven't been paying attention lately so I might be wrong, but CO and UA will be coming together in some fashion fairly soon (right?).
Wrong. I believe the
merger was off the table a while ago.
Sign up for UA's mileage plus and you'll get 10k miles when you graduate,
Well, not quite right. It's not the regular United Mileage Plus Program.
Students should join
United College Plus (for free) in order to earn the graduation bonuses. I believe you have to join before you graduation but have up to a year after graduation to claim the graduation bonuses. There are some threads over
UA Forum.
If you are just after easy miles, sign up for all the FF programs (it's free, so why not),
I don't think that's a good idea either.
First of all, some FFPs offer referral bonuses for sign-up. It won't be wise for OP to sign up for everything without checking out all the current referral bonuses offers.
Secondly, it's better to concentrate mile-earning in one FFP, especially for students without big spending power.
Nowadays if you have 15K miles here and 20K miles there, you will be nowhere near ONE free domestic award tix. Normally, for an award tix (with availability), you need 25K miles (and soon to go up to 35K for some FFPs), excluding the short-haul or special route promo. I don't fly Southwest and have no idea about the RR thingy.
Originally Posted by
jmp29
I'm currently a student (so not a particularly big spender and a little wary of annual fees) but I'm in the market for a new credit card
You may also like to check out our
Credit Card Programs/Partners Forum. I remember there were some threads with good advices for students in tight budget.
My advice:
1. Compare all the airlines and alliances.
2. Choose one FFP to bank all your mileage activities.
3. Try your best to fly airlines in the same alliance, so you can credit all your miles into one FFP.
4. Get the credit card affiliated with your chosen airline.
5. Most importantly:
Visit FT On a Daily Basis, so you won't miss out any goodie or bonus promo.
Welcome to FT,
jmp29!