Airline / Hotel FF Awards vs. Ticket Buying Award Programs
 

I'm curious as to what people's thoughts are about Airline / Hotel FF awards vs. ticket buying award programs. I did a search for this thread in all the forums and didn't see anything related to it. If it has been discussed, please let me know the link to the thread.

I recently tried to use my AA Advantage Award points to book a flight for myself to the Carribean. I was planning on using AA points to book one flight for myself and then buying my wife's ticket online for $550. I had 40K AA points so I qualified for AA MileSAAver Peak at a minimum. An AAnytime award ticket was 60K for ONE ticket to the Carribean, so that was out. When I called AAdvantage to book the reward ticket, I was told that although there were seats available on the flight that I wanted, none of them were designated for Award travel and the only alternates that they could give me did not fit in to my schedule.

I then called up my USAA Eagle Points program of which I had 66K. On their website they stated that two tickets to the Carribean would be 70K Eagle Points and require a Saturday night stay. I was not planning on staying a Saturday night so was doubtful that I could get ONE award ticket. However, when I called up the Eagle Points rep and explained what I was trying to do, I was told that the Saturday night stay requirement could be waived. IN ADDITION, Eagle Points would give me "early redemption" and make up the 4K points I still needed for the two tickets valued at 70K. I'm not clear if I am now in the hole for 4K points, but the bottom line is that they went out of their way to accomodate me by fronting me the points I needed for TWO tickets, not just the one that I thought I could get.

Instead of transferring the Eagle Points to a airline FF program, Eagle Points goes out and purchases my two tickets on the exact itinerary that I wanted. There policy for the Carribean is that they will purchase the ticket up to a cost of $700. So I get my two PURCHASED tickets on AA and in addition, I earn the AA FF awards for my flight. Eagle Points uses Cendant as their purchasing agent.

My question: Is there ANY reason to get an airline branded affinity credit card these days over a ticket buying award program, like USAA Eagle Points, especially given the "saver" category that so many airlines use these days that limit when or how you can use their rewards and dilute their value? A 20K FF award sign-up bonus seems like alot, but not when you need 40-50K for an anytime domestic award ticket.

Eagle Points doesn't do hotels, so I will continue to use my SPG AMEX (which I got after reading these forums) since Starwood is one of the few hotel chains that I am aware of that has a awards policy of "If it's available, it's yours".

clarification on my post
 

USAA Eagle Points policy for the Carribean is that they will purchase EACH award ticket up to a cost of $700.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, Asa1971! I know nothing about USAA Eagle Points, but you have piqued my curiosity so I will look into it. (Do you have a link?)

It's the standard "What Credit Card Should I Use?" question. I think there's a good, detailed thread here - try searching MilesBuzz on credit card-related terms.

Specifically, it's the home-grown points vs. air miles vs. hotel points question. You've pointed out the pros for a home-grown points card pretty well.

The cons are the fact that you have to deal with a human travel agent to get your awards, the fact that there are layers of unnecessary restrictions, and the fact that the program could easily vanish tomorrow, leaving you holding the bag.

In your case, it's cool that they waived the Saturday night stay, but if they are already capping the award at $700, why do they have it to begin with? Some of them have a 21-day advance purchase requirement. Why? Again, the ticket value is already capped. The points required are tied to the destination. Again, why, if there's a dollar figure attached? If the cap is $400 for a 25,000 point award, why does it matter whether I want to go to Tulsa a month from now or to London tomorrow on a cheap Netsaver fare?

If someone rolls out a home-grown points card with a robust set of online booking tools and straight-up no-bull rules, I'm listening. Until then, it's 98% SPG Amex and 2% Marriott Visa for me. (MR Visa certainly isn't the optimal Visa card to carry, but for that 2% of non-Amex revenue, it's just not worth carrying more plastic around.)

Do you first have to become a USAA member to be eligible for the Eagle Points credit card program?

If so, darn :td: ...but at least it really seems like a beneficial program for those who have served in the military ^

The only reason I could see if that you might want to travel in business or first on the international side ( I spend most of my miles there ), and it sounds like the dollar caps might prohibit that on the USAA program. If you're content with coach, and it works for you, sounds like a good choice.

SPG Amex and Marriott Visa is my CC combination also. So I'm curious, what makes you say Marriott Visa isn't optimal and what alternative credit cards (especially hotel cards) do you think are better? Thanks for any thoughts and info you have on this.

Well, if I was doing a ton of volume on the Visa (outside of Marriott hotels), I'd probably either go for the Fidelity card that has a flat 1.5% rebate, or perhaps the US Airways card that gives 1.5 miles per dollar spent. Earning 1 MR point per dollar as a primary-spend card isn't optimal.

As it is, I use the MR Visa for maybe $100/month outside of Marriotts. Pretty much everybody takes Amex these days. So I don't worry about it...

That said, at the hotels it rocks, and the side benefits that come with the new Marriott Visa are fantastic. (Check out the Marriott board here if you haven't read about the new version of the card yet.)

One big advantage of the airline cards for the less frequent spender, is that the points get combined with your frequent flyer account.

True...it can be a long, slow grind to 25k or 50k on a home-grown points card if you aren't a big CC user. Plus there typically aren't big sign-up bonuses (although I'm starting to see some modest sign-up bonuses in some of the junk mail I'm getting for these cards).

By comparison, even a smalltimer can quickly earn enough points for free hotel nights at quite a few decent Sheratons and Westins, or use smaller amounts of points to augment any number of existing FF accounts.

Unfortunately, the only site that I know of is on the internal USAA Eagle Points website. I'll try to copy the Terms and Conditions and post them for you.

All good questions and food for thought. You are correct on the 21-day advanced purchase requirement, but i also noticed that my AAdvantage awards had monetary fees for purchases under 21 days. The online booking is nice and works well if you are flying out of a hub or "focus city" with a lot of flights.