Originally Posted by
7gui7
I'll look into the credit card thing. You still get miles if you pay it off on time so as to not get charged interest, right? Because in that case it'd be basically free miles, and I could pretty much pay everything (tuition, food, day -to-day stuff) with the CC.
In general you get one mile for each $ spent, and you can (and should) pay on time. it's usually two miles per $ for purchases on the sponsoring airline, and occasionally special bonuses are offered for purchases within a certain period. Many cards waive fees for the first year for new customers. The airlines also run dining programs, which offer special bonuses for dining at participating restaurants.
Your choice of airline will depend on where you live in the USA and where you want to go in Europe. UA and AA (in that order) have better availability than DL for award travel, and UA has a stronger list of European partner airlines for that purpose.