What credit card is best for getting miles on several airlines? (especially United and Delta) and how do I find information on them?

The Starwood American Express:
up to 10k bonus points in the first year, including 4k with first use
earn Starwood hotel points (W/St Regis/Sheraton/Westin) which can be used for hotel stays or converted 1:1 into miles with most airline programs
convert 20,000 points and get 5,000 bonus points -- which mean you actually earn 1.25 miles per dollar on all purchases instead of 1 mile per dollar
free the first year, $30 thereafter
converts 1:2 into qantas and air new zealand!

You can also see my blog post on credit card miles.

Agree that SPG AMEX is the best in the long run. Also consider UAL VISA, which currently has a 15,000-mile enrollment bonus and a double mile promo running.

Unfortunately you just missed the double points with AMEX/DL, ended today. There might still be a 15k bonus for getting the Platinum AMEX/DL which gives you 10k base points each year if you charge $25k+/yr. There are several threads that have discussed this topic. Some folks like DC. At this time there's a double UA points promo going that ends 10/31.

As stated above, the SPG Amex is one of the best overall cards. However, since Amex is not accepted everywhere you will need a Visa. If your main airlines are Delta and United, I would look at United's Visa because Delta is associated with Amex.

I have most (perhaps all) of the free cards listed on my site below. Amtrak gives United miles. The hotel cards, expecially Hilton, give miles to many accounts, but not very generously. I think you are best off getting a card that gives miles to one specific airline, getting the miles you need for it, then moving to another card for another airline. The Delta Amex card can be had for free for one year and gives 10000 up front miles, for example.

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The Personal Travel Experience of Gary Steiger - including how to get free frequent flyer miles on the web.
http://home.earthlink.net/~pgary/TravelFrame.html

Is it worth it to keep a card longer than a year given that there are so many cards out there with enrollment bonuses and more seeming to come along frequently?

Yes, for several reasons.
1) If you charge a lot to your card, you may be able to convince the CS people that you deserve an "anniversary" or non-cancellation bonus. Alaska Air's card offers everyone a small anniversary bonus.

2) Your credit score can be negatively affected by two factors related to opening and closing credit:
a) The length of time your accounts have been established. Average consumer's oldest account is 14-15 years. Average consumer's most recent account is 20 months. Longer is better.
b) The number of requests for credit in the last 12 months. Fewer is better.

ALthough lenders will look first at factors such as bankruptcy or delinquincy, these numbers could still have an impact.

I've been playing the rotating credit game the past 18 months. I thought it wouldn't matter, as I found it highly unlikely we'd be able to take advantage of a home refinance. Then, rates dropped low enough that we are currently going through the process.

I won't play the rotating credit card game again. Although my credit scores are still very solid, they very nearly affected our loan rate and/or points paid. A couple of hundred dollars worth of miles isn't worth 30 years of extra payments.

[Edited for grammatical and typographical errors]

[This message has been edited by CutStyle (edited 08-16-2002).]

I like the Delta AmEx a lot for my purposes. I charge ~$1000/month on the card and get anywhere from 1.1 to 1.5 as many miles. Delta offers permanent double miles on a lot of purchases. Off the top of my head:

groceries
gasoline
mobile phone bill
home improvement stores

Unfortunately, it is an AmEx card, so you ocassionally come across a merchant that doesn't accept it. (notably, www.savingsbonds.gov) But for me and my single guy buying habits, that's rare. They also give a 10K bonus with first purchase and they may still give a benchmark bonus in the first year like charge $15K, get a 10K bonus.

As others before me have stated, the *wood AmEx is a good deal as well. I don't have one but for $30/year it's one of the cheaper affinity cards. I don't have one because I don't want to have to deal with the potential credit implications of cancelling my Delta AmEx (I don't think it's advantageous for me to have more than one annual fee affinity card.)

If you want a card that doesn't charge an annual fee, then go for the Hilton HHonors Signature Visa. There is some sort of bonus, plus there's no interest on purchases for the first six months. You don't get a great earning rate at 2 points per dollar, but hey, it's free! plus it can fill the gaps where an AmEx affinity card isn't accepted.

That info is incorrect.

Just to clarify Cactuspete's post - savingsbonds.gov will accept Amex, but the rest of statement (that there are places that won't, but will accept Visa/MC) is correct.

I stand corrected. I guess I was just mixing it up with that other great mileage laundering website, c2it. They definitely don't take AmEx. Luckily I have a cashback Citi card.

yorock

CutSyle,

You certainly raised a very valid point wrt credit scores. A few thousand miles is certainly not worth even a minor percentage point move upward when looking at buying a house or refinancing one. A related point is the number of cards that you have. Each card represents potential debt and a higher risk for a lender even if one has a history of paying every account in full each month. I wish you the best of luck trudging through the refinancing process.

So what looks worse on your credit record, thousands of dollars of unused credit, or a few cancelled cards?

yorock

Relax, unless your credit is otherwise marginal the mileage card game should not impact your approval or rate.

I've done two no-cost refi's in the last year, the first since I discovered FT and the joy of all these credit cards. My score has dropped a bit for (1) average length of credit and (2) high balance relative to total credit (savings bonds on Starwood Amex), but I still got the best possible rate.