BofA also has the Alaska Airlines debit card (in addition to US Airways). (all these cards are listed in the finance section of RewardsDB.com ).

One other thing to consider - many debit cards have a daily / weekly maximum limit of how much you can charge. I used to have the Citibank Premium AAdvantage Debit Card which as it turns out has a $2500 daily limit, the BofA Alaska Debit Card either has a higher limit or none at all (I can't remember).

Chase offers a continental debit card, you can get a gold one for $65/year and get 1/1 in points. The regular one is 1/$2. They also have a United one, 1/$2 $25/year. I used to have that one, now i have leisure rewards, It gives you 4/$1 and you can redeem the points for gift certs for travel company websites.

Citibank has their thank you network, you can get points for pin based trans with no annual fee (i believe).

Mitch

Thank you all so much for your responses. pgary, I've been to your site many times but not recently, so I will take a look there.

777-DCA! I hope I'm not banned for making such a bold statement. It was hard enough to get up the nerve to post a question .

I stated earlier I would prefer just a cash back rebate each year, but if I had to choose, hotel points seem more valuable than miles to me these days. The main reason I would want miles is for free tickets for our family to either Europe or Hawaii in the summer (kindly contain your laughter).

First of all, I agree 100% with your sentiments. Given the continuing devaluation in all air and hotel programs, you are generally better off with real cash than funny money miles and points. And this is especially true for grocery purchases, as there are several credit cards that provide a 5% cash rebate on groceries, gas and drugstore purchases (see the other recent thread in this forum). Most people value miles at 1-2 cents each, so it is a no brainer to take 5 cents v. 1 mile.

Second, I would never recommend a debit card to anyone. If your # is stolen the money comes directly out of your bank account and you have to wait for the bank to replace it, which can take some time depending on the investigation. If you have a credit card, you simply dispute the fraudulent charges and don't pay them. Unless you have a mediocre credit score, you are better off with a credit card.

In your case I understand why you might still want a card, but be sure to factor the annual fee when considering the cost of your miles, particularly as you would only use this card in places that won't take CCs.

Hey gailmjohnson, welcome to FlyerTalk

Thank you I will use this.

Thanks for the welcome. I've actually been lurking and learning for a while.

I used my Paypal debit when I went to Florida last month and got about $30 cash back with it. I paid for the hotel and car with it and got the cash back plus the hotel points so it seems worth it.

Once you are verified with them I believe the daily limits are $300 for ATM withdrawals and $4000 for purchases. And it will take 3-4 days for a transfer to be complete when adding cash from your back account to Paypal account.

Gail

Since there is a no-annual-fee credit card that gets you about 4.77 UA miles or 2.5 CO or BA miles per dollar spent at grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores -- the Chase Rewards Plus card -- I'd say if you have a use for UA miles and value them at more than 1.1 cents each, that's a BETTER value than cashback by your standards! (Search in the UA forum for "Rewards Plus" for more on that card.)

(The best value in miles is using them for overseas flights in classes ABOVE coach, which start cost at only double what coach overseas flights cost in miles, but which are UNAFFORDABLY expensive -- WAY WAY more than double coach -- in cash $$$$ terms for most people. There it's not hard to find values well above 2 cents per mile. But yes, if all you're going to use miles for is cheap domestic coach flights, then miles may not be any better than cashback.)

As stated in other threads, it's 4.1666667 UA miles per dollar spent--not 4.77. And that's only in certain categories of spending (grocery stores/gas stations/drugstores). And there's a limit of either 25,000 UA miles or 15,000 CO/BA miles per year per card. You can also opt to get $300 cash back, which is almost certainly worth more than 15,000 CO miles (less clear regarding the 25,000 UA miles or 15,000 BA miles).

And, of course, you need to shop at a supermarket that takes credit cards (not debit cards), which negates the whole point of this thread.

I agree with Nako. I don't know how, but with my Keybank debit card, I only get the CO miles for a purchase not the cash back. The problem is that I get one mile for every two dollars I spend, and there is an annual fee, so at renewal time, I canceled and will use my credit card if I want the miles.

You are wasting your time with any card that gets CO miles. I am laundering my CO miles thru Amtrak as fast as possible. CO nonepass miles are almost worthless for redemption on CO.