Chevy Chase Bank "Purchase Awards" Visa card
 

Does anyone have any experience with this card? Given that you can use your points/miles on any airline, wouldnt this be the ideal way to go?

I checked out the Chevy Chase Bank website, and they really don't have much information on the program there, but this most likely is *NOT* a mileage bank like Diners Club and AMEX where you can transfer miles to different programs.

This is most likely one of the arrangements where the Bank will make your reservations for a specific trip you ask for, and not necessarily on a specific airline. Of course the advantage of this is that the Bank has to purchase the tickets and you can often earn frequent flyer miles on them or even upgrade.

Be careful about these bank award deals, because one offer I had that was affiliated with Stanford University offered a "free" flights, but they were only free if you accepted a ticket at the lowest cost "28-day non-refundable" fare. If 2 airlines offered that same price, you could choose between them, but if your preferred airline was more expensive, then you had to pay the difference. If that class of service was sold out when you wanted to travel, then you had to pay the difference. Needless to say, I didn't sign up for this program. So be sure to get ALL the details.

There are definitely better deals elsewhere. AAA offers a Members Select card which gets you a free ticket at $16,000 charged (i.e., 16,000 miles), and TWO tickets at 30,000! Unfortunately, balance transfers don't qualify :( I have found the AMEX Optima Card with Sheraton Club International to be the most flexible (no fees for either SCI or the SCI Optima Card). I think Optima has an analogous Hilton version.

Following up on Dealer's comment above I too had a credit card (associated with Yale University) which banked non-transferrable miles. You had to use their travel agency (which wasn't always open), and you didn't necessarily get the cheapest flights: in short, less flexibility for no clear advantage.

By the way the cheapest flights I've consistently found have been through 800-LOW- AIRFARE, a travel agency based in Florida. Anyone else have a favorite source for bargain basement fares (especially on short notice)?