Need debit/credit card help
 

For years my wife has been paying for everything with her debit card and she loves it. The bulk of her purchases are at supermarkets, Walmart, department stores, specialty stores (Linen + things, Bath and Body, BBB etc.).

It has been driving me CRAZY that we have not been earning miles on her purchases.

We belong to about all hotel/airline programs so I'm looking for the best fee/earning ratio. I need to migrate her to a affinity debit card or a credit card that I will manage online to act like a debit card (do online bill pay multiple times a month from checking acct to pay cc).

My first thought is to geta card that gives double points for some of her more common purchases. The Delta AMEX cc does that. The problem is high annual fee and only free for 1st year.

Who else doubles some of these types of purchaes?

Why not apply for a Delta American Express ... it's one year free and you get 10,000 (?) bonus miles.
The problem with this card is, that I was never sure, if I got the double miles or not.
For most cases I now use American Express Starwood, only $30/year fee. Exchange 1 to 1; plus 20% for 20,000 for many airlines.

Have you calculated how many extra miles you would get from the double miles offer from this card? The Starwood AMEX card is $30/year, so the Delta card is only $25/year more. If you value miles at 2 cents/mile, you would only need to have $1250 in spending that is doubled to cover the extra $25. Even if you only count the miles at 1 cent/mile, you would only need $2500 in spending a year.

I assume you are spending more than that, or else you wouldn't be concerned about losing the miles.

OK, shoot me for this one to be sure, but if she's happy with her card, then let her stick with it. Finding a credit or debit card you can be happy with for years is not an easy thing at all, I say forgo the miles and let her stay happy.

Keep in mind that you have less rights to dispute charges with a debit card. See www.clarkhoward.com and search for debit cards. The website will outline the dangers of using a debit card.

The debit card works for a lot of people. It will keep you from getting into credit card debt.

Citibank now has a debit card that gives "Thank you" points, redeemable into various things including miles. Not too generous (1 point per $3 for "PIN"-type transactions, 1 point per $2 on signature transactions), but something.

My closest Citibank did not know of restrictions, but called and found, as I recall, that there is a limit of something like 20000 points a year on the PIN-type and 75000 on the other, but you might want to check. Fairly new program, some confusion.

Some stores, of course, don't take credit cards, so this might be a good backup for anybody.

Well, Citi has a debit card that gives AA miles 1 to 1, but it is a royal pain. You cannot spend more than $2500 in a day regardless of balance. I wanted to spend $20k+ for baseball season tickets (we have 8 seats), and I was forced to have my season ticket rep charge $2000/day for 2+ weeks. I had to leave room each day for other monthly charges that go through.

In addition, you don't get credit for the total of all purchases each month - each charge gets its own miles. It's not a big loss, but it still stinks. For example, my T-Mobile Hot Spot charge of $29.99 gets me 29 miles - not 29.99. Instead of losing 1 mile each month ($4,345.87 would net 4345) you can lose one mile for every transaction ($4345.87 in total spending might net 4320 miles). This probably cost 300-400 miles each year, but it adds up.

Sam

Get a Citi Dividend Platinum Select and earn 5% on groceries, gas and pharmacy (up to $300 per card/year). Then use the mileage card of your choice for everything else. I like using my debit card too but the rewards are too good to pass up, plus it really doesn't take any longer to checkout with a CC.

Just to make sure everyone understands... Debit cards only get miles when used as credit cards. So, it takes same amount of time to use debit card as credit card at the grocery store if you intend to get miles.

No, they are NOT redeemable into miles!

(Unless you can point me at someplace that says they are.)

Look at the catalog:

https://www.thankyouredemptions.com/pdfs/catalog.pdf

On page 10 they list all their air travel rewards. They only offer a few categories of tickets (for example, no business class international, and even coach international only to SOME more common destinations).

You CANNOT transfer into real Frequent Flyer miles (which the Original Poster says they're already collecting), to "top off" an account to get to an award, or to use miles for upgrades.

IMHO the "Thank You" system is worthless for someone who already belongs to one or more FF programs and is looking to get more miles into those programs.

The Citibank Advantage Debit Platinum card gives you one mile for every dollar spend. It does have a $65 annual fee. You just have to make sure to run your purchases as credit rather than debit (do not use your pin). I use my debit card for everyday purchases, no matter how small. I manage to accumulate about 1500 AA miles every month and have never had any problems with the miles posting or purchases. Continental also has a debit card with Chase Manhattan but thats more limiting since chase is only located in the NYC area.

I totally agree with Dunbar. However I am already at my $300 per calendar year limit, so I need to get my wife a separate card. Although I also have the Citi AAdvantage, US Bank NW card, Delta Skymiles Gold, Diners (now MC), AMEX Hilton and Marriott Visa, going forward I plan to do most of my travel spend on the Costco AMEX. I get 3% back on restaurants (plus the idine), 2% back on travel related spend and 1% on everything else. As my primary hotel and rental car card, I received back $100 for this month. If I could put my company airfare on it, I would make a killing.

Not with Bank of America. I have a debit card from them that gives me miles with Alaska. I use it every month to pay a lot of my bills. The grocery store near me accepts debit cards for payments of my Dominion Power and Verizon Bills. It is the only way I could get miles for them. My older son's private school also accepts debit cards only for mayment. The downside of the B of A card is that it gives 1 mile/$2 spent. But, I only use it for purchases that I could not use a credit card for.

Are you sure debit transactions are included? I have the same card, and was under the impression that only "credit" purchases counted.

All purchases (debit or credit) count for BofA's HP, US, and AS cards. Cash-back or ATM transactions don't.