Originally Posted by
arlflyer
If you want to earn airline miles, spend money on airline cards. Focus on signup bonuses as they will earn you an order of magnitude more points/dollar than ordinary bonused spend.
Definitely agree with focusing on CC signup bonuses as best you can.
But I will state where, other than with Marriott points, could you earn more than 20 airline miles per $ spent? (Assuming one orders a Travel Package award which comes with a 1-to-1 hotel point to airline mile transfer of up to 120K or even more.) Each program has its good/bad points, but I still feel that Marriott has possibly the best hotel award in any program with their TP awards. And with Southwest, not only could you get 120K airline miles, but you will get a Companion Pass to use for the rest of this year and all of next. ^
So if airline transfers are where you are looking and you can acquire more than 270K Marriott points, then that program is hard to beat. But yes, Marriott does have other issues (i.e. in general Hilton has much better non-FS hotel options.)