Hi guys,

This is my first message here and I’m a newbie to Flying. I graduated last year and am saving to travel as much as I can every year. I have 2 credit cards – BoA (came with my student a/c) and a 6 month old Amex Blue. I’ve a good job, no debts and wont mind paying $200 annual fees on cards if I have to.

I’m starting with 0 points and haven’t even registered with any Airlines. I just booked my first flight – Boston-NYC-Abu Dhabi-Mumbai-Brussels-NYC-Boston. Traveling in December so I (think) have time to wait for a good credit card offer.

I could really use all the advice you can throw at me regarding which cards to open, how to start collecting miles, where to register miles etc. etc.

I’ve been reading this forum for some time now, but I honestly think I am still as confused as I was when I first started.

Any help/advice is much appreciated.


Ticket details:
Boston to Abu Dhabi (via NYC) - AMERICAN AIRLINES Operated by ETIHAD AIRWAYS
Abu Dhabi to Mumbai, India - Jet Airways
Mumbai to Brussels - Jet Airways
Brussels to Boston (via NYC) - American Airlines

What airline(s)? That might help with getting the base discussion going. Sounds like an interesting itinerary.

Start by registering for the FF programs of the airlines you'll be flying, or at least the US-based alliance partner for those flights (e.g., if the airlines for DXB-BOM are Star Alliance, you can get credit on United/Continental, or USAirways). That will allow you to collect the miles for those flights. The optimal strategy is to try to collect miles on as few airlines as possible, but of course as you fly more you're likely to have them everywhere.

Personally, I would wait on a miles card until you establish travel patterns that let you focus your miles earning on a single airline. Stick with cards that either give points redeemable for various things, including miles, or simply give cash back.

The best strategy is to focus your attention on one mileage program, which means you fly one one airline, and it's partners, and get a credit card that gives you miles on that program.

Look at where you think you will be flying most of the time. Then look at what airlines have the best schedules for where you want to go. That would be the logical place to focus your attention.

When I was your age, I was mostly traveling to and from my parents' house. American Airlines had the best selection of flights to their city, so I started racking up the miles on AA. Then, I got the Citibank AAdvantage credit card and have accumulated miles from that.

I DO mind paying anything in an annual credit card fee.

I have a Citibank Citigold account, which requires a $50k minimum deposit. With that account, I get my Citibank Aadvantage card for nothing.

If you decide to focus on United Airlines, they have an interesting new card that waives your baggage fees for one checked bag. I believe that card is $95/year, so you would "break even" by checking one bag on two round trips. If you find that interesting, I suggest you go to Chase and ask what kind of account they might have that will waive that $95.

Thank you so much for the replies. Much obliged.

My parents are in India so I will be traveling to India a lot. My plan was to visit a different city on my way to and from Mumbai every time I travel there. With occasional trips to places closer (2-3 hour flight time) to Boston.

you should take advantage of some of the good credit cards that are out right now which may go away (citi AA, chase sapphire preferred, amex platinum). i agree with earlier posts to not worry too much about signing up for airline-specific cards, but the two citi AA cards are too good of a deal to pass on (150K miles)

the amex platinum may come in extra handy since you'll be travelling internationally ($200 airline credit, lounge access, global entry credit).

Another n00b question, how many credit cards should I have?

My longest open credit card is the BoA student card. I don't really need the Amex card but was advised to get it since I rarely every used credit cards before (and thus had no credit history(?)).

So far I've never needed any loans (scholarships/internships) and so I don't know how true the use credit card to build history thing is. From my last check, my score was 750+. But it seems the score alone doesn't matter. Anyway, without digressing from the topic, my point is, how many "miles credit card" should I be applying for? Should I close my Amex Blue? I requested them to upgrade me to a different miles card but they said I need to have a card for 13 months before I'm eligible for upgrades.

Also, do you recommend any books/websites to learn the basics.

I tried to read Chris Guillebeau's books but it was all Hebrew to me. It had too many technical jargons that I am still unaware of.

Sorry for asking so many questions!

At least two where each one is a different brand. A Visa and AmEx, for example. The reason for that is you always have a backup in case one particular brand's network suddenly goes offline. Also, it helps when you go overseas and one card may not be accepted.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Having too many credit cards and applying for too many within a short time period can both harm your credit score. A frequently mentioned figure for the number of credit cards to have is two.

I'd do some research (browse FlyerTalk and other sites) for a while before starting to play the credit card sign-up bonus & churn game. For now just stick with one that makes sense for you. Keep in mind that a $100 annual fee may or may not make sense if you're on a typical student's budget. Figure out if the card's benefits (e.g. some give free checked bags), including the value of the miles earned, are worth the annual fee. Let's say you spend $10,000 per year on credit cards... miles are usually worth $0.02 each (ballpark figure). It all depends on your particular financial situation and how much time you are willing to dedicate to playing this particular game.

When looking at credit cards, keep in mind that there are cash-back cards with no annual fee. When looking at those cards be aware that they often have "5% back on something", but only for a limited time; it's best to look at the non-promotional rates. I believe that most of these cards do not have a significant sign-up bonus, so they may not make as much sense as a miles-earning card with a 50,000 mile sign-up bonus.

Note that miles can be worth much more when used for business or first-class travel, but that may not be something you'd normally spend money on. Even if you can redeem miles for first-class tickets at a rate of $0.10 per mile or more, you are not really saving %10 on your purchases.

SHORT ANSWER: If you can get a card that gives you a big sign-up bonus for a program useful to you, and that card waives the first-year fee, go for it. You can always dump it within 11 months and get a different card. Replacing cards once per year is almost certainly not going to harm your credit score.

BTW: Are you sure the BofA card is a credit card? The fact that it came with your student account makes it sound like a debit card.

Finally: NEVER CARRY A BALANCE. If you do, all of this is irrelevant and you should get a card with the lowest interest rate.

Yup, I have two cards from BoA - a debit and a credit. I have almost never used the credit card. So am not sure if I close the card will it hurt me? Is closing a card a strict no no? However, it has been open for the longest period. My Amex blue card has cashback but I've started tipping more towards collecting miles rather than the cashback.

So do you advice I close my creditcards? I'm really prudent (almost tipping towards excessive) with finances - so I do read up everything before applying for a card.

Btw, people also say that if you are applying/closing credit cards, do it in short period of time so it affects your score only once. But again, there are varying opinions about this and I couldn't find anyone who really "knows" exactly what affects your scores. Each blog/book/person has a different opinion on this.

I believe that it may be best to keep the card that you've had the longest. Otherwise cancelling a card is fine, with one exception: if the credit limit on the BofA credit card is less than say 25% of your monthly spending and low in comparison to the Amex card, cancelling the Amex card may be bad.

You're probably safe adding and dropping one card per year (probably more; I do not know when it becomes bad). Are you considering churning cards (cancelling one and getting another for the sign-up bonus) more often than that?

(I'm not an expert on this, don't trust this post).

No, I'm happy to sticking to one / two credit cards. Keeping my BoA is really pointless as it has absolutely zero incentive in terms of cash back or miles. It is only there because it is oldest.

I don't want to churn cards just miles if it comes at a cost of hurting my credit. But I also don't want to have too many cards.


For my current itinerary, who would you recommend I register my miles to begin with? How should I go about doing this?

The first thing to learn is how to book tickets, keeping them all in one alliance.

I don't think you will be able to combine your miles from this trip as Etihad and Jet are not part of oneworld, so you will need to open AA, Etihad, and Jet accounts and then hopefully figure out some way to "launder" the miles and transfer them to one place. (NOTE: I am a *A guy, so I've never had to research this much before - I'm sure there is better advice from the people who fly Etihad and Jet a lot)

This is really a bummer, because one trip to India will get you something like 18,000 miles round trip, almost enough for the lowest tier (25k) with a bunch of airlines.

~tc~ is right, you should try to book on one alliance. But in this case, you lucked out: 9W and EY are both partners of AA. So you can get AA miles for all flights on this itinerary.