So my fiancee and I are new to the mileage/reward game, and to be honest, the information out there is staggering.

We are looking to each apply to a credit card so we can earn the most rewards for future vacations. This originally came with the goal of using points/rewards to use on our honeymoon, but that is only a few months away, so realistically rewards will be for future travels.

We live in a major metro area, and although we do travel domestically, there is no where we travel regularly. I logged maybe 12000 miles last year, mostly with different airlines and we have no allegiance to any particular airline or domestic destination. We would like to use our rewards to travel internationally, and use them either on air flights or hotels, although we don't typically go to places that have major hotel chains.

We will be having several large expenditures $10k+ for the wedding, so we would like to maximize that big spending into earning some rewards.

In doing research, it seems like most blogs and websites are sponsored by the same credit card companies, and so we would are looking for advice from actual card users. Please help!

Thanks!

Welcome Trojansdds.

If you aren't tied to a specific airline or destination, I'd recommend a card that earns flexible points. Top pick is the SPG Amex earns Starpoints that can be transferred to many major airlines, with a bonus of 5K miles for each 20K transferred.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred gets a lot of buzz. The main advantage over the SPG Amex would be double points for bonus categories that include travel and restaurants - and many frequent travelers have a lot of spend in those categories. But your wedding expenditures won't qualify for that. Your honeymoon might, though...

One caveat on the SPG Amex is that once Marriott completes the purchase of Starwood, and eventually merges the loyalty programs, the transfer options may likely change. So Starpoints might not be the best choice if you're looking to travel several years down the road.

If you don't travel to places where major chains are a thing I'd start using something like hotels.com for their free room every 10 nights (you get a credit for the average room price of the previous 10 stays). I use this for all my non SPG & Hyatt stays even when staying with other chains.
As for cards to get the Amex Gold Premier Rewards 50k point bonus seems to be back again and the Business version can be a 50k,75k or 100k bonus depending on the time you apply. Amex Membership Rewards (MR) can be transferred to many airlines which is an advantage. Off-Peak BA awards are a huge value. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a common card but I don't use anything Chase so I'll let others talk about the benefits of the Ultimate Rewards programs.
There is a subforum all about credit cards further down the list from the information desk. Start reading the wikis in the information desk & credit card forums and you'll get better ideas of what will be best for you.

It might be useful if you told where you live and if you have any particular travel goals.

For example, Atlanta might lead people to recommend Delta as it's HQ is in Atlanta. But if you're in Miami, they might recommend American.

Also, knowing if you have a dream trip to London might make a difference compared to going to Las Vegas.

Don't forget, you might save money paying cash to the wedding vendors. Might be better than the points!

That was my first thought too. It's always good to know where you live, since that might determine an appropriate strategy.

Congratulations! And welcome to FT!

To make a long and complicated story short, the name of the game in airline miles and hotel points accumulation right now is getting a number of cards that each offer bonuses (most typically, 50,000 for signing up or initial spending of $1,000-$5,000 within a few months, though all of this varies from card to card and even from month to month). You can start to learn more by pouring through the various sub-forums and threads at the Credit Cards, etc., forum here at FT.

Now, once you get a given card, it can be useful for ongoing spending. The Citi Thank You Premier card is good for anything travel-related (from airlines to hotels to taxis), in that you get 3X the points (which Citi calls Thank You points) for each dollar spent. Both that card and the Chase Sapphire card also get you 2X the points for dining. (For Chase, they're called Ultimate Reward points.)

The value of these points is that you can then convert them into airline miles and hotel points, usually at a 1:1 ratio. My impression is that Chase right now has a broader range of affiliates than Citi, but Citi is catching up. And both TY and UR points can be converted into, for instance, Singapore Airline miles, for travel on arguably the best airline in the world.

Other cards to explore for sign-up bonuses are American Express for its Membership Rewards points and Starwood (SPG) American Express (different from the regular Amex cards that generate MR points) for points that can be used at both the Starwood chain and for conversion into airline miles at the rate of 20,000 points:25,000 miles. (Though as noted above be aware that with the upcoming absorption of Starwood by Marriott, you might need to use those Starwood points for hotel stays or airline conversion in the next year or two).

There also are American Airlines and United Airlines cards with initial bonuses that can come in very handy, though - to make another long story short - my own personal preference right now is the other cards I mentioned because they can be used for a wider range of airlines and hotels.

So...I'd suggest your each getting as many cards and initial bonuses as you can as soon as possible, strategizing first about which you'll want most since the cc companies might temporarily cut you from getting more off once you've applied for too many. Then use those for your wedding expenditures if it's not to late, to easily and quickly generate the initial spending bonuses. Then use the aforementioned Citi Thank You and Chase Sapphire cards for your honeymoon travel and spending.

One caveat here: If you have a very major purchase coming up in the next year or so, such as a house, you might want to go slower on your cc sign-ups. Lots of cc sign-ups can put a temporary dent in your credit ratings, which in turn could affect your getting loans or your loan interest rates.

One more thing: If you click on the Help link at the top of the page, you'll get to Glossary and Airport Code links that can help figure out the very confusing terminology we use here at FT.

Hope this helps!

We live in Southern California. Closest airports are SNA and LGB, although we would fly out of LAX for international travel. As I mentioned we don't travel all that much (it has been a few years since last international travel), but we figure that we should be getting some rewards for our credit card usage. And obviously we want to earn some rewards for big purchases (wedding) in the next month or so. The goal is to be able to travel internationally every year or so, helped significantly by rewards from our spending. Places we travel tend to be less normal "touristy-places." Last trip was Malaysia via Singapore and our honeymoon will likely be the Maldives and India.

I am planning on purchasing a business within the next year or so (requiring bank lending), so I don't want to sign up for a bunch of cards, because of the ding it might have on my credit (800+). Once I have the business, I will probably be averaging several thousand $ a month on products with which I will be able to use credit cards.

My two biggest credit card expenses each month are gasoline (Costco AMEX gives me 4 % cashback) and groceries (mostly at costco where I get 2% cashback).

I would imagine my fiancee has similar spending patterns.

We are trying to figure out ways to pay other expenses via credit card whenever possible.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"Closest airports are SNA and LBG."

I'm pretty sure you mean LGB. LBG is where Lindbergh landed.

oops, yes, LGB. I already corrected one mistake in that post. thank you for the correction

I believe Costco is switching to VISA as of April 1, so you will not be able to use your AMEX there after that. I personally really like the Chase Sapphire, as it allows 1:1 transfer to a number of airline and hotel programs, in addition to their own travel booking site, and they give double miles in quite a few categories, including gasoline (but not groceries).