I am a newbie to the board and was just referred from another site after posting a msg seeking credit card rewards.

I have been perusing the credit card boards and am overwhelmed with my head spinning more than ever! You guys certainly have your own lingo here!

I have Wells Fargo and Chase rewards cards that give me 1% cash back on purchases, and occasionally they have deals on gas and groceries up to 5%. I have not paid much attention to these rewards until recently since traveling more.

I take a few trips per year intercontinental and like to go overseas every 1-2 yrs. I do not have any credit cards from the major airlines, and do not have AmEx or Discover.

I am wondering if there would be a benefit to getting, for example, AAdvantage or United Chase or etc etc card and getting mileage vs using my current cards and getting cash back to spend on travel.

In general, without seeing the details of the specific cards, is one more beneficial than the other? Are the mileage rewards programs easier to get tickets with the 1% back vs cash back? Do you get cheaper fares with these cards?

Please help or direct me in the right direction!

Thank you!

Cheap-out answer: It depends. On a lot of factors.

But, it is possible to redeem miles for over 1 cent/mile value. However, if your annual credit card spending is not substantial, the difference may not be worth the effort.

The real quick gains from getting airline cards is usually in the sign up bonus. American has cards with 50k miles bonus, 55k miles for the United card, etc. Applying for multiple cards is how many of us on this board rack up the miles for travel. Also note that some points, e.g. Ultimate Rewards points, are transferable to airline miles (if you have the right card). If I were you, I would start saving all points earned on your Freedom card.

To start out, I would just continue to explore this forum, in particular the Creedit Card and Milesbuzz! subforums. Check out the FT new users guide, which includes a link to a glossary of commonly used terms.

Anyway, welcome to FlyerTalk!

Do you have link to the 55K United card bonus? I only see "up to 40K" on their site.

Also, at what annual credit card spending amount would you say the the difference between 1% cash back on generic rewards card vs some of these travel miles rewards card come into play? 20K spending? 30K?

Look at the first thread on the MileBuzz page for a list of current credit card offers. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...er-thread.html

If you later decide to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (40,000 pts) or Chase Ink Bold card (50,000 pts), you would be able to transfer the Ultimate Rewards points earned on your Freedom card to the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold Ultimate Rewards account, and from there you could transfer them to United, British Airways, Korean, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, or Amtrak. When transferring points to United and redeeming them for international flights in a premium class, you can easily get more than two cents value per point, thus doubling the return on your spending. In May 2011 I redeemed 80,000 AA miles for two off peak coach tickets from Seattle to Rome, Italy. The tickets cost $1100 each, so I figured that I got $0.0275 per point value.

In general it is best to start with a travel goal and focus on one or two loyalty programs. American and United both have great frequent flyer programs if they work from your home airport. I believe you can get a higher return by booking tickets with frequent flyer miles, than by using a program that gives you a fixed value per point (generally $0.01 to $0.0133 per point). However, you need to plan further ahead, be flexible, and sometimes persistent to use them. Some people would rather use a fixed value program because it is so much easier.

I would recommend starting with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card because it works with the Freedom card you already have. But the Citi AA cards have their advantages also.

Yes the above is the place to go. It also sounds like you have the Chase Freedom Card. By opening a Chase Sapphire Preferred you can transfer points from the Freedom card and get 2-3cents worth of value on UA FF flights and a 40,000 point sign up.
I know it seems like alot now, but after reading, reading and reading it will start to make sense. Good luck it takes time.

Thank you so much birdseye, jjmiller, AAL, aarif! This has been very helpful!

The 55k link only shows when you're logged into your United account and you have miles. If you're just signing up for a United FF account then you can get 1 mile by using the United shopping portal to purchase a song from iTunes. After the mile from the purchase shows up, you'll see the 55k link.

As for annual spend, mine is about 20k. A) If I only put that on a 2% cash back card I would get $400, not bad. B) If I put it on a miles earning credit card I would probably get between 20k and 40k miles, depending on category bonuses. I wouldn't advise either of these, because there's a secret choice C: Sign up for lots of credit cards throughout the year and use your normal spending to meet the minimum spending requirements. Depending on how good your credit is and how well you plan your credi card applications, it wouldn't be difficult for a newcomer to get 400-500k airline miles and hotel points in a 12 month span. No matter how you value miles and points 400k miles/points>>$400.

I am not used to paying annual fees on credit cards, and most of these great airline rewards cards, or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Plus, have annual fees.

How can I decide if the reward is worth the $95 annual fee? If I got 1% cash back on a no annual fee card that is about 10K of spending per yr that I would have to do just to 0 out the reward. A few of you above said you can get more than 1% worth of rewards which seems like it would make up for it as you spend more.

I would love to get your thinking behind these annual fee cards. Thanks!

You're getting two conflicting types of advice in this thread. Let me try to sort it for you. (One thing you will need to figure is how valuable any particular type of mile or point is to you. However, for now, let's assume an airline mile is worth 1.5 cents.)

CHOICE A:
Sign up for lots of credit cards, specifically for the signup bonuses, and cancel most of them after 11 months. If done the right way, this will not damage your credit and you will earn tons of travel. As a newbie, you could easily score 300k+ of miles. At 1.5 cents each, that's worth at least $4500 in the first year. The annual fees are irrelevant - most waive it the first year and if not the signup bonus easily makes up for it.

CHOICE B:
Maximize only what you spend on a daily basis, over one or two cards. If you're spending, say, $2000/month on cards, then you can earn about 30k in miles in a year. Those would be worth about $450. Your alternative is a 2% cashback card, which would pay $480. Unless you travel a lot already, for most people, daily spending makes more sense on a 2% cashback card, since it takes so long to earn enough for a free ticket otherwise.

So which is it, SkiesBlueH20? Which path is yours?

I like Choice B cash rewards, but I have not seen anything more than 1% cash back. What cards do you know of that have 2% back?

Also, for choice A, it seems you would have to consolodate all of your points towards 1 reward to make use of this. I know you can move point around with Chase, but is this possible with different cards?

And you said "if done the right way, this will not damage your credit", how do you do it the right way?

And why do you cancel at 11 mos? Do you have to pay annual fee at month 12 or something?

Thanks!

You're intrigued. I can tell.

The most popular one here is the Fidelity Investment Rewards Amex: https://www.fidelity.com/cash-manage...-express-cards

2% on everything, must be deposited into a Fidelity account but they have a no-fee cash management account you can use, then transfer to another bank if you want to.

Depends on what you want to redeem for. The signup bonuses tend to be in multiples of 25k, which happens to be exactly enough for a domestic round trip in most programs. But each signup is as high as 100k, which is enough to go almost anywhere without transferring.

Lots of threads here and on creditboards.com about managing credit. The most important factors are always paying your bill in full and on time; never letting statements close near your credit limit; keep at least 6 months buffer (preferably 1 year) between any applications and applying for a mortgage or other loan; keep several cards for the long haul to keep a high average age of accounts. If you do these things, your scores will stay at or near the top bracket and you'll have access to the lowest interest rates when you need it. See also http://www.myfico.com/crediteducatio...yourscore.aspx
(Heads up for long-time FTers: That page was just updated and is a little more detailed.)

Yes. Tho there are quite a few cards that have benefits that offset the annual fees or that often give out retention bonuses.

If you're still looking at Choice B, go get yourself that Fidelity Amex and enjoy! If you want to be more aggressive, there's a ton of reading for you to do. First, figure out where you want to travel and what level of quality and explore the forums here for each mileage/points program to understand how they work - at least the major ones (United, American, Delta). Most have "sticky" threads for newbies. There is a substantial learning curve and only you can decide if it's worthwhile for you.

Wow, thanks MdTr-Chicago!

1 more stupid question: why the Fidelity Amex and not the Fidelity Visa? And taking it further, I wonder why does the Fidelity Amex give you 2% right off the bat vs Visa 1.5% for first 15K then 2%. Both have no annual fees.

When considering visa vs amex, is 1 more wide accepted when traveling, or what are differences?

Thanks again!

You just answered your own question.

Visa tends to be. You might want to consider carrying the Fidelity Amex when in the US and a different Visa with no foreign transaction fee when outside of the US. There is a sticky thread in this forum with a list of no FTF cards. The Capital One Venture card might work - it's still 2% back but only when redeemed as a statement credit against travel purchases.

Same experience until I found here. This is amazing if you know these credit card tricks. I spent over half a million on my credit card and only get something like 1% cash back before. Now almost all my first class flight tickets and five star hotel spending are paid by points and miles.

Two amazing credit cards I think best are Chase saphire preferred card and chase ink plus business card.