hello all and ... happy new year !

I hope I'm in the correct forum.

Well, I live in Seattle.
I have a wife and 2 kids and we plan to go to Paris CDG twice a year (Summer + Christmas) using Air France (direct flight).
I would like to pay as less as possible

The wife and I plan to take a credit card with miles to reduce our tickets cost.
We spend around $30k / year on a credit card.
Do you know what is the best credit card/program for my family ?
I saw that Delta has an amex, will it work for this flight ?

thank you very much for your help

Welcome to FlyerTalk, Jim.

Air France is the only airline that flies nonstop from SeaTac to CDG. Its flights are "codeshared" with Delta (so you could have all miles earned on the Air France flights go into your Delta account). Air France and Delta are part of the SkyTeam alliance: http://www.skyteam.com/

You mention the Delta AmEx card. Right now it is offering no annual fee for the first year (your wife and you could each apply for the card and each get bonus miles associated with applying) which at present could get you "up to 25,000 bonus miles": http://www201.americanexpress.com/ge...Delta-Skymiles This is an OK, but not great, offer. At times applying for that same card nets 35,000 or 40,000 bonus miles. Perhaps others will write in to give you additional information and guidance.

have you studied both ff programs for reward costs [mi + $], & usage ?....also, my daughter has to fly dl or af to keep her af mi from expiring....we couldn't find any cc, car, etc to get af mi in the us.....good luck...

Erm. AF and DL are the lead carriers of SkyTeam, not One World.

Happy New Year 2 u 2 !

and well, Hello Neighbor !

You do not mention for how long you want to keep flying to France
If it's for longer than the year 2011 - I guess Skyteam is the way to go for convenience. - not if cost is playing a factor - especially during the height of the Holiday season, namely Summer & X-mas.
I happen to have a residence in France and fly frequently into CDG (or whatever is the most economical airport at time of booking ) - often CDG is the most expensive airport to fly into and especially for the non-stop flights .
As a FF into France and you
it is perhaps a good idea and consider to get really creative and explore nearby alternative airports like i.e. Geneva (GVA) - which often are much cheaper (and much easier to navigate for the not-so-frequent-flyer).
Because as soon as the school-vacation time starts, up will go the airfares and you basically can forget about award tickets for the high season & X-mas unless you've amassed gazzillions of FF miles for a family of 4.
Often, flying into alternative airports is much cheaper.

I myself follow this unique feature of Kayak.com and monitor all nearby airports for my destination.

Sometimes flights from Portland are cheaper, but you'll have to make (a) stopover(s), there are no non-stops into CDG from PDX.

Both Skyteam (DL/AF/KLM) and *A (Star Alliance) airlines fly into CDG or nearby airports.
You'll have to research what appeals to your family - travelling from neighboring countries into France or pay a premium for non-stop.
It all depends on how frequent your future flights will be - to accrue sufficient RDM ( = redeemable) miles on top of your annual loyalty-CC spending - and how much $$$ you're willing to spend on them
Butt-in-seat miles for 2 x a year will earn each of your family members approx. 20.000 - but you need to fly at least 3 years in a row to accrue enough miles for your kids to fly on an (low season) award ticket - assuming you stay and fly with one loyalty program/airline.

FWIW: I booked my summer stay already and took advantage of an incredible cheapo fare - quoted around 12/20/10 - into Milan (which is neighboring to France) for my party of 6 with Iberia.

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thank you for your welcome and replies.

My kids are toddlers and I do not want to have stops: it is too annoying to switch international to local airport area (especially Shengen area in Amsterdam) or pass custom when we enter in the US.

We plan to do the 2 trips / year for several years.

It seems we're not enough flexible on the flight and period to get the best prices. And we don't travel enough to get nice miles rewards.
I read that it is quite difficult to use your Delta skymiles during summer/Christmas period.

It's maybe better to stick with my costco amex and the ~2% cash back.

If you're locked in to AF flights as you state, then you should compare Delta Skymiles Amex with AF Amex. A big Delta promo with 45k bonus for opening and account ended Dec. 31, 2010-this also offered both personal and business accounts, meaning a couple with good credit coulde get close to 200k miles.

The AF Amex is often overlooked. It's a little quirky-you are billed in Euros and need a French bank account wich hey debit for payment. But dollars charged equal miles and they count for status, or at least they used to.

Interesting ... I have several bank accounts in France, but never heard about the AF Amex card.
Will inquire right away @ BNP Paris Bas

Any usable links for this ?

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Note that the forex fees on the AF amex are punitive: 3%. Don't even think about charging dollars on it.

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Note that the forex fees on the AF amex are punitive: 3%. Don't even think about charging dollars on it.

You may find the best program right in your own back yard: Alaska's Mileage Plan allows you to accrue elite qualifying miles when you fly Air France. Two trips a year and you'll have over 20k eqms and MVP status only requires 25k a year including partners. Their co-branded Bank of America Visa is a pretty good card with some great benefits. And award redemption is actually pretty good - better than on Delta for sure.

Watch out for excluded fare classes:

Here's a link I found on Google (in French):

http://www212.americanexpress.com/ds...94RCRD&page=PR

I haven't taken the current offer apart but I looked into this card a few years ago. At that time, I knew someone who had the card and loved it.

My recollection of the pluses and minuses is that the card did provide status miles on AF for charges. You were billed in Euros and payment of your card balance was by debiting your France bank account. Charges were in or converted to Euros, so charges in other currencies did incur a big conversion fee, as Arthur Randolph points out. The card had no front end sign-up bonus and had an annual fee. Also, I don't believe that cards issued in Europe carry the same consumer protections as those issued in the USA, though I am guessing at that.

I decided to not get the card due to the negatives above, plus Amex has much more limited acceptance in France than in the USA, making the card limited unless you spend a lot at higher end places and ones that serve the tourist and business trades. In addition, status on AF would be worth working towards if one were planning a lot of AF travel, not just a couple of trips a year.

^ Thanks so much for all your info MT ... saves me a lot of research before concluding that it's not worth the hassle, the �140 yearly fee plus the absence of a fat sign-up bonus