or the bank of america travel rewards card if they will offer it

There's a fairly complete list of miles expiration policies here:

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/04/airl...icies-roundup/

I have the regular LanPass Visa card, and I've been told that I can reset the expiration of my LanPass kms by flying a paid LAN flight. I have not looked into whether that would count paid AA flights with a codeshared LAN flight number or not. But even if not, I can afford to fly a paid LAN flight every two or three years until I no longer have their LanPass kms. If you can't, 3 years doesn't sound very good, compared to Korean Air, which is 7 years if you believe the chart at the link but 10 years if you believe the text further below on that page!

Avianca LifeMiles is not listed there, but here:

https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/abo/wnb/wnbtercond.aspx

it explains that expiration at that airline (unilike the other 3 you asked about) can be reset by any account activity:
This thread on FT suggests a couple easy ways that reset it (though the final verdict on whether donations of less than 100 miles actually work on was never reported):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avian...lifemiles.html

Avianca is part of Star Alliance, and thus partners with UA in the US. That might mean easier redemption (since UA's own redemption is much better than DL's and even somewhat better than AA's), I'm not sure.

Korean is part of SkyTeam, and thus partners with DL in the US. DL itself has some of the worst redemption availability, but I don't know how it is if redeeming from Korean.

Since those two have the best expiration policies, I presume you'll want to focus on researching them further, as oppososed to continuing to consider LAN or AeroMexico?

For each, you want to look into what various ways of earning miles (shopping portals, hotel and car rental partners, etc) there are in the US, so that you complement what earning you'd get from the secured card you choose.


... And welcome to FlyerTalk, donniegood!

Any idea on how the bank of America travel card rates for redemption

I'm not familiar with that specific travel card. But based on other travel cards I know about, it's probably just a cashback card with either the "cashback" equivalent restricted to travel or as a slightly better-valued option when used for travel.

In other words, the number of points you need with a "generic" travel card like this varies proportional to the cash cost of the flight. I don't know the exact "cashback" equivalent of this particular card, but the best ones max out at about 2.2% I think and many are lower. And with a "generic" travel card, there may no other way to earn points other than with the card. And so, to earn $400 in travel with a "generic" travel card that earns at about 2%, you'd need to spend $20000 on that one card.

On the other hand, the number of miles you need with a "real" airline program in most cases tends to be fixed, but sometimes there is availability and sometimes there isn't any. (With miles of the airline you're acutally flying, there may be a "twice the miles" option that gets you the "last seat", but that's not available when you're using a partner airline's miles to fly on another airline, which would be the case if you were using Avianca miles to fly on UA or Korean miles to fly on Delta.)

But with Aivanca miles, for example, you have more ways than just the credit card to earn the miles. So if you can use some of their partners to earn more miles, than you may earn the miles faster.

See, here's the big difference between an airline miles card and a "generic" travel card. The airline miles card earns miles that are transferred to the airline program. The can then be pooled iwth any other miles earned in that airline program (for example, for any paid flights you take on a partner airline, for car rentals or hotel stays, for shopping portal purchases, etc). A "generic" travel card's points stay with the card, they don't get transferred to anywhere. So unless the "geneirc' travel card's program has such partners (some have at best just a shopping portal, some don't even have that), there's not much in the way other ways to earn those same points.

How much spend do you think you would be putting on the card (whichever card you get) in a typical year? (Think about which things you can pay, without any "convenience fees" added, with a credit card and which things you either can't pay with a credit card or it isn't worth it because it costs more if you pay by credit card.)

Has anyone ever told you how amazingly helpful you are? I am going to look at who works with who next and go from there!

Currently DL miles don't expire. They have affiliate AmEx credit cards but IIRC also an affiliate debit card through SunTrust Bank.

Yea but none of those cards accrue DL miles

Looking for a secured card... rebuilding credit

OP asked a general question of which miles don't expire. Since the charge to DL miles not expiring is relatively recent, it might not be included in some of the general sources that aggregate mileage expiration information.

I think SunTrust is a debit card, but there might be a secured card option too. I would assume that AmEx doesn't offer secured cards.

I am the OP and I asked which of those cards is best or has miles that do not expire or if I missed any secured cards that have a good miles program

Sadly I think they don't have that card any more on their site on their debit cards do not list that

Dear OP,

IMHO, try a different approach--because, generally, secured cards are not really good for getting miles. Get a secured card or two (don't worry too much about miles right now) and make TIMELY payments for six months or so.

Then see about getting some unsecured cards with big bonuses. Some are tought (Chase Sapphire Preferred), some not so tough to get (reputedly Citi AA).

And, what I see as the important question: "How do I improve my bad credit?" would likely be better taken up on creditboards.com or by reading that and other credit sites (not flyertalk) such as http://www.stopbuyingcrap.com/credit...a-credit-card/

This is not really an FT issue.

United miles expire, but it's also very easy to push that expiration date out for another year because almost any account activity resets the expiration date, even if it's a $10 purchase through their shopping portal, or 50 miles from a market research survey. If you or spouse also have some free time, United is also the most generous program for picking up miles outside flights and credit cards- I've managed 40K of them from the aforementioned market research surveys and using sites like MyPoints in the past year.

Come on down to the SPAM folder for more details in that regard.

IMO the best rewards earning secured card is the Discover it secured, same rewards program as the unsecured card (e.g 5% rotating cash back categories). The following other cards have a rewards program attached to them:

• Discover it secured 1% cash back + 5% cash back rotating categories
• BankAmericard® Secured Credit Card 1% cash back
• Navy Federal nRewards Secured Card 1% cash back
• SKYPASS Visa® Secured Card 1x miles
• Harley-Davidson® Visa® Secured Card 1x harley points
• LifeMiles Visa® Secured Card 1x miles
• LANPASS Visa® Secured Card 1x miles
• AeroMexico Visa® Secured Card 1x miles

The real question is, why do you have bad credit and what are you doing to fix it? If you have bad credit for relatively minor reasons it'll be easy to get your score back into the excellent category and then you can focus on credit cards that have a proper rewards program rather than the weak programs currently offered on secured cards.

Feel free to PM me some specifics about your situation and I can help you develop a game plan for removing derogatory items from your credit report.