Anyone looked at the Orbitz Platinum card. You get a free ticket at 20K points, I assume from Orbitz, which seems to have pretty cheap prices. You can also get $100 off with 7500 points.

Plus you get FF miles for the flight...

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To avoid the capping problem, simplify your life and get the Visa/MC associated with the airline you fly most (Assuming it's not Delta, which only has an Amex).
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I currently use my Starwood card for that. The problem; however, is blackout dates and non-availability of award travel. I fly primarily on USAir and Continental and have accumulated several hundred thousand miles in those programs. Inevitibly, when it comes time to book free travel I either hit a black-out/non-available day and am forced to use considerably more than the 25K miles in order to avoid the black-out.

Life was easier when I had my MBNA card and could use any airline.

Ah, let's not forget about codeshare partner-related options for programs in which award redemption is allowed re: partner metal.

e.g. Let's say one's primary carrier is C, & one of their codeshare partners is Y. Furthermore, let's say that award redemption w/ miles from account Y, for flights on carrier C, are allowed. Having a credit card associated w/ mileage earning for account Y could allow one to redeem awards not only w/ carrier C (or, more accurately, w/-carrier-Y-but-on-C-metal), but also any in-common-w/-C or not-in-common-w/-C codeshare partners of Y (carrier A, etc.).

Call it a potentially flexible, backup/"CYA" plan.

I am looking for a relatively cheap (or free) MasterCard. I would love to get points on it if possible.

Can anyone tell me if the Orbitz card is low fee / free? Can you tell me if the Orbitz card is MC? (Must be MasterCard)

I fly UA (1K), then US (Gold), then DL, then AA (Exec. Plat.)

I stay with Hyatt (Diamond), Marriott (Platinum), Starwood (Gold), Hilton (Gold)

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

There is a United credit card that gives you one mile for ever $2.00 you spend and it is free. Do not have details.. but maybe do a search?

Betty --

I still think that the AMBNA AMtrak is what you would want as you can transfer on a 1:1 basis Amtrak points into UA miles in blocks of 5,000 as well as get 10,000 HHonors points if you wish instead. There is a Starwood option, but it is not good.

So if you haven't booked Amtrak as per above, do they go back to your airline frequent flyer account and debit all the 5,000 point transfers? Seems like the costs of keeping track of that would be more than it's worth...

This seems unlikely. In fact, if you've transferred miles to an airline, they become the airline's miles. But in the big picture, if you aren't going to take an Amtrak trip once every three years, you probably don't want the Amtrak credit card.

I disagree. It's the only card I know of that gives you 1:1 credit, has no annual fee, has a low foreign currency transaction fee, and has a 25 day grace period. If you are a UA or CO freq. flyer, this is a great deal.

Though this may be true in general, I still find many Visa/MC-only merchants for large purchases, such as furniture stores and landscape companies. Examine your own spending percentages before deciding that Visa/MC won't account for much.

For example, Amex accounts for 70% of my activity if I only include normal monthly expenses. But when I add in large house-related expenses that can only be charged to Visa/MC, Amex accounts for only 40% of the annual bill.

So if you're in a situation where Visa gets 60% of your miles, it's important to put some effort into picking the best Visa/MC card.

I would recommend that you find a visa/MC with a decent sign up bonus and keep it for a couple years. I would not recommend switching cards every year, I would rather not have my credit tugged that often. What I did was get the NW USBank Sig Visa. It had a $90 fee (I could have got the regular Visa for $55 but the limit was low), but so far, for the $90, I got:

5k signup
10k as it was a qualifier for FFF2
~10k for purchases

in about 3-4 months. So for $90 I already have a free ticket and counting. Now I also spent $500 with NW so I should get 5k more (they had a special promotion), then if I have it for 15 months total (and have to pay the $90 again - another thing with this offer) I get another 15k. I dont know if this offer is still going, but it was posted here quite heavliy here on FT.

You can get free cards that give you 1/$2, but it may be worth it to pay the fee for the extra miles, especially when you factor in the bonus miles.

THIS is the best card for all around air travel!!! The fee is $550.00 and the ticket can be purchased by ELAN on ANY airline. My wife will use her DELTA miles for a seat to Hawaii. I than make a reservation for the seat next to her and ELAN uses that reservation to buy the ticket and because they are buying a full fare ticket I get the airmiles.

www.elancard.com/cgi_w/cfm/Elancard/PersonalCards/VisaPlatinumTravel.cfm

I think the Royal Bank American Airlines Visa Gold card is the best value at 1 AA mile for every 0.67USD spent!