We're actually in the trucking industry and we'll spend about $70,000 a year on fuel and other truck expenses. We're interested in getting a fequent flyer card / account but we're not sure which way to go whether we start with a particular airline or with a card that rewards points to a mileage program.

For the most part, travel would be limited to flying home (two of us) from any airport in the continental US that we're close to at the time.

We believe a debit card deal would have the best benefit for us because we can use a debit card to purchase fuel and then receive the cash discount for the fuel as well.

We don't have any allegiance to a particular airline so we're not limited in that respect. And we also tend to stay in hotels frequently (when truck stops are getting on our nerves).

1. Our Location/Home Airport(s) are: Portland (PDX) and Seattle (SEA)
2. Flying Frequency: not sure yet, but maybe four to five times per year from any US airport.
3. Destinations: Generally PDX or SEA.
4. Primary program goals: getting tickets to go home, seating upgrades, maybe a vacation flight once a year.

Some Questions we're sorting through:
1) What would be the best airline/mileage program to fit our situation
2) Is this even worth pursuing or is $70,000 really not a lot when it comes to mileage plans?
3) Is a debit card the way to go or should we consider other ideas/cards/programs?

I don't know what kind of discount you get for cash, but compare it to the 5% discount you can get on gasoline purchases paid at the pump on a Pentagon Federal Credit Union credit card. Info in the Credit Cards > Cash Back Cards section of my website below.

If you are going to use the miles for a domestic trip, most any cash back card is a better deal for you. Domestic trips typically cost 25,000 miles. Compare that to how much cash you get back for expenditures of $25,000. Then just put the cash back in a savings account and spend the money on a ticket. See the Value of Miles section of my website below.

5% cash back is amazingly good. I would not get cc with any airline mainly because it is so hard to redeem miles. Hotel points are much easier to re-deem. Personally, I like cash back especially if it is 2% (Schwab) or more. My next favorite is Citi Premier Pass Elite on gas and groceries only. It gives 3 thankyou points per $1 and match mile points. So, for me it gives 6 points per $ spent on gas/groceries which is equivalent to 6% once the points are re-deemed. However, choosing between 5% cash back or 6% in form of points, 5% cash back is a better deal to me. Cash is still King.

Except for recent bonanza with Chase giving away 100K BA mile, I can not think of a good airline branded credit cards in terms of rewards. Of course, now that I have 200K BA miles, I have to redeem them. That will take time.

If you stay at hotels at all, I would take look at the American Express Hilton Surpass card which comes with a $75.00 annual fee but you get a minimum of 3 points per dollar spent and 9 points for any Hilton stays. You get 6 points for gas, drugs at pharmacies (not including KMart, Walmart or pharmacies in stores of that ilk)and groceries.

If you spend 70K on that card you automatically get Diamond status with Hilton which is the highest status available. With that you get perks like free breakfast and other things. Hilton have a wide range of hotels.

Bobette

Yes! $70,000 is a lot of money. From the Flying J website, you get 6 cents per gallon discount for a debit card. Right now, that's between 2 and 3 percent. Getting 5% on gasoline with the Pentagon credit union card would be better for you.

The Pentagon card gives you 1.25% on other purchases, which is decent, but you can do better. There are a couple 2% cash back cards; I have the Schwab Visa.

As for hotels, the choice of cards likely depends on where you stay. A really good general American Express card is from Starwood. Once you accumulate 20,000 points, at 1 point per dollar, you can transfer them to 25,000 miles on a lot of different airlines. You can also redeem them for hotels, where I value them at about 2.5 cents per point, but Starwood properties tend towards the high end. Right now, there's a promotion, where you get 10,000 bonus points for signup, and 15,000 more if you can spend $15,000 in 6 months, like it sounds you can. For $15,000 in spending, that would be 40,000 points (10K + 15K spend + 15K bonus), which is 50,000 miles and 2 trips, or a very nice hotel vacation.

If you're sure you want a hotel or an airline, you should consider their card, which typically comes with a bonus on their airline. For example, I have the US Air Mastercard. It gave me 25,000 miles for the under $100 free. Plus, cardholders get a 5,000 mile discount on some redemptions. The problem is that it only gives 1 mile per dollar, which is worse than Starwood. I'm really keeping it for redemption discounts.
Though, I'm not sure one program will be best for you, since you'll be flying from lots of places in the US back to the northwest; it's not a fixed route. I think the Pentagon card plus Starwood would be best.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

A few quick notes that hopefully will help you:

1. Living in the upper northwest, I'd look at Alaska Airlines. They have partnerships with many airlines where you can accumulate miles even if you don't fly Alaska. They also have a pretty good route network up there.

2. Most debit cards require you to run the purchase as a "credit" to get the rewards. The bank treats the charge as debit, such that the money is immediately removed from your bank account, but the merchant gets hit with the higher fees that are associated with a credit card... so that wouldn't work at places that give a discount for 'debit' or cash purchases.

I second the opinion that Alaska Airlines's affiliated credit card (issued by Bank of America) is well worth looking into. I find its $75 annual fee worth paying; certainly many other rewards credit cards don't have an annual fee, but sometimes the specific benefits can outweigh the general allergy I have about annual fees.

One of the very nice benefits it offers that not all credit cards affiliated with other airlines offer is the companion certificate that you get when you successfully apply for the card and at each anniversary. (It used to be a $50 companion certificate the first year.) That gives you and your partner the ability to buy a last-minute-by-necessity, perhaps quite expensive ticket on Alaska Airlines back home to PDX or SEA, and have the second person fly the same round trip for $99 plus taxes and gov't fees, which could be a huge saving. Granted, Alaska Airlines is a regional airline and doesn't have a lot of service once you get out of the Pacific Northwest and California; but they do have service to a number of other major US cities. The companion certificate has to be on flights actually operated by Alaska/Horizon, not just code-shared with one of Alaska's partner airlines.
http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/Des.../Route-Map.asp

If you can legitimately use an Oregon mailing address, you should start by applying for a first-time Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account, fly a round trip before June 30, and get 25,000 bonus miles (5,000 at application, 20,000 after flying):
http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/Pro...ment-bonus.asp

Then apply for the credit card, get 20,000 miles if your application is accepted, and 5,000 miles more when you spend your first $750.

Assuming both of you (partners in the trucking business only, or life partners as well?) have good credit histories that allow you to successfully apply for the credit cards, for the first year, that nets 100,000 miles plus two $99 companion certificates; plus two more $99 companion certificates every card anniversary year. I'd call that a pretty nice haul.

Alaska partners with a lot of other airlines (it leans toward the SkyTeam alliance although it is not formally in the SkyTeam alliance), so the 100,000 Alaska miles you get up front is redeemable for awards to/from places that Alaska itself doesn't fly. I don't have experience on award availability using Alaska miles on Alaska partners; but I do have experience using Delta miles on Alaska, and have had excellent success finding award seats at the 25,000 miles round trip saver award level. I have also had good success using Alaska miles on Alaska itself. One additional worthy note is that redemption of Alaska miles on Alaska flights is flexibly done on a one-way basis. So for the popular notion of a 25,000 mile saver economy award, Alaska simply has you book that as two 12,500 miles one-way tickets that happen to be combined onto a single ticket record locator. This is convenient if your trucking travels might mean that you want to fly from City A back home, but then fly to City B instead of back to City A. You don't have to redeem for a round trip ticket or even what's called an open jaw ticket (A to home to B). You can go from A to home; and then later, decide to go from home to B. I think if you redeem Alaska miles on a partner like Delta, you would have to redeem for a round trip instead of for flexible one-ways.

Note that none of the the benefits above actually requires that you steer all of your $70,000+ of truck spending onto the Alaska Airlines credit card(s). If you find some other card where each additional dollar of marginal spending earns you more value than the 1 Alaska mile that dollar of marginal spending would get you, then by all means direct most of your spending to that other card. But, once you concentrate a lot of your air travel onto Alaska, then you may earn status, which is what a lot of FlyerTalk posters obsess about, and the benefits that come with status may very well motivate you to want to concentrate even more of your air travel onto Alaska Airlines, and thus want to earn even more Alaska miles by directing more of your spend onto the Alaska Airlines credit card(s).

Lastly, I consider your annual $70,000+ of truck spend (plus perhaps a significant amount of non-truck travel spend) to be significant and worth putting some time into thinking about how to maximize the rewards that you can earn by carefully directing that spending.

Without going into all the convoluted logic; with the above three pieces of info and a 70K/year spend, as pgary pointed out, your best bet is the Pentagon Federal Credit Union credit card. Save the 5% rebate money and use it to pay for what you need.

Welcome to Flyertalk!

You might want to head to the Trip Report forum and look up some of the reports written by Loose Cannon. He's a truck driver who travels frequently and it might give you some insight.

A round about way for the cash discount if you use BP or Shell at all is that they sell their gift cards at grocery stores and Walgreens. If you go the route of the Hilton Card, you get 6 points per dollar at those stores for the card purchase and then use the cards to get the cash discount. I do it all the time for BP. I used to deliver Motorhomes from Indiana to dealers and I racked up alot of points and miles buying fuel several times a day. Just be sure to tell the card company that you will be travelling or they will block your card at around the 4th station on your journey!
If the BA 100,000 deal is still alive you could get enough miles for partners there for just opening the account for several flights. Remember that the fuel is deductable unless you are using mileage and miles are tax free.
Of course I rarely flew back from a delivery, I had the dreaded Greyhound pass $499 for 60 days, you can't beat the price per mile there!

JudyJFLA

For fuel purchases I recommend looking at the fleet gas cards first. There is a good chance that the fleet cards will give you a bigger discount at the pump than the bonus points. For example, this random link: http://www.csifleetfuelcard.com/ has the quote: Fleets realize up to 15% Fuel Savings with the CSI Fleet Fuel Card.

15% off fuel might be 10% more than the best bonus point card out there.